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"That is, sadly, where our story ends," a generation-older Jessie was saying to Jake.
Jake had been staying with Angie and Jessie for a week and had to be getting back to campus soon. He felt as if he was uncovering a valuable part of history here. He was making an important discovery and was part of something bigger than himself. He was also building a deep friendship with Angie and Jessie, and he felt as if his lifelong friends would be found through forging ahead with this project.
"What happened to her?" Jake asked, hoping he would somehow hear more about Miss Annabelle.
Angie, as slim and healthy as she was the day when her best friend left 27 years ago, said, "We left out a piece of information; it was too early to tell you before." Angie looked at Jessie. He nodded, and she continued, "Ms. Minner was writing authorities to extradite Miss Annabelle. She knew Jennifer went to Australia to be with John. So, Jenny took on a new identity."
Angie hesitated, then said, "She wrote us occasionally, Jake. We're sorry we told you we didn't have any contact with her, but in essence we didn't because she never included her address...or name."
"She'd sign every letter `Your friend'," Jessie said.
"Why?" Jake interrupted. "Do you have those letters -- can I see them?"
"Yes, we have them," Angie said, looking at Jessie. "And I'll let you read them because I think Jenny would want that."
"Yes, I agree," Jessie said, nodding.
"She didn't give us her address," Angie continued, "because she didn't want to incriminate us. The INS asked us on three different occasions if we knew her whereabouts. ...But, as you'll read in those letters, she was dying to hear from us."
"But, wouldn't the statute of limitations be long over by now?" Jake asked.
"I don't know," Jessie said, "but John and Jenny and their lawyer were too smart for that trick, anyway."
"What trick?" Jake queried with a puzzled look.
"The IRS twice questioned us about her whereabouts," Angie answered.
"Jenny and John warned us in their letters that would happen," Jessie added. "They knew that the IRS was the government's last resort to get people it wants."
"And there's NO statute of limitations for not filing with the IRS," Angie said, shaking her head.
"Even if you're not here in this country?" Jake asked.
"No, it doesn't matter," Angie said, "if you're a US. citizen and in Australia making money, you need to file."
"You end up paying income taxes to two countries," Jessie added.
"Of course, Jenny could not file because of the extradition against her," Angie continued. "And this is why she could not contact her students all this time. The U.S. authorities could not know where she was, and they were looking."
"What happened to her students after she left?" Jake asked.
"It was very sad," Angie said. "Jenny broke the rule just once. Two weeks after she left I received a letter for her students. She asked if Jessie and I could somehow get them together and read it to them."
"I told them one by one in the halls at school that Miss Annabelle sent us a letter to read to them," Jessie said. "Angie set it up to meet at Sally's house Friday after school. I think most of the kids' parents knew, but no one said anything. I'll always remember how each child's face lit up when I told him about receiving the letter. ...But every last one of them cried as Angie read the letter. I think they thought it was the start of contact again with their beloved teacher. As Angie read the letter, they realized it was good-bye."
"Everyone was crying, even me." Angie said.
"Wow, I can imagine that," Jake said, realizing the power that little lady had on his own emotions even though he never met her. "Do you still have that letter?"
"No," Angie and Jessie said in harmony. Then Jessie continued, "It was hard evidence of breaking the restraining order. Jenny was afraid a parent would tell Ms. Minner and the authorities would come to us for it. She asked us to destroy it after we read it to the children."
"It really felt as if Jenny herself were there, though, talking to the kids...then she was gone...gone from their lives, forever."
*
Later that Saturday afternoon, Jake asked Angie, "Did Miss Annabelle ever have children of her own?"
Angie dropped her eyes towards the floor. Jake suddenly realized this was a very sensitive topic for her.
"No," she said. "Like Jessie and me, Jenny wanted children with John more than anything else in the world after she left here. But mother nature played a cruel trick on her. A few months after she left her twelve `adopted children', she could not have children of her own. She told us about it in a letter. She said she now knew the emptiness of not ever being able to have a child, as Jessie and I expressed to her once. The physical and psychological trauma of Hammerschmidt, prison, and permanent separation from her students added up against her system and brought on early menopause. When I read her letter, I kept thinking how I wanted to save her from the emptiness Jessie and I have lived with...especially save Jenny."
"What about adoption?" Jake asked.
"She couldn't. They'd discover her true identity. She was a woman with so much love to give and yet, she could never be a mom."
*
Later that evening, Jake asked Jessie, "What was the book she put in your hand when she was leaving?"
"Her diary," Jessie said.
Her diary! Jake had forgotten all about that.
"Her diary, starting with that one, beautiful year...until the day she slipped it in my hand," Jessie continued. "She left a note inside that said: `Jessie and Angie, the memories are special. The memories are permanent pictures in my mind that I'll never forget; they're even more visually vivid and permanent in my mind than the words here on paper. So, I give my diary to you because I think it will show you how deeply I feel for you...and for those beautiful children I'm leaving behind. You may read it to them, too. I love you, forever. Jenny.' ...Let me tell you something, Jake, even 27 years later, reading her diary of that year still takes my breath away."
"Jessie and I got together with the kids a few times after Jenny left," Angie added. "Every time we did, they'd ask me to read to them some pages from her diary...sometimes a specific part, sometimes just at random."
"May I read it?" Jake asked.
"Yes," Jessie said, "Now that you know the story, you may read it."
Jessie went to get the diary. He returned and gave it to Jake. Jessie and Angie knew Jake wanted to read it right away, so they said good-night.
Jake opened the diary and looked into Miss Annabelle's soul. And although the story Jessie and Angie had told Jake had prepared him, still what he read sent an emotional impact through him that shook him to his feet. Had he not been told the story by Jessie and Angie, he would not have known what was happening and would have been frozen like a deer looking directly into the blinding lights of an oncoming truck. He would have been helpless to brace himself for the emotional impact that would have flattened him.
But with the story behind him, he could handle the emotional impact, such as her connection with and love for the young children in picture books -- even the childhood pictures of the world's most evil adults...back when they were just toddlers. Her descriptions of the toddlers' expressions, their thrill for life, and the incomprehensible trap they were heading into...shook up Jake's emotional constitution and drew to a head the tragedy of the anticivilization. Her revelations of pure love and its power went an entire leap beyond Jesus or Buddha. Jake knew he was inside the soul of the next evolution of man.
After fifteen minutes, Jake closed the diary to calm down. As he rested, he thought of perhaps one potential parallel experience from literature...just one in history. He knew from his college courses that St. Augustine's Confessions, written in 397 AD, was the first piece of literature that went inside the psyche of an individual's mind, known as introspection. Readers back then had no precedence, no previous experience of looking inside a person's mind. Everything before was just external stimuli. Early 5th-century readers had no mind space for the bombardment of St. Augustine's sophisticated introspection, thinking, judging, analyzing, and decision making. Back then, readers were overwhelmed by Confessions.
Today, as Jake reopened the diary, he was emotionally shaken as he read her journal entries titled Life Capture, Love Capture, Childhood Capture, and Happiness Capture. Jake never knew those levels of emotions even existed. At least he knew those new emotions came from the soul of the God-Man. Jake read every page of the miracle year and then collapsed on his bed, immediately falling into an exhausted sleep.
*
Jake woke the next morning with a start.
"Of course!" he called out as he stumbled out of his room looking for Angie or Jessie, but they were still sleeping. Oh right, he remembered, it was Sunday.
That's OK, I'll surprise them later, he thought as he went back to the little table in his bedroom and plugged in his laptop.
Jake knew how to find Miss Annabelle. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more obvious it became. He chuckled under his breath: isn't that the way so many discoveries are made? Seeing the obvious?
He remembered, from one of her lectures, the meaning of life was happiness, and the real source of happiness came from putting values into society. The more values, the more happiness. Miss Annabelle lived her life for happiness, so it followed that her great values -- her lectures -- would be put into society to reach as many people as possible. When he woke up this morning and saw his laptop, the idea clicked: she would have put her lectures out there -- on the Internet!
Now, he went to his search engines and entered several key words from one of his favorite lectures -- the one where she had to explain why there's no God -- and he got a listing of 147 possibilities. Barely able to breathe, he scrolled through those, linking to those that looked like possibilities.
He came upon one listing by a Jacqueline Belle. He linked to its URL and read a few lines then shouted, "Oh my God, I found her! I found her!"
He didn't realize Jessie had gotten up. He bounded into Jake's room, startling Jake and causing him to holler, which, in turn, startled Jessie and caused him to holler. After the two men had their hollers, Jake said, "Jessie...I found her. Here! She's Jacqueline Belle! This is her lecture with Ian about God-Man!"
Jessie leaned over and squinted at the laptop. "I'll be doggone! I always knew I should learn how to work these things! Angie!" Jessie ran out of the room to get his wife.
By the time Jessie and Angie returned a moment later, Jake had nearly a full history on Jacqueline Belle.
"This is Miss Annabelle, alright," Jake said, scrolling down a long page of accomplishments. "She's famous, you know. She's the author of that bestseller How To Raise A Genius Through Five-Minute Bedtime Stories!"
Jessie whistled as Jake scrolled down her many lectures, articles, books, and links.
"Hi Jenny. It's been a long time, baby," Angie said, very emotionally. "Oh, I'm so proud of her!"
"I can email her, you know," Jake said, "or at least her secretary."
"Oh my Lord, I don't know what to say!" Angie said, looking at Jessie. Her eyes were full of uncertainty as emotions started to overwhelm her. Jessie put his big arm around her and said, "Tell her, we miss her very much."
*
That evening, the floodgates broke. Miss Annabelle read her email first thing at work Monday morning, which was Sunday evening in New York. Miss Annabelle, now world-renowned as Jacqueline Belle, and Angie and Jessie exchanged a total of six long letters, via email by midnight, New York time.
Jake had asked them if he should leave, but Angie and Jessie did not mind that Jake was there, reading the exchange of letters. They actually liked having him there. He was turning into their first close friend since Miss Annabelle and Mr. Melbourne left.
What stood out to Jake was the love among these people. Success and separation did not make Miss Annabelle emotionally distant. It seemed to Jake that her success made her emotionally closer, for Angie and Jessie were her real friends.
As Jake watched the excitement and passion in their letters, he began to wonder what it would be like to see Miss Annabelle and her husband together again with her former students, with Angie and Jessie, and with that honest lawyer who represented her and helped her leave the country to have a happy life with Mr. Melbourne.
*
Now that Jake had found Miss Annabelle, he knew he must locate her twelve former students. Of course, he already knew about Ian, Sally, Theodore, and Jonathan Ward. They were internationally famous people taking science, medicine, business and politics to the next level.
What were the other eight doing now? That question beat like a drum, over and over again, in Jake's mind. Were they God-Men, too? Under any other circumstances, four of the world's most known persons coming out of the same third-grade class of twelve students would be statistically unbelievable. But under these circumstances, Jake realized Miss Annabelle had taken her students through an evolution into the next mentality of man. Jake began to think that the other eight students must be very creative and successful.
He told Angie and Jessie of his idea to locate each former student. They got excited about the idea, too. What would it be like to have a reunion? Yet, the threat of the IRS was too great to bring Miss Annabelle to America...or to reveal her pseudo identity. Jake knew she could never lose her freedom again.
Jake was not sure how it would all work out, but he knew he must proceed. For, he knew he found his "calling", his historic role in bringing humanity into the fully honest civilization.
*
The next morning, Jake drove into Buffalo. He met with a private investigator. For $1600, he would find the location of and provide a profile on the other eight members of the class.
While leaving the small office that looked like it came directly off a movie set complete with the unshaven, private investigator in suspenders wrapped tightly over his white shirt, Jake turned and put his hand to his chin, his eyes not fixed on any object as if in deep thought. Then he fixed his eyes on his private investigator and said, "Look in high places for these eight people."
"Wait a minute, kid," the PI said, looking down the list of eight. "Grab my newspaper, will ya?"
"Why?" Jake asked, not sure what he was looking for.
"Just pick it up," the PI retorted. Jake picked it up and started to hand it to the PI, but the PI stopped him.
"What's it say at the very top?"
"Uh...Patterson Press."
"Yeah, Patterson Press. I think that's one of your guys -- the owner of Patterson Press. Huge paper group, huge. But I'll do a full report to be sure."
Jake knew about the unique thrust of the daily Patterson Papers that made them grow into a national powerhouse. The Patterson Papers, in a daring move, shifted their format from political coverage to coverage of up-and-coming important values that people loved to read about, just as Alan talked about in third grade and actually started with Breakthrough News!
"Do you know the owner's name?" Jake asked, holding his breath.
"Al Patterson."
The PI did not notice Jake's reaction. The owner of Patterson Press was considered a maverick who was changing the look of daily print through shifting his readers' interest from the boring world of politics to the exciting world of technological progress, bringing both science and business to the forefront. Jake was speechless, once again. This now made five great accomplishers taking their fields of knowledge to the next level. ...The story was just beginning to unfold.
"I'll track `em all down and have the report for you by the end of the month," the confident PI said. The end of the month was less than two weeks away. What, oh what, Jake wondered, will his report reveal?
*
Jake had to get back to Boston to register for his classes for the second semester and to get back to work. During his stay with Angie and Jessie, they had become lifelong friends and helped Jake open the door to another life he never knew existed -- the life he was meant to live.
On the drive back to Boston, he smiled over and over in disbelief at what he had done. He thought about the profundity of what he was involved in. Here he was barely old enough to buy beer, and he would be contacting and, hopefully, bringing together some of the world's most powerful people. Not only that, he said to himself shaking his head in disbelief, but I'll meet those people and be part of that crowd. I'll be surrounded by and communicating with those geniuses!
When he asked himself how this could be happening, he realized it all started because of spotting a common denominator -- seeing that Ian Scott, Sally Salberg, and Theodore Winters all attended the same school at about the same time, which led to the discovery that they all sat in the same classroom together, taught by the amazing Miss Annabelle.
Jake drove home, watching the scenery go by, daydreaming how his life would now change. How is it, he asked himself, that I'm the person who'll bring those powerful giants together? When he realized he was bringing a powerful value to their lives by reuniting those soul mates, a rush of pride and happiness filled him beyond what other 21-year-olds know.
"Life is beautiful," he sighed.
*
Back at school, everything seemed to move so unbelievably slow. Jake had not started classes yet, but he pulled out his books from last semester. After having listened to Miss Annabelle's lectures and having witnessed her eight and nine-year-old students leap so dramatically throughout the school year, his college learning schedule for 20 and 21-year-olds seemed to move at a snail's pace. Yet, how could their studies, he wondered, really move any faster? The students in their fourth year were flat out studying each night and on weekends.
That riddle monopolized his thoughts. What exactly enabled Miss Annabelle's class to consume knowledge and cover so much ground? What was it in her technique that created those geniuses?
He knew he would find the answer in her book How To Raise A Genius Through Five-Minute Bedtime Stories. He had ordered the book through Amazon Books over the Internet the day he first discovered Miss Annabelle's alias, and today it had arrived.
Jake felt as if he were opening a lost treasure as he opened the cover of the book. In essence, he was. And there, in the first chapter, he understood the clear difference why Miss Annabelle created geniuses out of little children and why his college professors merely created knowledgeable young adults.
Her first chapter selected some of history's great geniuses who broke through to the next level of thinking. Jake remembered her lecture the last day of school when she told this to her students: In many cases, history's great minds had, while growing up, a mentor. This mentor did not necessarily teach the child scholastic lessons of literature, history, writing, math, and science. Instead, this mentor would, starting at a young age, talk to the child about life: how and why things were the way they were. By showing the impressionable young mind broader thinking patterns, the mentor gave the child so much more than the knowledge in the lesson itself. The mentor was showing the child the power of his mind to integrate sensory percepts into structured concepts and, eventually, to integrate concepts into growing mental puzzles that would reveal breakthrough puzzle pictures.
In some cases, the mentors routinely used Neothink, such as Socrates who mentored Plato...Plato who mentored Aristotle...Aristotle who mentored Alexander the Great. The child would naturally go into Neothinking himself.
Telling the child broadly integrated stories about life leaves deep impressions on a child's early psyche, her book explained. Those children inevitably start pulling together information as their method of thinking to take startling leaps in thought beyond their peers. At first, a parent will think his child is forming mature thoughts beyond his age. Soon, the parent will realize the child's thoughts go well beyond a function of maturity. The child's thoughts are a function of creativity, the parent realizes. Miss Annabelle's book explained that the child's creative thoughts often come from seemingly nowhere -- out of thin air -- yet carry a wallop of insight.
Jake realized that Miss Annabelle's general lectures at the start of each day were those broadly integrated stories about life, pulling together raw percepts into potent concepts, and potent concepts into powerful Neothink puzzles from which new puzzle pictures would form and radiate new knowledge to her students. Each morning her stories would send warm new knowledge into their receptive minds.
Miss Annabelle's book went on to say that, whereas parents are obviously not mentors like those great scholars throughout history, ordinary parents can have a similar effect and outcome. She gave them effective techniques to ignite the new way of thinking -- building Neothink puzzles -- in their children's minds. She told parents to go outside of normal boundaries, to talk about unlikely topics for young children -- like how asphalt roads are like little pebbles pressed and held together and that sidewalks are like sand pressed and held together. By bringing up unexpected subjects, their young minds learn from the beginning how to stretch and reach beyond the average child's world.
She also emphasized that, in these five-minute bedtime stories, for parents to explain the why, how, and what behind things: what they are made of, how they work, and why they work that way. The combination of unusual, unexpected topics with the how, why, what behind them both expands the child's mind to broader thought patterns and starts their minds going down to the essence of things where the child could best understand them and, later on, bypass illusions. Over time, as the child absorbs more and more knowledge at its essence through these five-minute bedtime stories, he will start to see common denominators and begin to link together the world around him into growing concepts and, eventually, growing puzzles.
Whereas the parent himself may not know how to do Neothinking, the child will rather quickly evolve into that next level of thinking, for that is the natural way of thinking for very young children up to the age of six or seven, her book explained, showing substantial evidence to support her hypothesis. The sign of the child's mind making the jump into puzzle-building Neothink is when he becomes curious and starts asking a lot of questions about things around him. His mind is searching for common denominators to snap together or, in more advanced cases, for puzzle pieces to snap into a growing Neothink puzzle.
Reading Miss Annabelle's book let Jake understand why her twelve students covered so much more ground of new knowledge than he and his peers in college. Her third graders were pulling together thoughts from every conceivable corner of life as they snapped together growing puzzles of knowledge in their minds.
"Wow," Jake said as he put down Miss Annabelle's book to think. The idea hit him that, with the widespread simple techniques in her book, the next generation could be the civilization of God-Man. What would the world be like, he wondered, with hundreds of millions of geniuses such as disease-curing research doctors like Sally and cost-vanishing value producers like Theodore? A world of millionaire wealth and perfect health for everybody...what a life that would be!
He lay back on his pull-out couch in his dorm room. Down near the end of the hall, Amad's party was heating up. Soon, there was a loud knock on Jake's door. It was Amad.
"Come on, Jake," Amad said. He sounded like he'd been drinking for awhile. "Three girls at my room are new this semester, and they want to meet you!"
Jake liked Amad, his Saudi Arabian friend. Jake had been really deep into his discovery of Miss Annabelle since New Year's day. Although he wanted to finish Miss Annabelle's book, he decided to take a break and visit Amad and meet those mysterious girls. Although Jake was a serious minded young man, he loved girls.
Jake's room was next to the lobby on the fourth floor, across from the elevator. He left with Amad and walked to the end of the hall where people were coming and going from Amad's room, using the stairway just outside Amad's room at the end of the hall. Amad led Jake into his crowded party room.
Jake instantly caught the eye of the young women. Jake was a good-looking and confident guy. His light brown hair and blue eyes were especially attractive to Middle Eastern gals. Tonight, though, Jake's mind was preoccupied with the chapter he had just read by Miss Annabelle.
His preoccupation with his thoughts made him even more mysterious and appealing to the ladies. When Amad introduced him to three attractive young ladies, Jake felt an immediate attraction for the one in the middle. She had a mature look that seemed to put a protective layer between her, with her natural good looks, and the party guys. But that serious aura is what caught Jake's attention.
The initial attraction was mutual. She had been watching Jake since he entered the room. She liked men who were thinkers.
"Hello," Jake said to the three young ladies, his eyes settling on the mature one.
Amad was saying something silly to the three ladies about "My main white-man, Jake". Two of them were giggling.
"Hi. I'm Jasmine," the mature one in the middle said, holding Jake's eye contact as she put out her hand to shake his. As Jake introduced himself, his mind visually absorbed her. She was very slender with long, sleek curves. She must have been no taller than five foot one, but her long features made her look taller. Lots of noise and activity surrounded them, but they heard and saw only each other.
"What's your major?" she asked.
"Economics," Jake said. He had always dreamed of being very successful in business, but as he answered this beautiful woman, he wondered for the first time where his education stood with his goal. He was discovering a path he knew he must travel -- a path he knew would lead to the life he was meant to live. Does an economics degree fit into that journey?
"Are you still with me?" the lovely Jasmine said, smiling beautifully.
"Oh, I'm sorry...my mind's really been preoccupied lately," Jake said, realizing with some embarrassment that he started wrestling with thoughts in the middle of meeting Jasmine. "What's your major?"
"English literature and journalism," she said. "And the journalist part of me is just a little curious about those serious thoughts I'm competing with."
Jake looked at her and laughed. She was a beautiful sloe-eyed Middle Eastern girl. He knew that his array of thoughts would bore most college girls, especially those he met at parties. But this beauty was asking, and she seemed to perk up when he said, "Oh, well, it's a long story."
"I'd love to hear your story," she said, standing up straight from the wall she was leaning on.
Her gesture, her serious interest in his goal, really attracted him to her. "I'll tell you if you'll tell me your story of why you're getting into journalism," Jake offered.
"Well, you'd be the first," she said, not hiding her attraction to him.
"I'd like that. Have you had dinner, yet?" Jake asked, feeling a little nervous about officially asking her out.
"I know the perfect place," Jasmine said as a shy smile escaped from her lips.
Amad spotted Jake and Jasmine leaving the party. "What's this?" he said in his Saudi Arabian accent. "No, don't tell me...yes, it's true...I see that glow...I see that glow in your eyes. It's got to be love!"
Jake and Jasmine laughed. Amad was funny and disarming, and...down deep...they hoped he was right.
*
"What a quaint little place," Jake said facetiously as they squeezed into the corner cafe and pub. It was packed with college kids, back from the holidays and in the cafes at night, socializing with old friends and meeting new ones just before the new semester. It was a crowded, cozy little place full of warmth and spirits inside. The windows were covered with a thick layer of condensation, adding to the toasty aura inside.
Jake led Jasmine through the crowded bar -- and through a chorus of greetings and handshakes from his friends -- toward a small empty table in the corner. Jasmine was surprised by how many people knew Jake. She knew that a number of them wanted to talk with him but gave him his space because they did not know his date.
Jake and Jasmine made it to the corner table before anyone else and sat down.
"How do you know all those people?" Jasmine asked curiously.
"Oh, you'll know `em too within a month."
"Oh yeah?" she said with a peculiar smile. "I'm a sophomore here, you know."
"You transferred?" Jake asked.
"No. I've been attending here for a year and a half."
"Really! Why haven't I seen you before?"
"I don't go out much," Jasmine said, not sure whether to be a little ashamed or a little proud. "I'm usually too busy studying...or too picky."
"Too picky? But you're out with me."
Jasmine blushed. "You got me really curious back there, you know. What is it that's got your mind so preoccupied?"
"Not so fast," Jake said playfully. "We had a deal, remember? What made you want to become a journalist?"
Jasmine looked intensely at Jake, searching his eyes, deciding if she could trust him. Within his eyes, she saw strength and compassion, qualities she could trust.
"By the way," Jake said, interrupting her thoughts, "I'm minoring in journalism, and we haven't had a class together yet. But I plan to fix that problem this semester." He smiled.
She smiled back. The thought of taking a class with him really pleased her.
"Tell me why you picked journalism," Jake said, seriously.
She decided to trust him and tell him something very personal.
"I got into journalism for what I believe is the opposite reason than most," Jasmine began. She noticed she felt comfortable telling Jake her secret. "When I was a little girl, my dad was like Hercules -- so big, strong, confident, successful. He was a developer, always building his next small empire a little bigger than he'd ever done before. He was a proud and happy man.
"One night when I was about 10 years old, I woke up and walked downstairs because I thought I heard him. There he was, crying like a little boy. I didn't know what to do, but I wanted to help him. I brought him a tissue and hugged him. He didn't want anyone to see him like that, but at least he knew I loved him with all my soul.
"That month, we moved out of our beautiful custom home into a small tract home, and I left my private school for public school. The change didn't in itself bother me in the least. But what did bother me was how my dad didn't laugh anymore. He didn't walk around like a proud man anymore. I didn't understand it then, but his spirit was broken."
Jake listened. What had happened to her father? "Did he ever get his spirit back?" he asked.
Jasmine dropped her eyes and said, "No. I always hoped to see his pride and happiness return, but it never did. ...I remember looking across at him at the dinner table. When his eyes met mine, I'd smile, hoping to see that infectious happiness erupt again in his smile. He'd always smile back, but it was empty -- a shell of what once filled that man.
"Years later I learned what had extinguished his spirit. I stumbled upon it while doing a report for high school. My father had invested every dime of his life savings to go for yet the next level in his self-made growing empire. He invested every dime he had into developing a beautiful shopping mall.
"The local media wrote inflammatory articles that stirred up environmental activists, neighborhood protesters, and zoning officials. The media wouldn't let up. Some journalists decided they'd make heroes out of themselves by `rescuing society from this business scrooge who would destroy their planet and their neighborhoods.'
"The momentum against my father got out of hand because of the dishonest media attacks until finally, after he invested every dime he had, he could not do anything more. He drowned in a tidal wave of manufactured envy."
Jasmine stopped herself from saying any more, before she lost her composure.
"I'm so sorry," Jake said. During his four-week journey discovering Miss Annabelle, his emotions had matured and expanded, and he really felt sympathy from his heart for Jasmine's father. Jake had learned a lot about values, effort, and justice. Jasmine's father put out a lot of effort to build beautiful values for society. But, in the end, that society turned on him and destroyed him. It genuinely bothered Jake that her father was a victim of manufactured envy and ego-justice.
"I'm sorry for asking this: is your father still living?" Jake did not know why he asked that from a college-age girl, but felt compelled to know. Jake hoped her father was alive and well, because Jake felt as if justice needed to and might still be served.
"Yes," Jasmine said, a little surprised. At that moment, she could feel Jake's genuine pain for her father. "I saw relief in your eyes that my father is still living. Why?"
"Maybe you really can understand what I've discovered these past few weeks," Jake said, realizing that Jasmine was coming from a different world than other young women he'd met. Jasmine lived in a world searching for justice.
"Jasmine, you're becoming a journalist to make things right out there, aren't you?"
"Yes...you're the first person who understands me." Jasmine felt her emotions swept up into Jake's warm eyes. "I want to help wonderful people like my dad, not punish them. I want to show the world what good lies in them and the beauty in what they create."
"Where can you be a journalist like that?" Jake asked, swallowing hard in anticipation.
"There's only one group of papers I'd ever write for. It's the Patterson Group. The owner, Al Patterson, is my hero."
Jake swallowed hard again, then said, "Now, I must tell you my story..."
Jasmine cried and laughed as she listened to Jake's story. She was overwhelmed. Her hero was one of the students of Jake's Miss Annabelle. Jasmine also sensed her father belonged with this unique group of people. Maybe his internal light could glow again.
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