Any Minute: A Novel

by Deborah Bedford

  Their joint oohs and ahs as lightning scribbles the Cook County sky or their collective ewww each time the ump calls a strike a ball.

  Now, at the Starbucks on North State Street, a whole chorus moaned as one because everyone had somewhere else to go and some woman was holding up the line.

  While the woman dug in her pocket to pay for her double latte and discovered she didn’t have her wallet with her, Sarah smoothly took out her billfold. Since she was next in line, it was easy for her to wink at the cashier and slip the dollar bills onto the counter beside the cash register.

  The girl smiled, punched the button, and discreetly slipped the money into the register. She even managed to hand Sarah her change. By the time the woman looked up, still trying to sort through the few coins she had found, the girl said, “No need to worry. Someone already paid for your coffee.” She motioned to the end of the row where the barista slid the tall cup toward her. The woman just stood there, stunned, and the girl repeated, “It’s been taken care of.”

  “It has?”

  The girl nodded.

  “By who?”

  Because of the winks, the cashier understood this was a secretive deal. She shrugged, but tilted her head toward Sarah.

  The woman turned to see who had helped her. She raised her eyebrow gratefully at Sarah, although Sarah never confessed to her good deed. The woman smiled self-consciously at the impatient crowd before she walked away, clutching her cup to keep her hands warm, her eyes alight with happiness.

  Sarah couldn’t say exactly why she’d done it. Some who’d known her well through the years would tell you she did it just to get the line moving again. She’d stood in that line every morning for the past five years, watching people fumble through their purses or filing through their wallets, and she’d been perfectly willing to complain right alongside everyone else.

  The days passed quickly once she returned to work. As she stood in the trading pit one morning that week, as the price of precious metals had begun to rise and she stood on tiptoe to make the hand signal and shouted, “Taking! Leo, we’re taking all the way! Taking! Taking!” a gentle, certain voice whispered into her heart: Is that what you want, Sarah? To take? When you can’t be really happy, not the way I intend you to be, without giving?

  And so she did something about it. She realized Leo wasn’t able to leave the office until she left first. She glanced at the clock that afternoon, making a mental note to head home at a decent hour so Leo could go home too. Another day, after they’d enjoyed a particularly successful trading session, Sarah said to him, “I’ve taken you for granted, Leo, and I apologize for that. Your help means so much to me. I’m proud of all we’re able to accomplish together.”

  She watched him straighten his shoulders. “Really?” His voice sounded doubtful. “You are?”

  “Absolutely,” she said. And Leo stood even taller.

  The more Sarah saw how kindness affected people in such a positive way, the more she wanted to be kind. She was beginning to realize that it not only affected the recipient, but it affected her too. She felt different. She had an excitement about ordinary, everyday life that she had never had before, as if in searching for opportunities to give, she was searching for treasure.

  On a cold day at the grocery store, she returned her shopping cart to the boy who happened to be stooped into the wind, pushing a snakelike row of carts toward the door.

  “I thought I’d bring this to you.” Normally she left it propped against someone’s car, not caring at all that they would have to deal with it before they could leave.

  He stared at her like she was nuts. “I could have just come to get it. It’s my job.”

  “I didn’t mind pushing it over here. Thanks for all you do.”

  Sarah left a pack of gum on Ninth-Floor Guy’s chair. She secretly notified the waiter and paid the lunch tab for a young couple who looked like they might not be able to afford to go out very often. She left a potted plant on Rona’s desk and didn’t sign her name.

  She watched a little boy on the sidewalk who’d been left to take care of his little sister and told him she thought he was a very good big brother. She poked her head into a bridal boutique and spent a few minutes admiring the prospective brides. “Oh, how beautiful!” she said, grinning as one of them surveyed herself in the three-way mirror.

  In the gift shop that opened off the lobby of her office building, Sarah told the cashier that she should always remember how loved she was by God. She took an extra half hour one afternoon and helped a friend in human resources organize some of her shelves. Rose commented how she liked Sarah’s purse, and Sarah emptied it on the spot and gave it to her.

  “What happened to you?” asked one of her colleagues.

  If people at Roscoe had made a wide circle around Sarah Harper before, it was worse than ever now. No one had any idea quite what to expect from her. What had happened to the old Sarah Harper? Who was this new woman?

  “She must have taken quite a bump on the head,” Rona decided. “She’s not acting like herself.”

  “Watch your back around her,” suggested one of the ninth-floor guys. “Today she offered me the parking space by the elevator. The one she always used to race for. She said everyone was leaving it open, and she didn’t want it anymore.”

  They figured the “new Sarah” had come up with some creative scheme to get everyone to help her so she could get another promotion. They couldn’t believe she was just being nice. Even if she was, it wouldn’t last more than a week or two. Once she got over the trauma of her experience, everyone whispered, everything would go back to normal and she would be the same selfish woman she’d always been.

  “I tell you,” they commented with wide eyes when they saw her traipsing back from the trading floor with that unusual, broad smile on her face, “there’s something drastically strange going on with Sarah.”

  As the evening grew soft outside the window, Sarah treasured the few moments of peace before Joe came home. These days, the minute Joe walked in, brittle tension permeated the house as a shadow of anger fell over everything. Sarah had changed in other places, but at home, where it mattered most, she was still fighting with her pride. Being vulnerable at home felt especially dangerous to Sarah because she remembered all the times she had tried to be kind to her mother at home and been rejected.

  Any minute, the car pool would drop off Mitchell from his weekly Cub Scout meeting. Kate gurgled happily from her high chair. Sarah plopped in the seat across the table from her and, with the schnauzer curled at her feet, started up a conversation. She rambled on about a great many things while Kate listened—politics and fall fashion trends and a client who changed his investment plans every time she phoned him. Finally she talked about the particularly pleasing shape of Cheerios, which was in Kate’s department of expertise.

  But mostly they sat across the table from each other, examining each other’s gazes. Sarah touched her daughter’s pulse where it rose and fell in the soft spot atop her head. She gazed at Kate’s toes, which resembled a row of tiny butterbeans.

  Kate picked up a Cheerio and held it in her mother’s direction. Sarah ate it out of her daughter’s fingers.

  Sarah held back tears as she watched her daughter’s innocent face.

  She knew deep inside that she needed to have a heart-to-heart talk with Joe, but each time she planned to, she got scared.

  A huge chasm still yawned between the two of them. Sarah really, really wanted to cross it, but she didn’t know how. Every time she tried to say something kind to Joe, a lump constricted her throat. Her tongue felt like ice. She’d tried with her mother and failed miserably. She couldn’t risk failing with Joe. This was the man she loved. It would be too awful.

  Oh, Father, she thought. There are so many walls built up between all of us. Especially between Joe and me. But Mitchell has been hurt too, and I can tell he doesn’t trust me when I tell him something. I need your help, Father. How do I go about repairing the damage I’
ve done?

  Joe called and said he would be home after bedtime because something had come up at work that he needed to finish. That had been happening more and more since her accident, and Sarah wondered if he was really busy… or just making excuses not to have to be with her.

  Harold invited Sarah to meet him at Daley Plaza. He had business at city hall, he told her, and she owed him a rain check on the coffee date she’d forgotten.

  She leaned against one of the cement planters, watching her stepfather approach carrying two paper cups complete with travelers’ lids and hot sleeves. “Hey, kid,” he said, handing over an Earl Grey tea he’d picked out for her. “How’s my girl doing?”

  She thought about that. “I’m fine,” she said, nodding. “I really am.”

  “Do you have a few minutes to talk about your mother?”

  The question felt like a jab to the pit of Sarah’s stomach. Ah. So that’s what Harold had wanted to meet about. After all these years of watching Jane and me wound each other, poor Harold is still trying to play peacemaker.

  Sarah sighed. She couldn’t help being disappointed. “I guess so.” She had hoped he wanted to talk about other things instead.

  “What’s that face?”

  “You know what it is.”

  “Yes, I guess I do.”

  It was easy giving things to people she didn’t know very well or to people who hadn’t hurt her. Surely God couldn’t expect her to reach out again to this woman who pushed her away every time she tried. Sarah already knew what would happen. She’d only get shot down.

  “Your mother had a lump removed from her breast last month.”

  “Oh no.”

  “The lump was benign, but she had a scary week before the results came back. I wanted her to tell you about it, but she wouldn’t.”

  “Wow.” Sarah stared at her drink lid. Why would Jane go through something like that alone? But she already knew the answer. Her mother would rather face a crisis alone than ask for help from the daughter she’d never wanted.

  “A lot of time has passed, Sarah. I thought you might want to try reaching out to her again.”

  Sarah lifted her cup in a semitoast to the man who had loved them both, who had raised Sarah as his own daughter, who from the beginning of his marriage to Jane had been caught between them. “Have I thanked you lately for stepping in to raise me when no one else would? Have I thanked you for teaching me how to drive on the Ike?”

  Harold threw back his head and laughed. “Don’t you dare do that to me, Sarah. Don’t you dare tell people I’m the one who taught you to drive. I’ll never live it down.”

  She gave him a teasing cuff on the sleeve, but he grew serious again. “Your mother got hurt when she was young, and she never did anything to stop her heart from growing hard.”

  “Wasn’t that her choice, not mine? Why should I have to be the one who keeps trying?”

  Harold didn’t speak.

  “I was a child who felt responsible because my mother didn’t accept me. I thought I was doing something wrong when it was Mama’s job to love me.”

  She turned her cup in her hand. She didn’t raise her eyes from the plastic lid on top.

  “People on this earth don’t always do the job they’re supposed to do; we all have to live with that,” he said. “We have to learn to forgive so we can enjoy life as much as possible. If we don’t forgive those who have hurt us, then we end up hurting other people who are not responsible for our pain at all.”

  Sarah thought about that comment and then blurted out, “All I ever wanted was for my mother to love me. Was that too much to ask?”

  Harold set his paper cup on the ground and took his step-daughter’s face in his hands.

  “Was it, Harold?”

  “You have to keep trying because if you don’t, you’ll be the one hanging on to your mother’s bitterness, and it will ruin your life.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Jane Cattalo had worked so many years at the Lathrop Steel Casings Company, it was easy for her to hit key sequences on the steno machine, keep a running tab on the expenditure spreadsheet, and carry on a conversation with someone across the counter all at the same time. Her hands tapped the keys as she scowled up at her daughter.

  “Come on, Mama,” Sarah pleaded. “It won’t take long. You can do it over your lunch hour. I’ve already made the appointment.”

  “You made the appointment without asking me?”

  “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

  If Jane wanted to say no, she couldn’t. The other ladies in the Lathrop front office wouldn’t let her. “Oh, go with her, Jane,” one of them said. “It’s a nice thing, what your daughter is doing. We’ll cover if you’re late getting back from lunch.”

  “You know how you like pretty fingernails,” Sarah said. “Let me do this for you, Mama, please.”

  “Well, I’ll go,” she barked, shooting a look at her associates that said, This is the last thing I wanted to do with my lunch hour. “But I’m perfectly capable of paying for my own manicure.”

  As soon as they arrived at the salon, the receptionist stowed their purses and directed them to the manicurists’ stations. Sarah slipped her hands into the hot water to let them soak while the manicurist showed her polish colors to choose from. If Sarah had thought an easy conversation with her mother might start up during this outing together, she was sadly mistaken. Rows of other customers sat with their nails being filed and their cuticles being snipped, their ears perked for any snippets of interesting conversation.

  Every time Jane’s manicurist removed Jane’s hands from the soaking solution, she tapped Jane’s knuckles with her cuticle stick. “Will you relax your fingers, please?”

  Forty-five minutes later, mother and daughter still hadn’t spoken to each other. The only reason Jane let Sarah pay the bill was because her freshly painted nails were still wet and she’d smudge them if she dug inside her purse. Sarah had thought ahead and had the money already out of her purse and lying on the table.

  “Do you want to stop for a bite to eat?” Sarah asked as they walked toward the car again.

  “You’ve used up all my time,” Jane said. “I’ll have to go hungry.”

  “No. You won’t.” Sarah steered into the first drive-through she could find and ordered a salad and a turkey sandwich to go. She paid at the window and set the sack in Jane’s lap.

  When they pulled up in front of Lathrop again, there was no reason for Sarah to go in.

  “I don’t understand why you did this,” Jane said.

  “I guess I wanted to thank you for taking such good care of Mitchell. I know you had to miss work and that was hard on you. I know it must have been a really scary day for him, and you made him feel better.”

  Jane clasped the sack between her thumb and her forefinger, holding it away from her as if it smelled bad.

  Sarah finally gave up. She slumped in her seat and hated the impatience that nibbled at the edge of her voice. “And I guess I just thought we could talk, you know? I thought you would open up, and we could just have a conversation. I would like to have a good relationship with you, but you have always seemed to resent me for even being alive.” She wondered if Jane would have been happier if she had died in that accident. Sarah tried once more to get through to her. “I had hoped that since I almost died you would open up and let me in, Mama. That’s all.”

  “Well,” Jane said, obviously hurt at the criticism. “I don’t know why you always expect so much.”

  Each time Sarah checked www.nannyrating.com, she learned that Mrs. Pavik was taking Kate on trips to the park and other daily escapades. When Sarah returned home each night, she found the dishes washed, the carpet vacuumed, and the living room tidy. Kate’s laundry was always done, and there was never a shortage of anything in the cupboards. From both the nanny-rating reports and evidence at the house, Sarah felt confident that Mrs. Pavik kept Kate fed, entertained, and bathed.

  Every night before Sarah wen
t to bed she plumped the cushions on the couch and straightened the afghan. The night after she’d taken her mother for a manicure, Sarah picked up one of the pillows, fluffed it, and was just about to arrange it to her liking when something caught her eye. At first glance, she saw it was a plastic ID holder from someone’s billfold. Sarah didn’t mean to pry. But she thumbed through it, already guessing its owner. This must have fallen out of Sophia Pavik’s purse while she was taking care of Kate. In it Sarah found Mrs. Pavik’s work visa and her U.S. driver’s license. As she hurried to the phone to let the nanny know she’d found her important documents, the sleeve flipped open.

  A photograph stared up at Sarah, a picture of a little girl with dark hair and dark eyes. Sarah’s heart missed a beat. She’d seen pictures of this child before, but she couldn’t quite remember where. In the corner of the plastic, Mrs. Pavik had stuck this note.

  I LOVE YOU, MOMI. ELENA

  No. It couldn’t be.

  Sarah sat down hard at the kitchen table while memories flooded her mind.

  Mrs. Pavik had a daughter named Elena! A little girl who lived somewhere on the other side of the globe, a child who really did write notes like this!

  Sarah stared at the child’s beautiful little face. She berated herself. She ought to have asked Mrs. Pavik about her situation the day she’d gotten out of the hospital. Was Kate’s nanny saving to bring her own child to Chicago? Because if she was, if that much was true, then there were other things that must be real too.

  Sarah had assumed that the memories running through her mind came from some kind of offbeat dream—the kind people must have when they go through something traumatic.

  But what if the whole thing wasn’t an illusion? What if Wingtip really was an angel for the Cubs? What if God really had let me spend time with my grandmother?

  Even though she’d been shown pieces of her own life, even though she’d thought she was dreaming, what if it had really been the Heavenly Father letting her look at herself through his eyes?