Exclusive for Glenn Beck’s listeners and viewers
by #1 New York Times bestselling author
Richard Paul Evans
Part 3 of 3
 Richard Paul Evans is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Christmas Box and fourteen other bestselling novels. He is the winner of two first-place Storytelling World Awards and the Romantic Times 1995 award for best women’s novel. His newest bestseller, just in time for Mother’s Day, is called The Walk–the story of Alan Christoffersen, a man who loses everything and begins a journey from Seattle, Washington, to Key West, Florida. |
In order to throw my wife off the scent, I told her that we’d go piano shopping on Saturday, which would be the day after my surprise arrived. The plan backfired.
The idea of unrestrained piano shopping boiled the coupon-clipping, sale-watching consumer blood that coursed through Keri’s veins. She fully intended to be a piano-buying expert by Saturday. With notebook and calculator in hand, she ran to nearly every piano store in the Salt Lake Valley. Ninety-six hours before V-day, Keri called my office. I was learning to dread her calls.
“I’m really glad you didn’t buy that Queen Anne piano,” she said for the third time in two weeks. “I don’t even want it anymore. It’s not a good kind.”
My heart, well versed in the procedure, went into palpitations. “Really?” I asked meekly.
“Yeah. The manufacturer is being sued for saying their soundboard is made of hardwood when it’s really not. They have a piece of particle board sandwiched between two layers of hardwood, and the ultra-resins they use can eventually separate. Good thing I found this out before we made a big mistake.”
“I’d hate to have the ultra-resins separate,” I repeated stupidly.
“Besides, I prefer the look of this other piano I found.”
It’s not worth it, I thought. Nothing is worth this. I was about to break, to tell all, to confess my purchase and ruin the surprise when, inexplicably, a fire ignited in my chest. No, I would not give in. Never. I had come too far to be denied. The wrong piano? The heck with the piano. I didn’t care if my brand of piano caused cancer. It was the surprise that mattered. My wife would be surprised whether she liked it or not. No one, especially my wife, would take this surprise from me…er…her.
“Honey, how about we go see the piano this Saturday.”
To my surprise she agreed. “Good idea,” she said. “You’ll be glad you did.”
“I’m sure I will.”
For better or worse, I had succeeded. Broken, but successful. Friday was the day of the piano movers and the surprise of my wife’s life. The mother of all Mother’s Days. I had looked into the gaping jaws of defeat and spit.
Defeat spit back. Just fourteen and a half hours from my moment of triumph, the phone rang. It was Keri. “I’ve done something really bad,” she said.
“What?”
“I opened something I shouldn’t have.”
“Opened what?”
“I’m sorry. I really am.”
I wasn’t connecting the dots. “Opened what?” I repeated.
“A letter from a bank,” she said slowly. “The one that is financing our new piano.”
My heart stopped. The bankers. It’s always the bankers. In the history of the world, how many dreams had been spoiled by the bankers? I didn’t speak. I barely breathed.
“We’ll laugh about it someday,” she said hopefully.
“Someday?” I said hysterically. “Ha! I’m laughing now!” And I laughed—the demented, twisted laugh of a madman who had lied and schemed, been insulted and demeaned, only to be denied in the end. Denied my dream of the ultimate surprise—a Mother’s Day of unequalled magnitude. Denied the dream of The Baby Grand.
Or had I? There was still the piano–the beautiful, hand-carved, hand-polished Queen Anne baby grand. A calm enveloped me. The piano, the mahogany piece of heaven that would fill our home with beautiful tones of rich, familial harmony: more than just an instrument of beauty, more than a work of art, it was now a symbol that would live in our family’s history, reminding Keri, every time she saw it, of the depth of my love for her.
No, I hadn’t been denied. At least not what really mattered. For even Keri was surprised at the lengths I was willing to go to give her a Mother’s Day that she would never forget—a day that would celebrate the day by honoring her for all the beauty and joy and madness that she brought to my life.
And that is something truly worth celebrating.
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Richard Paul Evans is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Christmas Box and fourteen other bestselling novels. He is the winner of two first-place Storytelling World Awards and the Romantic Times 1995 award for best women’s novel. His newest bestseller, just in time for Mother’s Day, is called The Walk–the story of Alan Christoffersen, a man who loses everything and begins a journey from Seattle, Washington, to Key West, Florida.