Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
JACK
I’d literally just gotten into work after taking a late-night flight home from Willow Harbor last night, and there was a mound of paperwork waiting for me. Technically, I wasn’t supposed to be working until New Year’s Day, but I needed to keep my mind busy.
The one thing I wanted to do was text Hannah. I couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss. I also couldn’t forget the way she’d shrunk away from me when I’d told her what I’d done. I couldn’t believe she’d even kissed me after that. After hearing who I really was deep inside.
My phone rang, and I saw that it was Chloe video chatting me.
“Hey,” I answered.
She and Roberto were sitting on a balcony overlooking the city in Italy. He was holding a glass of wine, and both were smiling.
“Merry Christmas!” they said in unison. Technically, it was the day after.
“Merry Christmas, guys. How’s Italy?”
“It’s awful,” Roberto said. “I think we should fly home early so I can see my Tesla.”
Chloe smacked him and I laughed. He then kissed her cheek and wished me good night before going inside.
“Hey, Hannah just called.” Chloe lowered her voice. “I told her you were in a meeting.”
She called? Of course she would. She probably felt bad after learning the truth about me last night. She’d want to check on me.
“Thanks,” I told her. I had no intention of calling her back.
“And I just got a call back from the local realtor in Willow Harbor about Pete.”
Finally, some good news!
“Jack, there is no Pete.” Her face looked concerned.
I laughed. “What?”
She chewed on her lip. “I called the local realtor and the man Joe you spoke about who owns the Dock House. Neither of them have ever heard of a man named Pete who sleeps at the dock or at the church.”
Chills broke out on my arms. “Chloe, I met him. I fished with him.”
“At ten at night?” she asked.
“You think I’m crazy!” I accused.
She sighed, rubbing the side of her face. “I think you have trauma, Jack, that you haven’t properly dealt with, and then you told Hannah about your past and…”
“I’m not crazy!” I told her. “There was a man named Pete. He was real.” But now, I wondered myself. Maybe I should call Dr. Morgan , I thought. I didn’t know anything anymore.
“I’m sorry, Jack. They had never heard of him, and you have the Riser holiday lunch banquet across town in an hour,” she reminded me.
Crap. I looked at my calendar. She was right. The Risers were huge clients and the only exception I usually made to my no work during the holidays rules. Jason expected me to be there, too.
I swallowed hard and nodded. “Okay, thank you, Chloe.”
She signed off, and I grabbed the keys to my car.
As I walked down to the parking garage, I replayed that conversation with Pete on the docks. He’d said God was the fisher of men and he’d told me about the three songs and even joked that I should stay for two more next time. That was real. I wouldn’t even know how to make that up.
I dialed The Dock House as I walked to my black sedan.
“This is Joe,” a man with Midwest accent drawled out.
“Hey, my name is Jack. I met a guy named Pete last night…”
“Not this Pete nonsense again. I just spoke to some woman about that. I’ve never heard of him and don’t know him.”
So Chloe was right. Would Pete have lied? Why?
“Okay…thanks.” I hung up.
In a moment of vulnerability, I unblocked Hannah’s number and my phone immediately buzzed with a text from her.
It was a Bible verse.
Hannah with two N’s: Matthew 18:12 “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?13And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off.14In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.”
There was no note, no Hey, Jack, about last night . Just…this. This story is about a lost sheep. My hands shook as I thought of myself as the lost sheep, wandering the hillside of life in darkness and despair. Was God looking for me?
I hoped so.
I opened my car door and got inside, turning on the ignition. The moment the car roared to life, a song blared out of the speakers, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
It was the song Hannah had sung just last night. How? I didn’t listen to Christian music; this channel wasn’t even one of my preset stations. The brick wall of shame and hatred that I carried for myself, that I’d built around my heart, began to crack with each phrase of the song.
I wanted to turn it off, but I remembered Pete’s advice about waiting for three songs, so I sat there with tears streaming down my face, just sitting in this uncomfortable, vulnerable feeling until the second song came on.
When it did, I burst into sobs. It was an oldie, one of my mother’s favorite songs. She had been a believer like Hannah.
“Amazing Grace.”
“I’m sorry, okay!” I whimpered to the empty car. “Forgive me, God. I’m worthless. I don’t even know why You let me live and not her. I’ll never understand it. I…but I can’t do this alone anymore. I need help. I need You,” I told Him.
Because at that moment, there was a presence in the car that I could not explain. A supernatural feeling had come over me and I knew that Pete was real—maybe not to everyone else, but last night, on that dock, for me, he was. And right now, I needed God, because if I kept going down this road of self-hatred and shame, I was going to hurt myself. Thoughts of self-harm had danced in my head since the night of my mother’s death, and I just wanted to be free of it all. I wanted someone else to carry the weight. I couldn’t do it anymore.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I whispered. To my mother, to God. I shouldn’t have tried to drink my pain away. I shouldn’t have driven. I knew that. But now I had to live with it, and this wasn’t living.
When the third song came on, I couldn’t help the smile that graced my face.
An angelic female voice trilled out of the speakers, speaking about how worthy Jesus was of our love and praise. Suddenly, it just all made sense to me. God made sense to me. This was the Truth.
It was just like Pete had said. By the third song, he had cried out to Jesus to be saved.
“Save me, Jesus!” I begged, desperate for relief from the pain I’d been living with for years.
I’d never in my life heard this song, but right now, it was transporting the power of God into my car, because the presence that felt like it had been with me here that past two songs was now in me.
One second, I was a broken man, drowning in shame and self-hatred, carrying a thousand-pound stone on my shoulders, and the moment I’d asked for Jesus to save me…it was gone. As if I’d been pulled up out of the water.
And not only that, the peace I’d felt last night when Hannah sang was with me now. But this time, it felt permanent. Relief and happiness filled my body like an effervescent fluid, and I laughed with tears streaming down my face.
The weight, the clouds, and the shadows were all gone. For the first time in years, I felt…normal.
It was all real. The crazy Christians who had said that Jesus saved them…They weren’t crazy.
“Thank you.” I broke down again, grabbing my face as I came to the realization that this entire time God had been waiting for me and I’d just sat there, stewing in my darkness for years when I could have just called out to Him. Deep down I’d always believed in Him. I just…didn’t know how to find my way back.
Hannah. Her name rose unbidden in my mind, and I pulled out my phone and dialed her right away. It went straight to voicemail. She hadn’t blocked me now, had she? I had to tell her about my newfound freedom. I had to tell her that she’d been instrumental in my finding God.
Without her, without going to her concert last night, I never would have. And not just that. I wanted to tell her how I felt. Because the unworthiness of good things that I’d lived with since my mother’s death was now gone.
I deserved love, and I wanted it with Hannah. If she’d have me.
I dialed her again and frowned when it went to voicemail for the second time.
God, let her forgive me, I prayed.
She’d told me how she felt. She’d kissed me, and I’d pushed her away. If she could find it in her heart to forgive me and give me one last chance, I’d be the luckiest man alive.