Rooms - James L. Rubart [80]
“You expected my call?”
“Well, I can’t say I was expecting it. But I hoped you would call one day.”
“You knew Archie.”
“Ah yes, knew him well. And he knew me. One of the best friends I ever had, without a doubt. He died not long before my wife did. Whew, was that a year. By far the toughest one of my life.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was more than twelve years ago.” Chris chuckled. “And odds are I’ll be joining them soon. Some days I still miss Archie terribly. Sarah even more so.”
“Your wife’s name was Sarah?” Micah choked the words out.
“Yes, is that unusual?”
“No, it’s just that I . . . Mr. Hale, could we meet?”
“I’d enjoy that. As long as you can refrain from calling me Mr. Hale.”
||||||||
Three days later Micah stood on the porch of Chris’s North Seattle colonial home. The chime of the doorbell had long since faded with no answer, and Micah looked at his watch. Four o’clock. Right on time. He reached up to ring again when a voice inside called out, “Thanks for your patience. Almost there now.”
Chris greeted him with a broad smile and grabbed Micah with both hands. “Welcome, Micah! Welcome.” He looked like Norman Rockwell. He even had a pipe.
“Thanks for having me over, Mr. Hale.”
“As much my pleasure as hopefully it will be yours, Mr. Taylor.”
“Right.” Micah grinned. “Thanks for having me over, Chris.”
Chris guided him into the sitting room of a home old enough to have one. The wicker chair Micah sat in was aged but restful, and the black-and-white pictures on the walls and old books that lined the shelves made him comfortable immediately.
Chris excused himself to the kitchen and returned with two glasses of iced tea along with more in a pitcher. After a few minutes of banter, Chris raised his voice a pinch. “Well, I can see you have the personality to make small talk as long as necessary, but why don’t we get to it since you’re probably bursting with questions about your great-uncle.”
“Yeah, I have a few.”
“A few?” Chris raised his eyebrow, a mock frown on his face.
“A few dozen. Three or four dozen.”
“I’ll answer as many as I can, but before that, tell me about your experiences in the house so far.”
Although he trusted Chris instinctively, Micah wasn’t sure how much to tell. He decided to touch on some of the supernatural aspects of the home without telling too many of the details. When he finished, the sunlight on the old leather couch had moved more than two feet. It made him realize how significantly life had changed since the day Archie’s letter showed up.
When he’d finished, Chris merely nodded his thanks.
“So what’s the secret of the house . . . my house?”
“Secret?”
“Why is it so supernatural? What’s the connection between it and me? Why did Archie have it built for me? Did he know strange things would happen there?”
“First question: God is God. Second question: everything. Third question: because God told him to. Fourth question: yes.”
“Touché.” Micah laughed. “All right, I’ll put the question-six-shooter away.” He mimed placing a gun in a holster at his side. “How ’bout starting with how you and Archie met?”
“Fine.” Chris patted down the tobacco in his pipe with his pinky finger, lit it, then settled back in his chair. “I met Archie in the navy. He was the most popular aboard ship, even though no one could figure him out. He told jokes with the best of them. When the other guys brought out the jokes with a blue tint to them, Archie didn’t laugh, but he didn’t condemn those that did.
“He wasn’t the best at the physical demands of being on a naval vessel, but no one ever tried harder, and of course most of his shipmates respected him for that. I was pretty shy then, so I was taken aback when he sat next to me one day in the mess hall. He looked me straight in the eye and asked, ‘You want more out of life?’”
The smoke from Chris’s pipe curled toward the ceiling, and Micah watched Chris relive the memory.
Chris chuckled and gave a little shake of his head. “I stared at Archie. It was pretty forward, and I wanted to laugh but was too self-conscious. There was no, ‘Hello, how are you