FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS life almost worked, but on Thursday evening when she got home, it blew up. Allison found her mom at the computer in the den, a strained look on her face.
“You okay, Mom?”
“Yes. I mean . . .” She pointed at the computer screen. “I’m having a little problem here.”
“With what?”
“An online business.”
“What online business?”
“Um . . . mine.”
Allison’s hands went cold. “You don’t have an online business.”
“I do now.” Her mom gave a weak smile. “But I can’t find it today.”
“No, Mom, you didn’t.” Allison stumbled toward her laptop.
“Didn’t what?”
“Sign up for—” Allison stopped as she stared at the screen. “You didn’t give these people any money, did you?”
Her mom pressed her lips together.
“Mom?”
“I wanted to help. They promised I could make up to $1,000 a week . . . and that would help us a lot, you know? So I gave them . . .”
She trailed off, and Allison asked the question she already knew the answer to. “You gave them your bank info.”
Her mom stared at her hands, her voice a whisper. “I wanted to get started right away.”
“Not the checking account. Please tell me it’s not from there.”
“No.”
“Which account?”
“My savings account.”
“That’s our grocery money and living expenses, Mom. For the next six months.”
“I know, but the business was only $750. So there’s still plenty left.”
“When? When did you give them the information?”
“Yesterday.”
Allison grabbed the laptop, sat on the couch, and logged in to her mom’s bank account. Then stared at the balance as if her gaze could change the amount that was left.
The silence in the room stretched from thirty seconds into a minute.
“Is it all gone?”
“Yes, Mom,” Allison said, her voice dead, her eyes staring out the window at nothing. “All the money is gone.”
The next afternoon Derrek poked his head into Allison’s office and said, “Are you okay?”
She peered at him and blinked four or five times before turning her gaze out the window.
“Allison?”
“No. I’m not.” Her body felt numb. “Not okay.”
Derrek slid into her office. “What’s going on?”
“My mom did something unwise last night and . . .” She stared at her phone. “And I just got off a call.”
“With?”
How could she tell him she’d just lost the Kalimera Resorts account? He’d given it to her only three weeks ago. Derrek had placed his confidence in her, his belief that she could handle the account as well as he could. And now she had to tell him she’d blown it.
“Would you like to tell me who the call was with?” Derrek settled into a chair in the corner of Allison’s office.
“No, I wouldn’t.” Allison bit her lip. “It was with Kalimera Resorts. They’re going to go with another firm for their next three projects. I lost the account. I’m so sorry, Derrek.”
Derrek cleared his throat and clasped his hands together.
“Did you and Kayla ever lose accounts?”
“Yes.”
“What about before that, when you were with Mckenzie? Did you ever lose an account when you were with them?”
“Yes.”
“Then what happened with Kalimera is perfectly normal. A common characteristic of doing business, which you have experienced in both your previous architectural incarnations. You didn’t blow it. You did nothing wrong on the account—and I’ve been keeping abreast these past three weeks—and there is likely nothing you could have done differently to keep the account.”
She looked at him, her mouth open a sliver. Not what she expected.
“It appears you need to provide yourself with an adequate amount of grace.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “I probably do.”
“Let it go, Allison.” Derrek stood. “Anything else?”
“No, just . . . thanks for . . . Thanks.”
“You’re quite welcome.” Derrek patted her doorframe and smiled. “Anytime and always.”
Friday, June 21st
I should feel good, I really should. I lose the account, and when I tell Derrek he’s not upset. But he had to be, didn’t he? Whether he was or he wasn’t, the point is he gave me understanding and grace, and I should be thrilled with that, but I’m not because he’s yanking me all over the place. One moment he’s taking my money, the next he’s forgiving me for losing a major account. I screamed so loud on the way home I’m surprised I didn’t break my windshield.
I feel like I’m on a ship that’s in calm seas one moment and listing forty-five degrees in a storm the next.
And in the midst of all of it, one fact remains. I do not have a signed partnership agreement. The reality is, Derrek’s grace is probably supposed to placate me. But it doesn’t. Not for a second.
And I sent in this month’s payment. Which feels like I’ve just let go of a tree branch hanging over a cliff, because now all our money is gone.
She closed the journal. Didn’t feel like writing anything more. Allison made to get up, but the ping of a text message stopped her. She glanced at her phone. Richard.
Hello, Allison. Thinking of you and the dry bones. Available for conversation whenever you need to chat. Richard
Dry bones? Allison frowned at the text. What in the world was he talking about? She texted back.
Did i miss something? What do you mean, ‘dry bones’?
She waited two, then three minutes. No response.
Richard?
Her phone pinged a few seconds later.
Sorry, had to attend to another matter for a moment. You need to speak to yours.
Again, Allison stared at the words, not comprehending their meaning.
Is it possible for you to be a little more cryptic? Your meaning is awfully obvious.
Richard texted back a laughing icon and, Let’s meet tomorrow if you can. I’ll explain then.
The next morning Allison checked the journal and let out a soft sigh. No change. Only the words she’d written the night before staring back at her. Wonderful. Just when she really needed a bit of supernatural wisdom, the journal went silent. She didn’t think it was a vending machine, where she could write and the journal would automatically write back, but still. Would have been nice. At least she had Richard.
They met at noon at Bellevue Downtown Park, just south of Bellevue Square. The sun shone like it was mid-July, but it still felt cold to Allison.
“Thanks for meeting me, Allison.”
“Uh, I think that sentiment should go the other way.”
“Okay.” Richard gazed at the stepped canal that cascaded into the park’s reflecting pond. “How are you?”
“Frustrated and stressed and tired of life. So . . . not so good.”
“Tell me.”
“I wrote in the journal last night and checked it this morning. No change.”
“This isn’t the first time it hasn’t changed.”
“No.” Allison pressed two fingers into her forehead. “But I really needed it this time.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“You could be right about needing it this time, but . . .”
“I could be wrong.”
“Yes.” Richard leaned back for a few moments and the sun lit up his face. “Maybe the journal knows what it’s doing. Maybe as much as you’d like an answer, this isn’t the time. Maybe the journal knows it’s not good for you to rely too much on it.”
“The journal knows?” She laughed. “You say that like it’s alive.”
Richard leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Speaking of alive, what is it that lies dead within you, Allison?”
Allison frowned at him. “What?”
“Within you are things that once lived but do so no longer. Do you know what they are?”
“I’m not following you, Richard.”
Richard looked to the sky as if trying to remember something, and then he closed his eyes and spoke.
“‘The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”
“‘I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”
“‘Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”
“‘So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
“‘Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.’”
As he finished, Richard opened his eyes, full of compassion and fire, and turned to Allison.
“From the book of Ezekiel,” she said.
“Yes.” Richard’s eyes grew more intense. “It’s time for you to speak to your dry bones, Allison. Call them to life.”
“How? That’s just a story.”
“Whether you believe it or not, you are standing before the dry bones. Your dry bones. You are in the valley. And that valley seems deep, full of darkness. But that is an illusion because the valley is full of light, if you would speak it into being. Now is your time. To speak life into them.”
“What are my dry bones?”
“Ah yes.” Richard held up a finger. “That is the question. What are they, Allison? Do you know?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? The partnership. Getting my mom out of debt. Having a better working relationship with Linda. And Derrek. Finding a relationship again. And the big one, letting go of the fact my dad never loved me like he loved my brother.”
“Those are your dry bones.”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” Richard nodded. “Then you know what to do.”
“No, I don’t.” Allison clenched her fists. “I might know what they are, but I don’t know how to speak them into existence. You think I can say poof! and all those problems will be solved?”
“According to your belief, it will be done.”
“No, not that again, please.”
“What do you believe, Allison?”
“No, Richard. No.”
“You want God to do this for you. You want him to sweep in and make things right at work, to change Derrek and change Linda and give you what you think is yours. All humans would like it to be that way. You’re not alone in that. But that is not your path. Your path is to speak into existence what does not exist. She’s in there, the true Allison. I see her, but you must speak to her, draw her out. But even that is not enough. Just as the bones were upright and covered with flesh and skin but had no breath in them, you must breathe into your dry bones till they live again.”