Date night had been such a great distraction for Macy. It had been a long week with the twins at home arguing over whose toys were whose and which one got the first Oreo at snack time. Grant had seen her exhaustion and offered to get a sitter so they could enjoy her favorite Indian restaurant this rainy Friday night when he had a rare day off from the hospital, where he worked as a trauma doctor in the ER.
They turned onto the dark country road toward home, Macy groaning over her full belly and wishing she hadn’t had those last few samosas. As they rounded the bend, two red taillights glowed through the mist in an oddly vertical line. Grant gasped as he saw it was a car rolled onto its side. He slowed their truck and quickly threw it into park, opening his door and jumping out at nearly the same moment.
He could hear a young woman screaming in the driver’s seat while a baby rasped short cries in back. He climbed up the car’s exposed carriage, lighting his phone to make vital assessments of each of them quickly. The baby appeared to be safe, just frightened and disoriented in his sideways car seat. The mom’s forehead was bleeding, one eye nearly swollen shut as she clawed at the seatbelt, legs not moving. Grant tried to open her door towards the sky, but it was jammed tight against the car’s frame, held tight by mangled metal and heavy gravity. A small fire had kindled in the engine, contorted against the angled telephone pole.
Grant looked at Macy, who ran to the car with white face and wide eyes. “Grant, what do we do?” she cried. “ I called 911, but it’ll take them a while to get out here.” The mom and baby’s screams intensified from inside the car. Grant knew he had only one choice. Macy would have to see. To know. “Macy, I… “ he started. “I have to do this. I’ll explain later.”
He grabbed the car’s heavy door and heaved upward. The metal on metal screeched and then the door flew upward, flipping in the air before it landed 30 feet away. He reached for the woman’s seatbelt and ripped it in two, holding her from falling downward through the car. Then he lifted her like a rag doll, placed her over his shoulder, and carried her to the ground. In nearly the same movement, he leapt back to the top edge of the car and pulled open the back door as if it were a curtain. He unbuckled the baby and carried her down, her cries still searching for her mother’s comfort.
Macy stood frozen for seconds, then rushed to the mother’s side.
Josie’s 3-month camping trip in her early twenties had been one of the riskiest things she’d done in her life. Nine countries in 90 days, all in a tent with her hunky husband, and their student mission group of 70 young people. It was her first trimester of her first pregnancy: she bought her first maternity dress in Greece, heard the baby’s heartbeat for the first time in a Baptist hospital in Thessaloniki, and was regularly overcome with nausea at the smell of oatmeal cooking on the camp stove.
Now nearly 40 years later, her still-hunky husband was recovering from COVID, and though he felt better, he had to quarantine from their daughter who was pregnant with her third child. But their raw dream land was calling, so to the tent they went again, then to the shipping container to sleep on a stored mattress, because the tent was too cold the first week of January. Were they really doing this again?
Bettye Joe could see the desk from where she sat. She must get to it and find her tattered checkbook. The letter had said her account was about to be closed if she didn’t send a payment. She began inching one hip forward at a time: left scooch, right scooch, left scooch, reach, stretch, lean. She grasped one handle of her walker with the three fingers that could still extend from her knarled hand , and she pulled hard, straining and groaning, willing her rear off the chair and onto shaking legs that protested even her slight weight. Now to convince her feet to shuffle the 25 steps to the desk…
This cold rainy morning Bernard had already welcomed three new customers to the secondhand shop. The drizzle’s soft shush above cluttered attics was more lure than most treasure hunters and gatherers could resist. Such weather nearly always guaranteed he would meet new visitors before the clouds retreated.
At precisely 11 am, the door clanged open again and a small elderly woman shuffled in, clutching her tapestry bag close to her damp woolen coat. Her wispy white hair was tucked into a bun beneath a fitted felt hat, and her pale, thin wrinkles framed blue eyes that shone with a light brighter than her age hinted.
“Mr. Harbor, I presume?” she addressed him in a soft, steady voice. Bernard nodded in reply from behind the counter. “At your service, ma’am.” “The dolls there on the top shelf,” she nodded toward the characters, eyeing their detailed painted faces and ornate clothes. Bernard turned to look at the collection, though he knew exactly the ones she meant. “Where are they from?” she asked. “Well there’s a bit o’ mystery behind those. A young woman brought ‘em in about a year ago, and said they were from her deceased uncle’s mansion near Essex. She didn’t give any details, except that they were from a French court and that they should fetch us a good earning. “ He didn’t mention that the odd-faced collectibles had gathered more dust than attention the past year, with their crooked grins, jester hats, and steady gazes. “How much?” she asked. Bernard fumbled with the doll closest to the edge. He read the water-stained tag aloud: “$325.”
“I’ll take all of them,” she said quickly.
He plodded up the stony hill, the sun fading to deep purples on the horizon as he reached the peak. How long had he been traveling? The memory of his last night at the campsite, cold and rainy, soaked to the core, was still vivid in his mind. He must keep going. They had to know, and there was no one else left to tell them.
