Gone...

After thirty-four days on the road, Bernard Walton and Eugene Meltsner finally return to Odyssey. Banners reading farewell messages cover the town, and City Hall has been decorated for an important departure. They assume Whit will explain everything, but Connie rushes from Whit’s End and angrily demands to know why they never left reliable contact information. The farewell has been for Whit himself. Tom Riley drove him to the airport an hour earlier, and he has moved away from Odyssey.

Connie explains that soon after Bernard and Eugene began their trip, Whit received an urgent call from the board of a Christian organization he had started in Chicago. Dr. Baines, an old friend and mentor, has died suddenly while leading a crucial archaeological mission in the Middle East. Unless someone takes charge quickly, the mission may close. The board considers Whit the best person for the responsibility. He has returned to Odyssey, prayed, sought advice, and finally decided to accept.

Whit has spent two weeks making arrangements and saying farewell, but no one has known how to reach Bernard or Eugene. He will remain in the Middle East until he decides it is time to return. Connie adds that Whit remembered Eugene’s words about a man eventually needing to broaden his horizons. Whit does not want merely to experience a wider world, however; he wants to help people in it.

Eugene is stunned that Whit could leave without saying goodbye to him personally. Connie learns that the flight is delayed another twenty minutes, giving Eugene and Bernard about thirty-five minutes to reach the airport. She must remain at Whit’s End, but urges them to try. Bernard postpones his long-awaited bath and drives, refusing to run lights or speed through residential streets even as Eugene counts every disappearing minute. He suggests that perhaps God is sending Whit where others need his help, but Eugene can think only of how much he still needs Whit in Odyssey.

Two miles from the airport, road construction stops traffic with a possible fifteen-minute delay. Eugene jumps from the truck and runs across a field. Bart Rathbone happens to be driving through the same field to avoid the traffic, and his shortcut takes Eugene to the back of the airport terminal. Eugene races through an employee-only area despite warnings from a worker, triggering a call to airport security.

Inside, Tom gives Whit one final, awkward farewell as the last boarding call sounds. Whit boards and settles into his seat, quietly asking God to help him relax about the journey. Outside, Eugene reaches the aircraft just as it pulls away from the gate. He runs beside it, shouting and waving that he has come to say goodbye. Whit sees him through the window and calls his name, but Eugene is too far away for the farewell he imagined. Security officers catch him and announce that he is under arrest.

Bernard reaches the public terminal too late and meets Tom, who has just watched the plane begin its takeoff. Security soon brings Eugene through. Tom recognizes one of the officers as the grown son of a family that once picked apples at his farm. With tactful conversation, he explains that Eugene panicked while trying to say goodbye to a dear friend and persuades the officer not to press charges. Eugene can only watch the departing plane and offer his farewell from a distance.

An older traveler overhears them mention Whit’s End. He introduces himself as Jack Allen, a boyhood friend of John Avery Whittaker. Whit wrote several weeks ago inviting Jack to visit, and Jack has flown in hoping to surprise him. Instead, he learns that Whit has just left and may remain abroad for a year or more. Though Jack initially plans to fly out the next day, Tom, Bernard, and Eugene invite him to visit Whit’s End and stay in town rather than making the entire journey for nothing.

At Whit’s End, Connie plays a recording of the community farewell Bernard and Eugene missed. Whit thanks Odyssey for the cards, messages, love, and care its people have given him. Jack remembers doubting Whit’s decision to move to Odyssey years earlier; now he understands how deeply Whit has loved the town and how deeply its people love him.

When the others leave, Eugene finally admits through his weariness that Whit’s departure hurts. He tells Connie that Whit would not have gone unless he trusted all of them to manage without him. Connie embraces him, and they promise one another that somehow they will make it.

At home, Eugene finds no telephone messages, but one envelope waits among the ordinary mail. Whit has written because he knew they might not meet before his departure. He says time is too short for everything he could express and gently avoids embarrassing Eugene with a long declaration of love and daily prayers. Instead, he leaves his friend one thought: “The best is yet to come.”