The Treasure Box (25 page)

With her mind's eye she could see the labyrinth from high above, outside the confines of space and time—could see all the paths, all the steps, as if the whole process had already been completed. The journey held many switchbacks and turns, but because it was a labyrinth and not a maze, it was impossible for a pilgrim to take the wrong road. Every portion of the path was a unity, part of the whole, folding in on the unbroken design. All who started on the path, all who sought the truth—sought God—with a heart of integrity and a will to discover the Divine, inevitably found what they were seeking.

Vita leaned back, closed her eyes, and surrendered herself to the moment. She no longer feared that she was losing her mind, no longer wondered if the miracle of the new reality would vanish as suddenly as it had appeared.

The unvoiced prayer—the forgotten longing of her deepest soul, the tacit cry of the neglected infant in the darkened room— had been answered.

Someone had heard.

Someone had cared.

Someone had responded, when she didn't even know enough to ask.

24
JACOB'S PRAYER

B
y eight o'clock, Vita had showered and dressed and made her way to the swing in the back garden. She sipped at her second cup of coffee and watched two squirrels chasing up and down an oak tree, chittering to each other and making grand swooping jumps from limb to limb, almost as if they could fly.

The morning sun cast an ethereal light over the grass, the willow tree, the purple irises in the flower bed against the far wall. The sight stirred something in Vita. She had the sensation of being lighter, younger, more agile, as if freed from some invisible burden, and she was finally able to put words to a perception that had been working its way into her mind. Saint Francis had been right—all creation was kin. Brother squirrel, sister iris, father sunlight, mother willow—a family.

And Vita Kirk belonged.

She wasn't certain how to categorize this new perspective that had come upon her. Metamorphosis? Transfiguration? Resurrection? None of the words quite fit, yet Vita knew she was changed. Everything looked different, felt different. The fragrance of spring blossoms seemed sharper, the colors more vibrant, her vision more focused. As if she had stumbled through life in a nearsighted blur and just received her first pair of glasses.

She leaned back in the swing, relishing the warmth of sunlight on her face, and shut her eyes. For a long time she sat there, as the light through her eyelids created a road map of blood vessels against her retina. Then a shadow stepped between Vita and the sun. She looked up, raised a hand to shade her eyes. A man.

She couldn't see his face clearly, silhouetted as he was against the light, but his blondish-brown hair ruffled in the breeze, and he was smiling.

Maybe it was just a trick of the light. Maybe it was his smile, or the unassuming way he stood there, waiting for her to speak.

But for a split second, Vita was convinced that the man who stood before her was— Jacob Stillwater, in the flesh.

The figure moved out of the sunlight and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Good morning, Vita. Beautiful day, isn't it?”

Hap Reardon. Vita stared at him as he settled himself into the swing next to her and stretched his legs out. He was wearing neatly pressed khaki slacks, a white oxford shirt, and brown loafers with tassels on the tops. She had never noticed before what a nice smile he had, or the faint hint of a dimple in his left cheek.

She had always been too eager to get away from him to observe much about him at all, in fact. Now she saw that he had clear blue eyes and little crow's-feet, and just the beginnings of a receding hairline. He looked almost . . . attractive, in a soft, middle-aged sort of way. And he did indeed bear a resemblance to Jacob Stillwater.

She met his gaze and discovered a curious expression on his face.

“Is something wrong, Vita? You're looking at me as if I just beamed down from another planet.”

Vita blinked. “Sorry, Hap. I was just, well, thinking.” She gathered herself together and tried to remember her manners.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?”

He glanced at his watch. “I'd love one, but I don't think we have time. We ought to be going.”

“Going?” she stammered. “Going where?”

He threw back his head and laughed—a hearty, melodic sound.

“You haven't listened to your messages, have you?” Hap ran a finger down the crease of his trousers. “I should have guessed. I knew you were busy this week, trying to get some work done on the Alaska project, and with keeping Gordy and Mary V on top of everything else, well—”

Vita's mind raced. How on earth could Hap Reardon know about her deadline for the Alaska book? She had never spoken the first word to him about her writing projects, not that she could recall. And the twins? He spoke their names as if he knew them, as if they were all old friends.

“I left a couple of messages, and even came by the other day.

But when I saw Mary Kate's Volvo parked out front, I figured you had your hands full. And I kept getting your machine, so it was clear you had the phone turned off. I know how forgetful you become when you're working, honey, but you really ought to check your messages once in a while.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “You promised to go with me to the estate auction in Brevard, remember? And then afterward we're scheduled to have dinner with my mother. She's really looking forward to meeting you.” He smiled into her eyes. “If you're too swamped to go, I'll understand, but—”

Vita shook her head.
Honey?
Memories began to crowd in upon her, misty images of time spent with him—a drive to Black Mountain to scout out antique stores, a candlelight dinner, a walk in the rain.

She pulled herself together and managed to stammer, “No, no. Of course not. I—” Vita looked down at what she was wearing— blue jeans and a burgundy turtleneck sweater with tennis shoes. “Just give me a couple of minutes to change—”

“I'd never dream of asking you to change.” Hap stood to his feet, extended a hand in her direction, and chuckled. “Although you might want to work on that absent-mindedness thing.”

Walk the path God sets before you,
a voice whispered in the back of her mind. Vita smiled up at him and took his hand. “OK, let me just get my purse and keys,” she said, “and we'll be on our way.”

They chose the scenic route, a twenty-five mile trip that wound along Crab Creek Road from Flat Rock to the picturesque little college town of Brevard, sheltered at the edge of the Pisgah National Forest. Hap drove, skillfully maneuvering the big white van with
Pastimes
painted in purple on both sides. Vita was grateful not to be behind the wheel; if it had been up to her, they probably would have ended up lost in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, or stranded in some holler right out of
Deliverance,
where the locals still made moonshine and ran off the “furriners” with a double-barreled shotgun.

Freed from having to give her attention to the road before them, Vita spent most of the drive in silence, listening to Hap talk about his work and sorting through fresh memories that continued to work their way into her consciousness.

“The wonderful thing about antiques,” he was saying, “is not only their appreciating monetary value, but their intrinsic worth as icons of history. Sometimes I wish antiques could talk. What valuable lessons we might learn from them! I like to think that each one has its own story—a tale of ordinary people, maybe, finding their way to extraordinary courage and faith.”

“Like the Treasure Box,” Vita murmured.

“Exactly like the Treasure Box. Now, there's a piece that has a story to tell.”

If you only knew,
she thought to herself.

Hap turned in her direction and grinned. “It's virtually a miracle, the way some of these things endure—passed from hand to hand, coming down from one generation to the next, carrying decades, sometimes even centuries of history along with them.

Don't you think the fellow who made that box—probably in England, over a hundred years ago—would be fascinated to find out how it came to rest in the mountains of western North Carolina?” He let out a wistful sigh. “Just proves that we never know how far our influence might travel, or who our lives will touch.”

Vita gazed at his profile—a broad forehead, a nose turned up slightly at the tip, just the hint of a weakening chin. A clean-shaven, boyish face, not devastatingly handsome by conventional standards, and yet there was something intensely likable about him.

The answer came to her in the present and was called up from the past simultaneously: his imagination, his creativity. Yes, that was it. Hap Reardon had a wonderful way of . . . of
thinking
. A way of embracing the magic and mystery—the
wonder
—of everyday life. Vita paused in thought, distracted by a momentary image of Hap walking with her, hand in hand, through the woods, stopping every step or two to bend over and examine a wildflower, or to identify the song of some invisible bird in the trees. He was—her mental thesaurus struggled for the right adjective, but all she could come up with was
good
. A
good
man. An uncomplicated man, sensitive, compassionate, self-aware. A man at peace with himself and his life. A man who found delight in simple things. A man of faithfulness and integrity.

And a man she would never get bored with.

Vita's rational brain put on the brakes so hard she could feel the whiplash inside her skull. Wait a minute. Was she actually thinking of a
future
with Hap Reardon? Impossible. Ridiculous.

Utterly unthinkable, and yet— Yet it was true. Like a file photograph slowly downloading into her memory, the picture materialized: the two of them, at an overlook up on the Blue Ridge Parkway, on a blanket under the stars. Chilled to the bone and shivering in the night air, laughing about the insanity of a midnight picnic at this time of year.

Hap taking her hand, gazing into her eyes.

Vita took in a ragged breath, and from somewhere deep within her she felt it.
Love
. Welling up in her so that she could barely contain it, battering at her in powerful waves, drowning her in its liquid warmth. She panicked, and went under.

It felt like death, like birth. Every nerve ending in Vita's body flamed with an incendiary sweetness, a phoenix-fire that conceived new life in the ashes even as it incinerated the old in a molten blaze of glory. The rational part of her brain cautioned her to stay back, to keep her distance; this conflagration could sear the soul and char the heart into a molten lump of lead. But the warning came too late. The heat was too intense, too compelling. Shrugging off the final layers of her carefully crafted armor, Vita Kirk reached out toward the fire.

Hap turned when her hand touched his arm, and their eyes met. “What?”

Vita stalled. “I—I—” She managed a wan smile. “I love you, that's all.”

His grin widened, and he stroked her cheek with his thumb.

“I love you, too, sweetheart.”

That was it. Nothing remarkable or earth-shattering. Simply the most natural, most comfortable of interchanges between two people in love.

By the time they pulled away from the auction site and headed for Hap's mother's house, the big white panel van was full. Vita had claimed a small inlaid walnut table for herself; the rest would go to the shop.

Vita had no idea how Hap intended to cram all he had bought into that crowded little space, but she had to admit he was good at his chosen profession. He had spent less than a thousand dollars, and the carved cherry rice bed alone—a double-size fourposter— was worth more than that. All told, he would probably quadruple his investment on the haul he had made today.

She had watched him, fascinated, as he prowled up and down the aisles examining various items at the estate auction. The old woman who had died had evidently been something of a pack rat; in addition to the usual assortment of furniture, tools, and household appliances, there were a dozen or more flatbed trailers piled with boxes. On one flat, they found cheap stainless steel tableware alongside priceless sterling silver; on another, a hideous lamp—a buffalo with a clock in its belly, topped with a cowhide shade—in the same box with an unobtrusive but elegant little Tiffany.

Hap knew his business. He went around pulling out drawers, checking dovetails, examining hardware, explaining to Vita why this piece was authentic and valuable, while that one was a reproduction. By the time the auction started, he had made a list of what he wanted and the maximum price he would pay. Vita had a hard time keeping up with the rapid-fire pace of the bidding, but twice Hap caught the auctioneer pulling bids out of the trees— pretending to acknowledge a bidder in the back of the crowd and then upping the price on the basis of that phantom bid. Very graciously, and without malice, Hap asked for an identification of the competitor, and the auctioneer apologized, saving face by saying he mistakenly interpreted a movement in the back as a valid bid.

By the time the last item was sold, Hap had acquired several fine pieces of furniture, and a truckload of stuff Vita thought worthless until he explained their value to her. Things like old comic books, a Betty Boop clock, a collection of advertising signs, and a contraption called a Whizzer Bike, which turned out to be a motorized bicycle, the earliest ancestor of the moped.

And if Vita thought she was impressed with Hap's expertise in antiques, she found herself even more amazed with the way he dealt with people. There had been a little girl at the auction— eight or nine years old, perhaps—who was bidding against Hap on a box of assorted knickknacks. Hap won the bid at six dollars, but once he had the box in his possession, he motioned to Vita and sidled over to where the little girl was standing with her father.

“Hi,” he said gently. “My name's Hap. Was there something particular in this box you were interested in?”