3: The Cool of the Day

    The reader should not be surprised at this juncture to learn that Connor Andrews was, by nature, a man of rigid schedule and habit. This characteristic had always been a comfort to his dear wife, Karen. With Connor there was order, security, and control. While the substance of his speech was frequently too clever and original for her to have predicted, she always knew the tone and direction his reason would take, like clockwork. Connor Andrews never failed to deliver on a promise, he never shirked a duty, and he absolutely never put himself through unnecessary inconvenience.

    Imagine, then, her shock at these events of that Sunday night. For the first time there was a break in the wall of security that had surrounded their lives. Connor had reneged on a previous engagement. He was about to embark on a journey that would certainly be inconvenient, and almost just as certainly be futile. His actions would heap pressure and stress upon his brother in the church, Erickson. Within Karen’s troubled dreams a simple phrase haunted her: it’s unforgivable! Upon suddenly awaking in the night, with Connor still snoring to her right, she repented of the thought. If, like her, you are a devoted student of the bible, then you likely already know why. There’s only one sin that is said to be unforgivable.

    But Karen couldn’t shake the distress with which she viewed Connor’s sudden break in spiritual protocol. Never before had he claimed to be acting on some kind of sudden vision or answer to prayer. She felt sure that his human intuition had misguided him, but how could she even dare to hint such a thing to him? He would say it was undeniably the Holy Spirit at work, and then, if pressed, perhaps she would instead become guilty in his eyes of the unforgivable sin.

    So she determined to keep her troubled thoughts quietly to herself, in much the same way that she’d restrained her feelings of admiration and security these past eight years. She let her husband’s rhythmic snore lull her back to sleep.

    With the consistency of a streetlight, Connor had always before gone to bed at 10:30, drifting away mere moments after his head hit the pillow, and then he’d be up and stretching exactly at 6:30 the next morning. Without a single sentient thought in his head, he’d always then make his way to the shower. When thoroughly enlivened into consciousness by the steaming deluge, he would methodically dress and stride into the kitchen to turn on the coffee brewer. For the past eight years, with exceptions few and far-between, Karen had opened her eyes at 7:30 to the wholesome aroma of fresh coffee.

    The morning after the events related in the preceding chapter was one of these exceptions. When her eyes opened, Karen rolled to her left and read the red numbers on the clock-radio, 7:52. She was late to start the day. Even worse, there was no pleasant smell of coffee emanating from the kitchen.

    The morning briskness brought a chill to her skin as she rose from the bedside. She drifted into the bathroom for her own shower, but when her hand fell to rest upon Connor’s neatly-folded, blue towel, it was perfectly dry. Not a drop of water glistened in the tub. With a furrowed brow, she returned to the bedroom and noticed that even Connor’s slippers remained placed carefully by the bed. He had never touched ground in the morning without them for the past eight years. She reached into the little oaken bureau to retrieve her robe, and there was Connor’s robe, still neatly folded right beside hers. She wrapped the white cloth tightly around herself and called out his name, trying, for her own mind’s sake, not to sound too worried.

    “Connor, dear,” she called slightly more loudly each time. It was not a large house. He was not in the kitchen, not in the closet, not in the garage, not in the laundry room. As the fear inside Karen began to mount, she spied, through a half-shaded window, a suspicious glare of sun off some object in the back yard. Pulling apart the blinds, she breathed a sigh of relief at the familiar sight of the back of Connor’s bald head as he stood there in the backyard.

    Her relief was almost immediately challenged by shocking dismay. Connor stood there, motionless, in his pajamas, where anybody could decide to come around the side of the house, or peep over the neighbors’ fences. His head was down, his hands slightly raised at his sides, he must be oblivious, she thought, to the impropriety of the situation. He stood there without a robe, without even his slippers! His feet must be cold and dampened by the morning dew on the neatly mowed grass.

    Karen slid away the glass and called through the screen. “Connor! What have you been doing? What’s wrong?”

    Connor turned around with a wide smile. “It’s not what is wrong, my dear,” he cried excitedly, “it’s what is broken! And what is broken can be fixed!” He began to raise his hands above his head. “What a beautiful little Eden you’ve created here for us, my dear. The colors and shapes are magnificent. You’ve set the Maker’s decoration off to great advantage! The world has never seemed a more beautiful place.”

    In her agitation, she could barely reply to such nonsense. He turned back around, and, with no regard at all for propriety this man, who had never so much as played hopscotch as a child (she believed), this man began to lightly dance! He waved his arms and methodically stretched his legs, he bobbed his substantial torso up and down, with no music but the distant chirping of birds.

    “Come in this minute!” Karen finally cried, anxiously. “What in the world has gotten into you? Have you gone mad?”

    Turning around again, he finally perceived how distressed she was. He skipped back in through the backdoor, leaving it carelessly open, and came to the window, taking her arms.

    “I’m overjoyed, my love,” he said, as she began to calm. “I can’t even say exactly why. I’ve found new purpose, important purpose. Never before in my life have I felt so clearly that the Holy Spirit was guiding my steps. I’m leaving for Sycamore today, and the Good Lord will give me success in turning this boy’s heart back towards Him. He promised me, with His mere Presence! As I stood in the garden, in the cool morning air, I swear to you that I heard His footsteps on the stone path! That was all the sign I needed. He’s here with me, and there is nothing to fear.”

    But Karen closed her eyes and shook her head. “This is so unlike you, Connor. It’s so unlike God! You experience something peculiar and you attribute it to Him, but how can you be sure? Would God have you abandon your responsibility and leave Erickson to lead the Fall retreat himself? Would God take you away at a moment’s notice, He Who has all of eternity to plan things carefully?”

    “Yes, perhaps God planned this from the beginning of time, and it is certainly uncomfortable that His plans don’t always coincide with my own, and He may choose to not tell me about it. But Erickson is very capable. I already spoke with him on the phone this morning, and he’s going to be perfectly all right.

    “And you, my dear,” he softened his tone, “you will be all right too. I know you’ll worry about me, but I’ll call when I arrive in Sycamore, and I shouldn’t be gone more than a couple of days. Nothing can go wrong when God is with us.”

    Karen fell against his chest. “But what if you’ve only convinced yourself that God is with you? This sudden joy, it’s not like anything that the God I know has given either of us before. How can you be certain that it’s real?”

    “It is real, Karen. But even if it’s not, I won’t have lost a great deal, and I will know better from this moment on. So even that is something.”

    Unconvinced, Karen returned to the bathroom and removed her robe. She hated inconvenience and insecurity. She didn’t want to think that her husband, after eight years of consistency, was about to change. And with a passion that surprised even her, she found that she bitterly resented his little mindless dancing. They had never once even danced a waltz. Connor had been a wallflower at his own wedding, resigning her to the same fate. Before she met him, Karen used to love to dance. But Connor had never shown interest in the activity, and she wouldn’t pressure him, out of polite kindness.

    Karen leaned heavily against the bathroom sink, her back to the mirror, deep in thought. For a brief moment, as she envisioned Connor’s jubilant motions, undressed where anybody might see him, and for a moment she despised him in her heart. But she quickly surfaced out of her stupor of dismay and chastised herself for such a thought. As she turned on the hot water spigot for the shower, the aroma of coffee brewing began to drift in under the bathroom door.