It is a typical autumn day. The rain comes down in torrents, drowning out almost every other sound. Only the rumble of an approaching car penetrates the din of the pounding water.
The car stops by the curb, and an old man steps out. He pays the taxi driver and watches as the yellow car slowly starts on its way back to the town from which it came. This small town has no bus, no taxi service of its own, leaving carless visitors to find transportation elsewhere.
Even though it is pouring, the old man simply stands on the sidewalk, clutching his small suitcase, which contains all of his worldly possessions. It is the first time that he has been in this town for decades, so he wishes to drink in the familiar sights of this historic main street, virtually unchanged since he left all those years ago.
A crowd of raucous teenagers charges down the sidewalk, laughing and shouting as they race to the door of the restaurant near the old man. He smiles briefly, remembering how he and his friends had gone there many a time for sodas and milkshakes. He wonders if the dear old place still sells cherry phosphates.
Then a new thought occurs to him, and the smile vanishes. It is possible that one or more of those kids could be her grandchildren. A strange thing, to imagine her with a husband and children, but not impossible. Perhaps it would be for the best, because then she wouldn’t have been lonely.
He thinks that perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to come back. If she were married, it would only cause trouble. And for all he knew, she could have moved away. She could even be dead, but he didn’t want to believe that.
But, stop. It isn’t just his own idea that he should return, he remembers. He has a Guide who laid that conviction to go home on his heart. It was with much prayer that he finally decided to sell his bookstore to the quiet middle-aged woman who had become like a daughter to him.
The old man is very blessed, and he knows it. It wasn’t chance that had brought him to a bookstore owned by a godly man when he fled his hometown. It wasn’t chance that had wrought a change in his heart and given him peace. It wasn’t chance that he’d been given a new family, of sorts, in that out-of-the-way town that had sheltered him.
He knows he must continue to trust and obey, as his mentor and unofficially adoptive father had taught him. And so, he takes one weary step after another. Arthritis causes his joints to ache as he moves, and he is tempted to pause and dig through his suitcase for a pill to relieve the pain.
But he is done with waiting, done with hesitating. Aches or no aches, he is determined to find her. He remembers clearly the neat little blue house where she lived growing up. It would be a place to start, and he must move as quickly as possible, for the daylight would not last much longer.
Her family. He recalled the quiet chuckles of her openly delighted mother, the stern face of her father with twinkling eyes that betrayed his amusement. They would be dead by now, of course. Like his own parents. He regretted that he had not returned sooner, not even to attend their memorials.
He had been too scared. Even now, he worries a little that he will be recognized and perhaps arrested, but the worry doesn’t bother him the way it used to. He knows he is innocent of the crime for which he was framed, although he wishes he had tried harder to find out what happened after he left.
For all he knows, she could still believe him to be guilty. He regrets leaving all those years ago, without even leaving a letter behind for her. There was no good-bye; he is sure that he deserves no warm greeting from her. If she’s even still here.
Yet, he will still try to find her.
He is drenched beyond belief when he reaches her old family home. The windows are dark; there is no sign that anyone is at home. However, the yard looks well-cared for, so there is evidently someone living here. The old man wonders if it is she who still resides in the little blue house with the pale green door.
At any rate, there is nobody here right now. He sighs, deciding what to do next. For some reason, he wants to go up the hill, the hill with its winding trails through the oak grove, the hill where he kissed her the day before his old world came crashing down.
She always goes for a walk in the afternoon. At least, she always used to go for a walk in the afternoon, but now she stays at home if it has snowed, or if there’s been freezing rain. She fears slipping and falling on the trails on the hill where few people seem to go, anymore.
But rain does not perturb her. So, today, she put on her bright red boots and her long overcoat, and opened up her ancient polka-dot umbrella, setting forth into the deluge. She leaves her dog at home, because his old hips are bothered by the uphill walk when it is this cold and wet, even if she were to give him something for the pain.
Her faithful friend would sleep by the radiator until she returned, as he always did. She smiles as she hikes up the narrow trail, smiles in spite of the frailty she feels. She smiles because she is thinking about the day she found her dog, when he was just a roly-poly bundle of fur.
There it is, the largest oak tree of them all. The old woman remembers that summer evening, so long ago, when her sweetheart kissed her in the shade of its spreading branches. Her smile fades as she thinks about the violent robbery and his disappearance. It was found out quickly that he had nothing to do with it, but he had never returned.
She still misses him, but she has lived a good life nonetheless. Her grandnieces and grandnephews were as beloved as any grandchildren could be. There are many friends that she has, friends that she made while serving the community. She gave many years of her life into work for the town, work for her Lord.
Sometimes, she had wondered what life would have been like if he had come back, but no longer. It was the sovereign planning of her heavenly Father that had given her this life, and she refused to have any regrets. She had prayed and cried and finally forgiven her sweetheart for vanishing out of her life.
It is the way things are meant to be.
The old woman stops and leans against the bark of the massive oak. She closes her eyes and prays, giving thanks for the beauty of this hill, for the rain that soaks the land which was so dry in the summer.
She opens her eyes after a while, and looks back down the trail, thinking it would best if she went home before it became too dark to see. Suddenly, as she stares downhill, she notices a shape moving in the rain, just a blur from this distance. But a person all the same.
Who could it be? No one is foolish enough to be out walking in this weather, herself excepted. The person comes closer and closer, but slowly, stiffly. She stands stock-still, and watches.
Unless his eyes deceive him, the old man sees someone standing under the grand old oak, their oak. As he climbs, he can see the bright red of the boots, the blue-and-white umbrella. Surely, surely…?
He is only a few feet away from her. He sets down his suitcase, and moves closer, searching the face hopefully. Those eyes, those warm brown eyes, peer out at him from under the hood of her raincoat. The wrinkled hands clutching the umbrella, he realizes, have not a single ring on any finger.
Brown eyes meet gray, and they momentarily look away, overwhelmed by what they can see. Then they return, and hold the contact longer.
“Is it really you?” she asks, her voice trembling.
His throat feels curiously thick, and he does not trust himself to speak. He nods.
She sets the open umbrella on the ground, off to the side. Tears mingle with the rain streaming down her face as she pulls back her hood, so he can see her face better.
Everything becomes a blur for him, momentarily, and he wipes a hand across his eyes. Finally, at last, he must say something. “I missed you.” His voice shakes.
They move toward each other in the same moment, and all at once, they embrace. Both weep, but both are overjoyed to have found each other, found their love.
It is still a cold autumn day, with the rain still pouring down in buckets. The torrential rain still drowns out most sounds, even the heartfelt murmurs and confessions beneath a certain ancient oak.
