Rendezvous with God

Chapter One - Episode 1

IT’S CHRISTMAS EVE. Fifty minutes have passed since I last checked the mail—that would be one Diet Coke, a half-bag of Doritos, and a handful of grapes. It’s not that I was hungry. I wasn’t even interested in the mail. Just bored. And grazing, along with these little excursions through the muddy gravel to the mailbox, gave me something to do. I know I should be grading papers, but I’m only good for so many essays at a time on, “The Contemporary Relevancy of Emily Dickinson,” before my brain grows numb.

The pewter light of what was supposed to be day had faded and the perpetual fog had turned to heavy mist— though it’s hard to tell the difference out here. I tugged open the mailbox to find the mother lode of junk mail— scores of holiday grocery specials, a real estate ad, one AARP magazine, two going-out-of-business furniture flyers, and a last-minute donation plea from some church I visited once in July.

It wasn’t until I pulled them out that I saw the Christmas card tucked inside. My sixth for the season—if you count my chiropractor and insurance agent. The breezy scrawl and a stamped, Postage Due with a little red arrow pointing to fifty-two cents, meant it could only come from one person. It was postmarked, Barcelona, Spain. I saved it for last. Best to let anger and self-pity fester in anticipation. Tucking the bundle under my arm, I lowered my head against the drizzle and sloshed back down the driveway to the house.

Sigmund, our golden retriever, greeted me at the kitchen door like I’d been gone a week. His neediness was always a comfort—and irritation. “Like father, like son,” Cindy used to say. It was supposed to be a joke but we both knew better. Not that Cindy didn’t have her own issues. But, somehow, we always managed to ignore them so we could focus more clearly on mine.

I kicked off my shoes and padded across the kitchen tile onto the living room carpet. Removing our shoes was something we agreed upon but it never stuck—the dark path on the ivory-colored carpet a testimony to our failure. When we first bought it, the light color seemed a great idea; no kids, indoor pets, responsible adults.

Well, two out of three wasn’t bad.

Clenching his gooey chew toy and wagging his tail, Siggy followed me to one of the two recliners in the glass- enclosed alcove overlooking the beach. The tide was out. Through windows pebbled with mist I could see the mudflat stretching into darkness. In twelve hours, it would all be different. The bay would have slipped back in, raising my beached rowboat, and lapping at stray pieces of drift- wood. That was the beauty of living on the islands of Puget Sound. The scenery was in constant flux—not in great, unforeseen drama, but in safe, predictable patterns.

I noticed the cat had taken my chair. Again. “Karl, move.”

He didn’t even bother opening his eyes. “Karl.”

I picked him up, all sixteen pounds of overindulged, Special, Prime Cut Kitty Filet, and dropped him to the floor. Why he always chose my chair instead of Cindy’s was a mystery, considering our mutual lack of affection. But mine clearly became his go-to day bed. And at night? Don’t even get me started on the under-the-covers, turf wars for foot space. Still, I’d promised to take care of him until Cindy and her boy toy—seven years her junior—got back from Europe and found a place. Ours was an amicable divorce.

I snapped on the table lamp with its patina of dust and started through the mail. Not that I could focus with that card lurking at the back. But it didn’t stop me from going through the motions of examining each piece, one by one—a warm-up act for the main event. When the time came, I carefully opened the envelope and pulled out the card. It was a generic Santa Claus waving from a generic sleigh with generic reindeer. The text was equally original:

“Merry Christmas. Happy New Year.”

But it was the signature that got me. After all these months . . .

Love ya! Cindy and Buster.

Buster. What a stupid name.

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These first few questions are just a warm-up. Trust me, they get deeper and more personal as we continue our journey with Will. But for now:

1. Putting on our psychology hats for a moment, what would you say is Will’s greatest problem? Loneliness? Cindy’s betrayal? Cats?

2. Does he even know there is a problem?

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Rendezvous with God, a Novel
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Copyright © 2021 Bill Myers

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Poem Love (III) – George Herbert 1593–1633 in the public domain.

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