I'm so happy that I took the time to read it as I'm recuperating from spinal surgery. Sometimes these forced breaks provide opportunities to read well-written and meaningful books.
Unlike The Five People You Meet in Heaven, this one was a mystery, of sorts. The story is set in Coldwater, Michigan (a fictional town in the book, but there's a real Coldwater, Michigan). People start receiving brief phone calls from loved ones who had passed away. There seems to be no connection to any of the people, their deaths, or the reason for the calls.
A reporter begins to cover the calls, particularly those that one woman, Katherine, is receiving. The coverage draws attention to the small town. Before long, people from all over the world are coming to Coldwater as pilgrims wanting to talk to or be close to those who have received calls; or to protest.
One of the people to receive calls from loved ones was Jack, the police chief. One conversation that he had with his son, Robbie, addressed fear. Robbie said, "God wants people to know not to be afraid...fear is how you lose your life...a little bit at a time...What we give to fear, we take away from...faith."
About midway into the book, one of the characters, Sully, is being focused on more. He was a military pilot who was cleared for landing and then, on the descent, landed on top of a Cessna. The Cessna belly-landed onto the runway, its rudder damaged by the larger aircraft's engine. Sully made the decision to eject from the plane as it pointed to an empty field and eventually crashed.
The air-traffic controller, realizing he was at fault, abandoned the control tower and sped away. At the same time, Giselle, Sully's wife who was coming to pick him up from the airport, saw the crash in the distance. As she said a quick prayer for his safety, she rounded the corner by the airport and Elliott, the air-traffic controller who was abandoning his post, drove his car into her car. He died at the scene, and she was transported to the hospital.
It was later found out that Sully had had a couple of drinks the night before, within the 12-hour window of safety (from bottle to throttle). Because the voice recordings at the control tower were inaudible in parts, the blame for the accident shifted to Sully who ultimately ended up serving time in prison during which time his wife passed away.
Once he was out of prison, he got a job at the local newspaper and learned that the obituaries for the paper were written by a secretary at the local funeral home. This was the same funeral home that had oversaw his wife's funeral. Sully became suspicious of people at the funeral home as well as with the paper; and believed that someone was behind the phone calls.
***Spoiler alert: don't read any further if plan to read the book. The ending is told below.***
As he is digging deeper into research and talking with people around town, the plan for a big event is taking place scheduled for a Friday after Katherine talks to her deceased sister who assures her she will call on an upcoming Friday.
Sully finds out that the funeral director, Horace, was involved in the military as well. He is able to find out Horace's last name with the help of Liz, the librarian, at the town library. She also is able to help him find Horace's home address.
On the day of the event, there is a major snowstorm which cancels most activities and makes it very difficult for anyone to get around. Nonetheless, the event continues as scheduled. The eight people who had been receiving phone calls would arrive at the event and get set up on stage. The hope was that some would receive phone calls during the event. However, if none did there was plenty of programming with paranormal experts, clairvoyants, and other speakers.
As everyone is on stage with their phones in hand, Sully is driving erratically through town to get to Horace's personal home since he found out he never works on Fridays...the same day that the phone calls from heaven always happen.
Almost in unison, the phone calls start ringing. One by one, they are answered.
At the same time, Sully has scaled a fence and discovered a building and radio tower that was camouflaged on Horace's property. He entered the building and saw computer monitors, keyboards, and racks of electronic equipment. Horace invited Sully to sit.
"What are you doing?" Sully whispered.
"If you didn't know, you wouldn't be here." Horace tapped several keys. "Here we go."
And with a tap of a key, Katherine's phone rang. Katherine answered it and it could be heard over loud speakers at the event.
With each question that Katherine asked, Horace typed something quickly. Her dead sister's voice, re-created, was now having a conversation with the living.
Katherine asked her sister about heaven. Horace typed the answer to which Diane's voice said, "In heaven, we can see you...We can feel you...We know your pain, your tears, but we feel no pain or tears ourselves...There are no bodies here...there is no age...The old who come...are no different than the children...No one feels alone...No one is greater or smaller....We are all in the light...the light is grace...and we are part of...the one great thing."
Katherine asked, "What is the one great thing?"
"Love...You are born in it...you return to it."
Sully was furious and ripped the cords from the electrical outlets, threw the monitors onto the floor, and swept the rack of equipment over. Horace believes he has done nothing wrong, while Sully sees it as some sort of lie and false hope that is being given to those who have lost loved ones.
When he was pressed as to why he did it, Horace said, "To make the world believe."
Sully asked, "Why does that matter?"
"If it believes, it behaves better."
"What's in that for you?"
"Penance...sometimes you sit in a cell and don't deserve it, Mr. Harding." He looked away, "Sometimes it's the other way around."
Sully felt lost. "Why those people?"
"It could have been others. These were enough." He went on to explain that he chose Coldwater because of Sully.
Sully still doesn't make the connection between Horace and himself. Horace encouraged him to read the deed to the house one more time. Then they exchange some more words, with Horace extending his condolences to Sully and that he was sorry he never got to say good-bye. Only angering Sully, he replied, "You don't know anything about her!"
"I will soon enough...I'm going to rest now. Please forgive me." With that, Horace presses a button on the wall and the room fell into blackness. Sully somehow manages to escape in the darkness.
He calls a reporter at the local paper who encourages him to let a reporter from a larger paper call him since they now know the calls were fake. Sully says to give him an hour.
He sent a frantic text message to Liz asking if she had the deed to Horace's home. She wrote back that he did. Looking through all the paperwork, he found it and the signature: Elliot Gray. The father of the air-traffic controller who gave the wrong landing clearance to both pilots.
Just as Sully was about to share the truth with a reporter, the line went dead. Moments later it rang again. This time it was a woman's voice: Giselle's voice. She encouraged him not to share what he knew. And so he didn't.
Soon after, the crowds of people left Coldwater and life resumed to what it was before in some ways. In other ways, life changed, relationships changed, and more people were attending church.
Mitch Albom writes, "Desire sets our compass, but real life steers our course. Katherine Yellin had only wanted to honor her sister. Amy Penn had only wanted a big career. Elias Rowe had only wanted to run his business. Pastor Warren had only wanted to serve God. Desire set their compasses, but the events in the last sixteen weeks had steered them far off course."
As the story concludes, Jack (the police officer) tells Sully that Horace had called the police station to report a dead man at his property. It ended up being Horace/Elliot. He told Sully that he took a letter from the desk and wanted him to read it.
The letter explained who Elliot was and what had transpired the morning of the accident. His son, the air-traffic controller, left his home angry after his estranged father had showed up unannounced and they had an argument. An hour later, he gave the wrong clearance for the landings.
While this was happening, the father was on the way to see his son one last time and give him his will. He heard the plane crash and went to the control tower to find his son yelling, "What did I do?" His father said to lock the door and let him handle everything since he had been involved with military communications and could erase all the data.
He came to Coldwater to settle his debts. He purchased a home and took on a new identity. He met the director of the funeral home and purchased a portion of the business.
Horace/Elliot said, "I...discovered that the grieving of others gave me comfort. I listened to their stories. Listened to their regrets. Nearly all of them had a single desire - the same desire, I suppose, that led me to the airfield that day: to speak with their loved ones at least once more.
"I decided, for a handful of them, to make it so. To make my last act one of empathy, and perhaps give you and your son something hopeful after your wife's passing."
After reading the letter, Sully looked at the time on his phone when he received a call from Giselle (after her death): 7:44 p.m. He called Jack at the police station to ask the time of death of Horace/Elliot: 6:52 p.m. How could this be explained? What did he believe now?
Close to the ending of the book, the author looks at how lives were positively changed because of these calls - even if they were orchestrated by Horace/Elliot. "In their own way, the calls had steered people to just what they needed" - whether that was friendship, a career change, comfort, the ability to make amends, a new future, or answers to prayers.
"We call out; we are answered. It has been that way from the beginning of belief, and it continues to this very moment, when, late at night, in a small town called Coldwater, a seven-year-old boy hears a noise, opens his eyes, lifts a blue toy to his ear, and smiles, proving heaven is always and forever around us, and no soul remembered is ever really gone."
1 comment:
I didn't read any further. :)
Spinal surgery! I hope your recovery goes smoothly and you get to read a lot of great books!
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