The Shack (30 page)

“Mackenzie,” he began, “we have something for you to consider. While you have been with us, you have been healed much and have learned much.”

“I think that’s an understatement,” Mack chuckled.

Papa smiled. “We are especially fond of you, you know. But here is the choice for you to make. You can remain with us and continue to grow and learn, or you can return to your other home, to Nan and to your children and friends. Either way, we promise to always be with you; although this way is a little more overt and obvious.”

Mack sat back and thought about it. “What about Missy?” he asked.

“Well, if you choose to stay,” Papa continued, “you will see her this afternoon. She will come too. But if you choose to leave this place, then you will be also choosing to leave Missy behind.”

“This is not an easy choice,” Mack sighed. There was silence in the room for several minutes as Papa allowed Mack the space to struggle with his own thoughts and desires. Finally, Mack asked, “What would Missy want?”

“Although she would love to be with you today, she lives where there is no impatience. She does not mind waiting.”

“I’d love to be with her.” He smiled at the thought. “But this would be so hard on Nan and my other children. Let me ask you something. Is what I do back home important? Does it matter? I really don’t do much other than working and caring for my family and friends . . . “

Sarayu interrupted him. “Mack, if anything matters then everything matters. Because you are important, everything you do is important. Every time you forgive, the universe changes; every time you reach out and touch a heart or a life, the world changes; with every kindness and service, seen or unseen, my purposes are accomplished and nothing will ever be the same again.”

“Okay,” Mack said with finality. “Then I’ll go back. I don’t think that anyone will ever believe my story, but if I go back I know that I can make some difference, no matter how little that difference might be. There are a few things I need, uh, want to do anyway.” He paused and looked from one to the next, then grinned. “You know . . . “

They all laughed.

“And I really do believe that you will never leave me or abandon me, so I am not afraid to go back. Well, maybe a little.”

“That,” said Papa, “is a very good choice.” He beamed at him, sitting down next to him.

Now Sarayu stood in front of Mack and spoke. “Mackenzie, now that you are going back, I have one more gift for you to take.”

“What is it?” Mack asked, curious about anything that Sarayu might give.

“It is for Kate,” she said.

“Kate?” exclaimed Mack, realizing that he still carried her as a burden in his heart. “Please, tell me.”

“Kate believes that she is to blame for Missy’s death.”

Mack was stunned. What Sarayu had told him was so obvious. It made perfect sense that Kate would blame herself. She had raised the paddle that started the sequence of events that led to Missy being taken. He couldn’t believe the thought had never even crossed his mind. In one moment, Sarayu’s words opened up a new vista into Kate’s struggle.

“Thank you so much!” he told her, his heart full of gratitude. Now he had to go back for sure, even if it were only for Kate. She nodded and smiled and sort of sat down. Finally, Jesus stood and reached up to one of the shelves to bring down Mack’s little tin box. “Mack, I thought you might want this . . . “

Mack took it from Jesus and held it in his hands a moment. “Actually, I don’t think I’m going to need this anymore,” he said. “Can you keep it for me? All my best treasures are now hidden in you anyway. I want you to be my life.”

“I am,” came the clear and true voice of assurance.

Without any ritual, without ceremony, they savored the warm bread and shared the wine and laughed about the stranger moments of the weekend. He knew it was over and time for him to head back and figure out how to tell Nan about everything.

He had nothing to pack. His few belongings that had appeared in his room were gone, presumably back in his car. He changed out of his hiking attire and put on the clothes that he had come in, freshly laundered and neatly folded. As he finished dressing he grabbed his coat off a wall hook, and then took one last look around his room before heading out.

“God, the servant,” he chuckled but then felt a welling up again as the thought made him pause. “It is more truly God, my servant.”

When Mack returned to the living room, the three were gone. A steaming cup of coffee waited for him by the fireplace. He hadn’t had a chance to say good-bye, but as he thought about it, saying good-bye to God seemed a little silly. It made him smile. He sat down on the floor with his back to the fireplace and took a sip of the coffee. It was wonderful, and he could feel its warmth travel down his chest. Suddenly, he was exhausted, the myriad of emotions having taken their toll. As if his eyes had a will of their own, they closed and Mack slipped softly and gently into a comforting sleep.

The next sensation he felt was cold, icy fingers reaching through his clothing and chilling his skin. He snapped awake and scrambled clumsily to his feet, his muscles sore and stiff from lying on the floor. Looking around he quickly saw that everything was back to the way it had been two days earlier, even down to the bloodstain near the fireplace where he had been sleeping.

He jumped up and ran out the battered door and onto the broken porch. The shack once again stood old and ugly, doors and windows rusted and broken. Winter covered the forest and the trail leading back to Willie’s Jeep. The lake was barely visible through the surrounding vegetation of tangled briars and devil’s club. Most of the dock had sunk and only a few of the larger pylons and attached sections were still standing. He was back in the real world. Then he smiled to himself. It was more likely he was back in the un-real world.

He pulled on his coat and tracked his way back to his car following his old footprints, which were still visible in the snow. As Mack reached the car a fresh, light snow began to fall. The drive back into Joseph was uneventful and he arrived in the dark of a winter’s evening. He topped off his tank, grabbed a bite of nominally tasting food, and tried to call Nan unsuccessfully. She was probably on the road, he told himself, and cell coverage could be sketchy at best. Mack resolved to drive by the police station and see if Tommy was in, but after a slow loop revealed no activity inside, he decided against going in. How could he explain what had happened to Nan, let alone Tommy?

At the next crossroads the light turned red and he pulled to a stop. He was tired, but at peace and strangely exhilarated. He didn’t think he would have any problem staying awake on the long ride home. He was anxious to get home to his family, especially Kate.

Lost in thought, Mack simply pulled through the intersection when the light turned green. He never even saw the other driver run the opposing red light. There was only a brilliant flash of light and then nothing, except silence and inky blackness.

In a split second Willie’s red Jeep was destroyed, in minutes Fire and Rescue and the police arrived, and within hours Mack’s broken and unconscious body was delivered by Life-Flight to Emmanuel Hospital in Portland, Oregon.

18

O
UTBOUND
R
IPPLES

Faith never knows where it is being led, But it knows and loves the One who is leading.

—Oswald Chambers

A
nd finally, as if from far away, he heard a familiar voice squeal in delight, “He squeezed my finger! I felt it! I promise!”

He couldn’t even open his eyes to see, but he knew Josh was holding his hand. He tried to squeeze again, but the darkness overwhelmed him and he faded out. It took a full day for Mack to gain consciousness again. He could barely move another muscle in his body. Even the effort to lift a single eyelid seemed overwhelming, although doing so was rewarded with screams and shouts and laughter. One after another, a parade of people rushed up to his one barely open eye, as if they were looking into a deep dark hole containing some incredible treasure. Whatever they saw seemed to please them immensely and off they would go to spread the news.

Some faces he recognized; but the ones he didn’t, Mack soon learned, were those of his doctors and nurses. He slept often, but it seemed that every time he opened his eyes it would cause no little excitement. “Just wait until I can stick out my tongue,” he thought. “That will really get them.”

Everything seemed to hurt. He was now painfully aware when a nurse moved his body against his will, for physical therapy and to keep him from developing bed sores. It was apparently routine treatment for people who had been unconscious for more than a day or two, but knowing that didn’t make it any more bearable.

At first Mack had no idea where he was or how he had ended up in such a predicament. He barely could keep track
of who
he was. The drugs didn’t help, although he was grateful for the morphine taking the edge off his pain. Over the course of the next couple days, his mind slowly cleared up and he began to get his voice back. A steady parade of family and friends came by to wish a speedy recovery or perhaps glean a little information, which wasn’t forthcoming. Josh and Kate were regulars, sometimes doing homework while Mack snoozed, or answering his questions that for the first couple days he asked again and again and again.

At some point Mack finally understood, even though he had been told many times, that he had been unconscious for almost four days after a terrible accident in Joseph. Nan made it clear that he had a lot of explaining to do, but was for the time being focused more on his recovery than her need for answers. Not that it mattered. His memory was in a fog and though he could remember bits and pieces he couldn’t pull them together to make any sense.

He vaguely remembered the drive to the shack, but things got sketchy beyond that. In his dreams the images of Papa, Jesus, Missy playing by the lake, Sophia in the cave, and the light and color of the festival in the meadow came back to him like shards from a broken mirror. Each was accompanied by waves of delight and joy but he wasn’t sure if they were real or a hallucination conjured up by collisions between some damaged or otherwise wayward neurons and the drugs coursing through his veins.

On the third afternoon after he had regained consciousness, he awoke to find Willie staring down at him, looking rather grumpy.

“You idiot!” Willie gruffed.

“Nice to see you too, Willie,” Mack yawned.

“Where’d you learn to drive anyway,” Willie ranted. “Oh yeah, I remember, farm boy not used to intersections. Mack, from what I heard, you should have been able to smell that other guy’s breath a mile away.” Mack lay there, watching his friend ramble on, trying to listen and comprehend every word, which he didn’t. “And now,” Willie continued, “Nan’s mad as a hornet and won’t talk to me. She blames me for loaning you my Jeep and letting you go to the shack.”

“So why did I go to the shack?” Mack asked, struggling to collect his thoughts. “Everything is fuzzy.”

Willie groaned in desperation. “You have to tell her I tried to talk you out of it.”

“You did?”

“Don’t do this to me, Mack. I tried to tell you . . .”

Mack smiled as he listened to Willie rant. If he had few other memories, he did remember this man cared about him and just having him near made him smile. Mack was suddenly startled to realize that Willie had leaned down very close to his face.

“Seriously, was
he
there?” he whispered, then quickly looked around to make sure no one was in ear shot.

“Who?” whispered Mack. “And why are we whispering?”

“You know, God?” Willie insisted. “Was he at the shack.”

Mack was amused. “Willie,” he whispered, “it’s not a secret. God is everywhere. So, I was at the shack.”

“I know that, you pea brain,” he stormed. “Don’t you remember anything? You mean you don’t even remember the
note?
You know, the one you got from Papa that was in your mailbox when you slipped on the ice and banged yourself up.”

That’s when the penny dropped and the disjointed story began to crystallize in Mack’s mind. Everything suddenly made sense as his mind began connecting the dots and filling in the details—the note, the Jeep, the gun, the trip to the shack, and every facet of that glorious weekend. The images and memories began to flood back so powerfully that he felt like they might pick him up and sweep him off his bed and out of this world. And as he remembered he began to cry, until tears were rolling down his cheeks.

“Mack, I’m sorry.” Willie was now begging and apologetic. “What did I say?”

Mack reached up and touched his friend’s face. “Nothing, Willie...I remember everything now. The note, the shack, Missy, Papa. I remember everything.”

Willie didn’t move, not sure what to think or say. He was afraid that he had pushed his friend over the edge, the way he was rambling on about the shack and Papa and Missy. Finally he asked, “So, are you telling me that he was there? God, I mean?”

And now Mack was laughing and crying. “Willie, he was there! Oh, was he there! Wait till I tell you. You’ll never believe it. Man, I’m not sure I do either.” Mack stopped, lost in his memories for a moment. “Oh, yeah,” he said at last. “He told me to tell you something.”

“What? Me?” Mack watched as concern and doubt traded places on Willie’s face. “So, what did he say?” Again he leaned forward.

Mack paused, grasping for the words. “He said, ‘Tell Willie that I’m especially fond of him.’“

Mack stopped and watched his friend’s face and jaw tighten and puddles of tears fill his eyes. His lips and chin quivered and Mack knew his friend was fighting hard for control. “I gotta go,” he whispered hoarsely. “You’ll have to tell me all about it later.” And with that Willie simply turned and left the room, leaving Mack to wonder, and remember.

When Nan next came in she found Mack propped up in bed and grinning from ear to ear. He didn’t know where to begin, so he let her talk first. She filled him in on some of the details he was still confused about; delighted that he was finally able to retain the information. He had been almost killed by a drunk driver and had undergone emergency surgery for various broken bones and internal injuries. There had been a great deal of concern that he might lapse into a long-term coma, but his wakening had alleviated all the worry.