Page 21 of Second Chance Fate

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Déjà vu isa transient mental state where a novel experience is perceived as though it has been experienced before. It is a memory misfire that leads to a false sense of familiarity and may be linked to activity in the frontal lobe, a brain region involved in sensory processing.

Caleb’s chair squeaked in protest as he leaned back and stared at his computer screen, reading the definition again. He got to the church this morning at nine and spent the majority of the morning working on his sermon for the following Sunday, but he was taking a quick detour to dictionary.com because his meeting with Owen kept making its way to the forefront of his mind. He hadn’t been able to shake the feeling he’d had the night before on the porch of Cobbler’s Cottage.

The moment he saw Owen, he recognized him. That was undeniable. It was a fact. The problem was, it wasn’t just that he’d seen the kid around; it felt like heknewhim. Owen recognized Caleb, but that didn’t prove anything. As the pastor in a small town, a lot of people knew who he was.

Three knocks sounded, snapping him out of his inner thoughts. He lifted his head and saw Judy standing in thedoorway. Her lips were pursed, indicating to Caleb he was not going to like whatever it was she had to say. “Two things. First, I emailed you the itinerary for tomorrow, and you?—”

“What’s tomorrow?”

“Sacramento. The Digital Presence Summit.”

“Oh, right.” He ran his fingers through his hair as he looked up at the ceiling and exhaled.

Caleb had completely forgotten that he’d been asked to speak at the social media conference for church leaders. He’d declined five times but finally agreed to the organizer, Ezekiel, because he was the son of his dad’s oldest friend. There were going to be panels on metrics and analytics to track performance, best practices, and platform optimization for Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, and Pinterest. He was slated to speak on strategies for creating effective content to increase reach, engagement, and retention, which he was not qualified to do.

The only reason Zeke asked him to do it was because between the church and Caleb’s personal social media accounts, there were over ten million followers/subscribers. Those were numbers that megachurch pastors like T.D. Jakes and Joel Osteen or evangelist Joyce Meyer had, but not the pastor of a small church in a town of less than five thousand residents. His situation was not duplicatable. It was not a rinse and repeat program. It had nothing to do with him or anything he’d done. It happened to him, despite him, not because of him.

“Have you worked on what you’re going to say?”

“Yep, it’s going to be the shortest presentation ever, just five steps.” Caleb sat back up, rested his forearms on the desk, and cleared his throat. “Step one: have a multiple Grammy-winning superstar post a pop culture reference involving you at a peak moment in the zeitgeist of awareness for maximum relevance. Step two: besides the Grammy-winning superstar and herequally famous husband, have not one but two Oscar-winning actors attend your church and post about it. Step three: sprinkle into the congregation several world champion athletes in both MMA and boxing, as well as two Olympic Gold medalists. Step four: make sure your town has two documentaries and two reality shows filmed in it and that the hosts live in the town. And finally, throw in a New York Times bestselling romance author for good measure, just to cover all the possible fan bases.”

Caleb wasn’t exaggerating those statistics. Karina Black and her husband, Ryan, were Grammy winners. Kyle Austen Reed and Shayne Fox had both won Academy Awards. Sam Holt and her husband Luke were gold medalists. Gabe Maguire and Luke Dorsey were both MMA champions, and Gabe’s brother Glenn was a world champion belt holder in boxing. Two documentaries have been filmed in town; one calledWhat is Love?The other followed Gabe Maguire’s return to MMA after a cancer scare. And Emma Locke was a NYT bestselling romance author. Hope Falls was drastically out of proportion to the national average of star power. Per capita, it had to be much higher than even Los Angeles.

“So youhaven’tworked on it?” Judy followed up.

“I have.” Caleb finished it the night after he agreed. He’d talk about the content he posted, but that didn’t have anything to do with his following, and he was going to be honest about that. “What’s the second thing?”

“Mrs. Costas called. She needs you to come and check on her dishwasher. It’s making a funny sound, and she’s worried it’s going to flood her kitchen again.”

Caleb closed his eyes and inhaled slowly through his nose. This would be his fourth visit to Mrs. Costas’ house in five days. Her calls started off as a couple of times a month, averaging one every other week. Gradually, she called more often. Now, she made an excuse for him to stop by at least three times a week;sometimes he’d be summoned to ‘stop by’ for one reason or another every other day.

On the surface, her house calls were valid in nature, having to do with repairs or security, but just beneath that, they were thinly veiled pretexts just to have company. The truth was, she was lonely. Almost a year ago, she lost her husband of sixty years, which was the catalyst for the phone calls.

Caleb wanted to support her in any way he could. He’d made himself available to her day or night. But the scales were beginning to tip from being supportive and creating a safe space for her to heal to enabling her to the point of becoming unhealthy. He knew that more than ninety percent of her house calls were bogus, which is why he’d gently broached the subject of her possibly moving into Golden Years Senior Living. The house she lived in was a lot of house for just one person at over three thousand square feet, not to mention it being over a hundred years old. Keeping up with repairs had been difficult for Chuck, and he spent his life in construction. Another benefit to Golden Years was that all of her social circle were residents there. But for some reason, she refused to even discuss the possibility of moving to the retirement home.

Whatever the solution was, this couldn’t continue. He needed to establish a healthy boundary. But he couldn’t cut her off cold turkey. Today, he’d begin to lay the groundwork for tapering off his visits and not being at Mrs. Costas’ beck and call.

The sound of Caleb standing from his chair and grabbing his keys from the hook on the wall roused a slumbering Minnie, who was sacked out on her oversized, luxury dog bed in the corner of the room. He’d splurged on the XXL plush cushion/beanbag that they could both easily fit on even now that she was seventy pounds. The bed was not only orthopedic memory foam for joint pain since larger breeds were prone to issues with arthritis; it was also designed specifically for dogs who suffered withepilepsy, with both cooling and comfort features to help dogs avoid stress. She had four of the beds in total. One at the church office, two at his home, and one at his parents’ home because she spent so much time there. When she wasn’t there, their cats, Captain and Tennille, claimed it as their own.

Minnie yawned, and he could see the wheels turning in her head as she debated whether or not she wanted to tag along or continue her afternoon nap.

“Are you gonna stay here with Judy or go for a ride?”

The word “ride” caused her ears to perk up, and Caleb had his answer. She rose, slowly, before stretching.

“Don’t rush on my account,” he said sarcastically, as she shook out her head and a little bit of slobber flung in the air.

“We’ll be back,” Caleb called out to Judy, who was back at her desk.

“Tell Lydia I said hi. Oh, and I did get some good photos this morning at Godly Gigglers for the newsletter. It worked out well because we walked to Brewed, and we were celebrating.”

The Godly Gigglers were Judy’s walking/prayer group. She’d offered to get some photos to put in the next newsletter to highlight the prayer group.

“What were you celebrating?”

“Carolina’s divorce is final, and she got to keep the silverware.” He didn’t understand why Carolina would care so much about silverware, but it was none of his business.

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