18

 

Sage stomped sand off his boots onto the rattan mat at the beach side of the condo. He was such a cowboy. Any other guy vacationing in Florida would be wearing flip-flops. Or going barefoot.

Vacations were supposed to be relaxing, but his mind was back in Nebraska. With Lanae. He kept picturing her, full-of-life, doing normal Christmas things with her family.

He wanted to call her, just to hear her voice.

Then he heard Lezlie speaking and figured she was talking to Jaxson. But through the glass at the front of the condo, he spied Jax talking to a pretty blonde girl.

Lezlie must be on the phone. Talking to Lanae?

“My dad’s name is Sage,” Lezlie said. “We live in Nebraska, and I think you might be my uncle.”

He swung toward his daughter. “What in the world?”

Lezlie turned, phone in hand, smile an ocean wide. “I looked in the telephone book. Lanae suggested it. Anyway, you wanna talk to Ted Tippin?”

She offered the cell phone to Sage. He stood as though rooted in cement.

Was he dreaming?

He automatically reached for the cell and put it to his ear.

“Hello? Hello?” came a voice from Sage’s childhood.

His uncle Ted had to be at least seventy, but Sage recognized his voice.

Nothing is coincidental with God. Sage’s mother’s voice echoed in the back of his mind.

He gathered enough strength to answer, “Uh, yeah.”

“Sage?” He heard the shaky reply. “Sage Diamond, my sis Violet’s boy?”

“Yeah. It’s me. I guess we should get together.”

It turned out that Ted Tippin lived on the other side of the highway, less than a mile away.

The whole thing was mighty hard for Sage to take in.

“I’d walk, but I might get killed like a guy from Nebraska did one time down here on vacation. I got all kinds of questions for you, son. When did your mother die? What have you been doing with your life? You’d better be a believer, boy, or I’ll take a switch to ya.”

They shared an uncomfortable laugh over the sick cliché, both knowing it was Earl Tippin who did the beating in the family. They agreed on a time to meet and ended the call.

In a daze, Sage tidied up the condo for his uncle’s visit. He stacked a pack of cards and returned them to the box. He pictured Lanae handling the game in his home when the box spilled during the icy snowstorm.

Every couple should find a game they enjoy to while away quiet time in their old age. His mother’s words revived from the past again. He hadn’t recalled anything she said to him in longer than—he didn’t know when. And that was twice in one day.

Had his mom known something he didn’t?

Lezlie came up from behind and gave Sage a big squeeze. “You’re nervous, aren’t you, Dad?”

“Who wouldn’t be? It’s been a couple lifetimes since I’ve seen him. I’ve married and lost a wife. I have you and Jax. I’m hoping I’ll see the same man who used to mean the world to me.”

“Speaking of meaning the world, I haven’t told you for a while, Dad. Thanks for all you’ve done for me. I know I was a brat more than I was a princess. And thanks for being such a terrific grandfather to Jaxson.”

“I love him.”

“I know, and your love means the world to me. Sorry you didn’t have the kind of grandfather Jaxson’s been blessed to have.”

Searching for an answer that wouldn’t cloud the exciting day, Sage caught the sun glinting on a windshield. He watched his uncle pull up to the drive. “My grandfather was an angry, mean man. No reason to talk about it. Just the way it was.”

He and Lezlie walked out to stand by Jaxson. They all waited in the heat. The foreign smell of fish and sea vegetation permeated the air where they were shaded by the overhanging roof. Some unidentifiable bird sang, but the beauty of the song was chased away by the squawk of a gull.

No more time to reflect on their surroundings. Ted Tippin angled out of his nondescript car.

Sage recognized his uncle with no problem. When their gazes met, the matching lavender-blue eyes glistened with unshed tears. Ted carried muscular shoulders and a spry walk. His face was lined, yet glowed with healthy color.

“I would have known you anywhere. Uncle Ted, meet my daughter, Lezlie. And grandson, Jaxson.”

Ted opened his arms to Lezlie and said, “Thanks for calling, young lady. I’ll be eternally grateful.”

Ted turned and shook Jaxson’s hand before Sage got his turn.

His hand was grasped in an iron band then Uncle Ted wrapped him in a bear hug. Lifted off his feet, Sage let the tears run unchecked. It took all he had not to let loose with a sob. After a time, muscular arms relaxed and the men stepped back, gazes reconnecting.

By unspoken agreement, the men walked right through the condo and on out to the seashore. They walked and talked until Lezlie called them in for dinner at the same time the orange ball of sun slipped below the horizon.

An hour later, Sage was replete, from more than nourishment.

Ted said, “Now that was a treat. Not often I get a home cooked meal these days. Mind if we have a little music now?”

Sage felt his eyes pool with moisture yet again. “How could I forget how you used to sing?”

“Jaxson, could you please bring my guitar from the car?” Ted asked.

“Sure. But, Grandpa?” Jaxson turned to Sage. “I’ve been thinking while you two have been getting to know one another again, it’s like you’re really here. You’ve been kind of far away, like a part of you was missing before. If you catch what I mean.” Jaxson stopped, turning as red as the salsa he’d just devoured with a bag of chips.

“You’re right, son. Reality means the past is done and we have to go on living. I have been distant. Thanks for your honesty. We’re never too old to change.” Sage ruffled Jaxson’s hair. “Now, how about fetching that guitar?”

In no time at all, Uncle Ted led them outside to the veranda. He started with “The All Day Song,” which he said he’d learned in Alaska. He sang it by himself and then taught the others.

He went on to “This is My Father’s World” and Sage said, “How could I have forgotten one of my favorite hymns?”

“Your grandma liked that one, too. God’s in control no matter how messed up we sinners manage to get things. All I have to do is come outside and here He is. The birds, the sun, the moon, the sea...all His, since He made them.” Ted went on to play and sing other nature songs.

Sage longed for the nature of home, where his peace meant prairie flowers and the whisper of wind through the cottonwoods. Life in Nebraska had its own sounds, smells, rhythms. How had he even considered leaving?

He missed Lanae, but had he not come on this trip, he would have never found his Uncle Ted. God sure made life a mystery at times.

Jaxson grew bored with the old songs and turned in. Then Lezlie bid them goodnight after a couple more camp songs.

Eventually, Ted stood and rested his guitar against the outside wall. “Let’s walk, unless you’re tired like the others.”

“Naw. My mind is wide awake.”

As they meandered, moonlight reflected off the water.

Ted eventually asked, “How did your ma die?”

Sage repeated the story he had told Lanae when they took their trail ride.

“Then she went out doing what she enjoyed,” Ted said.

“A wise lady friend said the same thing. Mom died the way she had lived. On the farm, out in the open, caring for critters.”

Ted slanted a deep look at Sage. “Now, tell me about your wife.”

“I didn’t pay any attention when Becca complained about how fat her belly felt to her, or the squeezing cramps that took her to her knees at times. I just figured it was a female thing, way out of my element. The malignant tumors started in the ovaries.”

“Suppose they did surgery?”

Sage picked up where he’d left off. “Right. But the cancer was discovered too late. They took her ovaries. Then the cancer was found in the fallopian tubes and elsewhere.”

They jumped back from a foamy wave and staggered like a couple drunks in a lopsided circle.

When they stopped dodging the tide, Sage continued. “Once they discovered the malignant cells had spread, I couldn’t believe how fast it went. Becca’s cancer was in the tissue. She went through radiation and started chemo. That whole time passed in a blur. It made me so mad that I couldn’t do a thing to change it.”

He kicked driftwood out of his path. “I haven’t gotten over my mad. She didn’t want to be sick anymore, hated the treatment. So she decided no more chemo. She went pretty fast after that.”

“Imagine it was tough for you to watch. As Christians, we don’t go through something that horrible by ourselves. When it’s sudden we can’t prepare ourselves, but it’s a whole other story to watch someone die.”

Sage believed in the salvation Jesus offered, but he’d been broadsided by his wife’s death. And that had delayed his recovery.

His choice, not God’s.

God had not left Sage.

He led their steps back the way they had come, paying no attention to their surrounding smells or sounds. “It was such a nightmare that when she got really bad, I think I blocked out reality. The days and nights just blurred together while I took care of her as long as I could on my own.”

“The way I see it, love is threefold. No doubt it’s physical, but that craziness settles down. It’s spiritual, a calling of one soul to another. And it’s mental because the bottom line is choice. Love is a choice rather than a feeling.”

As Ted spoke, Sage believed he could finally put Becca totally in the past, tuck her away in a corner of his heart, along with all the pictures he’d hidden away in the trunk.

Lanae was his future. “Uncle Ted, have you ever loved someone?”

“I have. And I lost her. She didn’t pass from illness, though. I made a choice that separated us. I made a choice that ruined any chance with her.”

As though Ted could read minds, he said, “Now tell me about this woman you’re so connected with now.”

“That’s a loaded order. I came down here expecting to find a home to move to, and all I’ve done is watch time pass, waiting to get back home to her. Listening to you, I feel that tri-fold connection with one woman. Her name is Lanae Petersen, and she is something else. So full of life, it hurts to be around her sometimes. Lanae and her sister Geneva, and Geneva’s daughter Moselle, own a woman’s shop in Platteville. She’s a country gal, used to live on a ranch. I advertised the dressing table that once was Grandmother Juanita’s, and Lanae saw the dresser ad. When she started the refinishing, she found letters in a secret place.” Sage drew a breath, wishing he could see his uncle’s face clearly in the dark. He switched gears. “Do you listen to country music?”

At Ted’s questioning nod, Sage asked, “What do you think of the song, ‘Live Like You Were Dying?’”

“It’s loaded, but right-on. If a guy’s facing death, I mean.”

“Right. Lanae claims it as a motto. She had a disease that could have been terminal. Says the first time she heard the lyrics, her heart felt like a hand squeezed her chest cavity.” Sage felt his heart clench, as though Lanae was holding it in her fist. “Anyway, she used that verve to search out who wrote such impassioned letters, secreted away in an old dresser. All the while Lanae strove for answers surrounding the letters, she was especially curious about finding out who Katherine and her beloved Teddy were. I grew to like her more. And I fought harder to keep the family secret.”

And here the secret was. In the flesh. In the process of discovery, I somehow lost my connection to the memory of my Becca.

Sage could only guess at what was going on in the older man’s mind. “Well, now’s as good a time as any to tell you another story. I hope this one’s got a happy ending.”

Uncle Ted remained silent.

Sage went on to tell how the Frivolities women used the family dressing table to display one of the letters. “Katherine Rawlins, now known as Kate, read the letter in the store and went all to pieces about losing her Teddy.”

Ted gasped and stumbled. Probably been holding his breath since the first time Sage said the name Katherine.

Sage caught his uncle by the arm. “Yes. Your Katherine. Lezlie’s probably already called home about finding you. If I know those women, they’re planning a romantic reunion between you and Katherine Rawlins.”

Uncle Ted shook his head repeatedly. He appeared too overcome to speak. Close to the rear of the condo now, Sage saw moisture pooling in his uncle’s eyes.

Finally, Sage said, “And I have the letter you wrote Grandma from Alaska.”

He couldn’t say what he had expected, but a monotone question from his uncle with no apparent emotion, wasn’t it.

“Didja tell anybody?”

“Only Lanae. Right before we came down here.”

“Well now, I’d say it’s about time I started living in the days I have left, and make a one-way trip to Nebraska. Way past time I face the music. Take lawful responsibility for my impassioned crime.”

Sage felt like he’d taken a left to the jaw. His uncle wasn’t the only one to live in the past. Sage had been sidetracked, locked in his head with Becca.

If a seventy-year-old man with murder in his background could take a chance on the future, so could he.

“If you can change the pattern of your life, dear uncle, I can, too. Something’s been wrong in the realm of my thinking. For too long I’ve listened to a mocking negative voice instead of the still small voice of the Holy Spirit nudging me to get on with my life.”

 

****

 

For I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.—Philippians 4:11

 

Lanae lingered at the acreage. Sage would soon be home. She’d miss feeding the horses and walking through the rooms of his home. Coming to the acreage had been such a blessing. She’d left both letters she’d written to Sage with his mail. She couldn’t say exactly when it hit, but she had come to realize she could be content wherever God chose for her to be at any given moment.

With or without Sage and his home in the country, she’d given it her best shot.

Lanae felt giddy. Her heart soared within her and took flight on the imaginary score of a Hollywood musical. She knew the giddy emotion would pass. Love was played out over the years in actions that spoke so much louder than words or hormones.

As deep as her love for Sage, she knew where she stood at this particular stage of her life.

“I don’t have to miss the country. I can find a country connection within a few miles of Platteville. Surely there’s a horse or two I can visit near me there,” she announced to Snorty at feeding time.

She’d talked to the Lord often. She prayed for Sage and his family’s safe return. And above all, Lanae prayed that Sage would learn to be content and count his blessings, whether he stayed on the acreage or actually moved to a place similar to where he’d been vacationing in Florida.

 

****

 

On their last morning in Florida, Sage walked the shore, singing the same songs his uncle had reintroduced to him. He studied the horizon, wishing the expanse of the sea could lift the weight of unvoiced emotion. Who would have thought a man’s head could hold such heavy, unspoken thoughts?

He owed Lezlie.

He owed Jaxson.

He owed Lanae.

Sage sang praises to the Lord from the depths of his soul.

He couldn’t owe God for his inattention over the years, but he could let God meet him today, finally accept the gift of God’s sovereignty. Sage could no longer question. God is God. Period. He gives and He takes away. Amen.

But he did owe his Uncle Ted, to help make things right in both their lives.

Sage wanted to introduce Lanae to his uncle’s guitar and hear her join them in praise singing.

He hadn’t told Lanae he’d canceled the realtor appointments. He wanted to see her face, her open joy, when he told her he wasn’t about to move.

Nebraska was his home.

His family would return to Nebraska.

He vowed to use every resource he could to uncover what the law needed, to set the record straight as far as his grandfather’s death was concerned.

Eric and Rainn, tight in the community as respected firefighters, might be tight with the sheriff’s department as well.

Could he be charged with being an accessory after the fact for withholding the letter as evidence? He’d deal with whatever he had to face, going through it with God.

“Surely, You meet us where we are, Lord. Seems to me You’ve waited a long time for me to return to You. But time is as meaningless to you as a footprint of sand underneath my feet here on the beach. Well, I’m ready for a new beginning.”

Sage scanned the horizon once again. He couldn’t find descriptive names for all the colors of blue he saw. “Psalm 95 says the sea is Yours, You made it. What a mighty God you are.”

Sea sounds, sand, ocean smells, and shore air equaled a tranquil surrounding. It was a place for a soul to find peace. He packed it all away. The memory would bring him right back here where he laid his soul out before the Lord.

Sage bent to pick up a broken seashell. He drew a heart in the sand. Then he wrote “I love Lanae.” He lost his balance, laughed to find himself on his seat instead of his haunches.

It’s true. Somehow his subconscious heart had known the extent of his emotions before his conscious mind had.

“You are indeed an awesome God. Please forgive me for my anger. Thank You beyond measure for Lezlie and her search for Uncle Ted. Thank You for our reunion. Now, I ask that You give me the right words to pass on to Lanae. Thank You for bringing Lanae into our lives, and give me the ability to show her enough love to last the rest of our lives.” He ended his time with His Lord on the beach in song, this time, the Lord’s Prayer, remembering Lanae’s rich alto voice.

He had to tell Lanae. Now. He trotted back to the beach condo. But instead of picking up the phone, he drew a pen from his pocket. And Sage poured out his heart.

 

December 28

 

My dear lovely, lively, Lanae,

 

We’re still here on vacation on the beach. But there’s only one place in the world I want to be, and that’s next to you.

Thank you for putting up with my stubborn will. I wanted to continue through life as an observer, but I doubt that’s God’s plan for me. You helped me find myself again, to choose once more to let God direct my thoughts and my actions, to allow Him to be the steering wheel of my life.

Thank you for allowing yourself to feel Katherine’s pain and her passion.

Thank you for your relentless curiosity and determination to discover Uncle Ted’s identity, which helped me discover my own.

Thank you for showing me I needed to face my heritage and live today in order to face tomorrow instead of being lost in the past. By bringing the past into the present and then leaving it again, I have more to give my daughter and grandson.

And I should have more honesty to give you all.

Thank you for your affinity toward treasured practices of the past. One of my vows to you is that as long as I am of sound mind, I promise to write you a love letter on the anniversary of our marriage. (If you’ll have me.)

Since we met in late fall, I’m wondering if you bare your toes in warm weather. I’d like to polish your toes, enjoy a new experience, as a little something for the two of us to look forward to doing together.

I’ll love you as long as I draw breath.

You and our Lord are the choices I make for going through the rest of my tomorrows.

When I return, I’m bringing a grand surprise.

 

Sage

 

P.S. Cause I love you a bushel and a peck. You bet your pretty neck, I do.

 

 

****

 

“For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."— Jeremiah 29:11

 

Sage meditated on the Bible verse one last time before closing the Bible, courtesy of a worldwide ministry that placed the Good Book in rented rooms, and turned to zip his carry-on.

“Sorry, Dad.” Lezlie giggled when Sage jumped and lost his grip.

“About what?”

“Well, I didn’t mean to snoop, but I saw the packet of letters in your carry-on after we got here. You didn’t zip it up and it was right there in the closet. Anyway, since the letters really belong to Uncle Ted, I put them in a scrapbook with plastic sleeves for him to look at during the flight. Or whenever he’s ready. He’ll probably want privacy.”

“It’s a beautiful gift,” Sage said, nodding at the book in Lezlie’s folded arms. “And so thoughtful. I’m proud of you.”

Lezlie shrugged off the compliment. “Thought it’d be a nice Christmas gift for him, even if it is many years late.”

“We’re never too old to appreciate gifts given with love. With God, you know, a future and a hope are ageless. This is a priceless gift, Lezlie. Thank you for putting it together for him.”

“What’d you do for me?” Jaxson entered the conversation as he slid into the room on an imaginary surfboard.

“Not you, carrot-top.” Lezlie handed the scrapbook to Sage before attempting to get her son in a headlock. He dodged and turned to crash right into Uncle Ted.

“Hold up there. What’s all the fuss?”

“Lezlie put this together for you,” Sage said, presenting the gift to Ted.

Ted peeked inside. Moisture pooled in his eyes. He hugged Lezlie. “I don’t know what to say, sweetheart. Glad my heart is strong. There are no words.”

Sage felt his throat thicken with his own tears.

“Hey, Unc, thank Lanae Petersen.” Lezlie patted Ted’s shoulder and winked at Sage. “She came into Dad’s life and shook up the whole family dynamics.”

Sage spoke for the first time since Ted had walked into the room. “It was my personal goal after reading the letter you wrote to Grandma from Alaska that I’d protect my family from our violent secrets.”

Ted smoothed a hand over the linen-like, handmade scrapbook cover. “I can relate to your empathy, son, and the reasons. Hypersensitivity can make us become callous. I’ve gone through years of avoiding people because of their problems, not wanting to get dragged down by their plights in life. I venture to guess that you got into spending time alone with your horses just so you didn’t have to face other people’s problems.”

“You’ve guessed right. But, by isolating myself, I sank deeper into my shell. Never letting go of Becca, for instance.”

But Lanae’s shown me what I’ve been missing.

“What’s this about Alaska?” Jaxson wanted to know.

“Let’s all get something cold to drink and I’ll tell you some stories,” Ted said, with his gaze locked on Sage.