A DAY TO BE THANKFUL

 

There was just no way that sleep would come!

Jae plumped her pillow fiercely, for the umpteenth time, and tried to lie still long enough for sleep to claim her.  She imagined a large red switch that would turn off her thoughts at a flick!  ”Flick” and no more thoughts!

She absentmindedly piled up her pillows and sat up, a frown betweenher dark brows

Maybe this was as good a time as any to think things through, since sleep evaded her so tantalizingly.

 

“Here I am, 27, divorced and alone for the first time in my life.”  

Rufus, her newly acquired watchdog, sighed in his sleep, and rattled his claws against the hardwood floor.

“At least, with Rufus I’m not afraid here alone any more." she mused.  “

“But of getting involved with a man -  that I am definitely afraid of.  I never want anyone to hurt me again like that.”

She slipped out of bed and stood by the window idly fingering the curtain and seeing nothing outside at all.  Her whole attention was riveted on her thoughts.

“Why didn’t I at least go to Jessica’s party tonight?  They couldn’tFORCE me to date their ‘lonely widower with a young daughter wholives in our neighborhood’, could they?”

“At this rate I’ll become a hermit” she said aloud.

 Something was nagging at her attention outside the window.  At first, she couldn’t see a thing.  Then, she realized it was fire she saw in the window of the building across the court that had caught her attention.It flickered and danced behind the window.  As she watched, puzzled, the distant draperies went up in flames and she realized, in horror,that the room, at least, was on fire.

 She must warn them!

 Quickly, she dialed the fire department.  Just as hurriedly she stuffed her bare feet into sneakers and pulled jeans and a sweater on over her nightgown. She had to warn them.  The fire department would take too long!

She pounded down the stairs, through the central hall and out the back door into the courtyard.  There were several sharp ‘cracks!’ and glass showered down.  Flames tongued the building around two windows now, both on the third floor.  Jae made a wild dash through the scattered glass shards praying none would fall on her unprotected head.  She made the stair well and plunged down to the basement apartment of the super.  She pounded at the door.  Again she beat with her fists and screamed “Answer!    Answer!  There’s a FIRE!”  Nothing but dark and silence greeted her, so she knew no one was at home.Somewhere a baby wailed, distantly. 

She had to wake them up and get them out of there, but how?  Might there be an alarm or a house phone in their entry? All the buildings were similarly constructed with a street–to courtyard hall down the center.  She glanced worriedly at the flames as she headed for the back door.

“Locked! No!  Oh, no!  Somebody!  Answer!“ She banged desperately on the door.

 Someone was coming!  “Thank God!”

 “Forgot your key?” said a friendly male voice.  “I’ve done that before myself” he added.  ‘You’re just lucky I heard you.  I just came in from a diner party and …

It’s burning!  The fire’s out the windows!  We have to get everyone out!”

“Burning?  What’s burning?”

“See for yourself” and she tugged him out into the courtyard and wordlessly pointed.

“That’s my floor!  My little girl is in there!”

I called the fire department about ten minutes ago.  They won’t be here for another ten.  That’s too long!  We have to get those people out!

 “There’s a fire alarm for the whole building in the lobby”  That should rouse the other floors, but I’ll have to go to the third floor!” He was running toward the lobby and the stairs.  By the time she caught up with  him, the alarm began to fill the building from all directions.  She barely caught the closing door to the stairwell. 

 “Elevators don’t operate in an emergency------must use stairs.  You go back!”, he said “Dangerous” Ignoring his warning, she kept right on.  Speed was essential.

“Doors not hot” he said.  He opened the door cautiously.

Smoke snaked out around a door halfway down the hall to the right and lazily curled to the ceiling. The light  swam in shifting murk.  The crackle of flames was clearly audible.

 “Get down on the floor” Jae said.  “Where’s  your apartment?”  

“The next one beyond that one” he said.  “Thank God the bedrooms are on the other side. ”I’ve got to get Sam out”.

 They were half-crouched as they hurried down the hall, Jae pounding on every door they passed.  His door was quite hot!  He opened it carefully.  Smoke choked them and their eyes teared and blurred.  Jae couldn’t see him.  He had disappeared into the smoke on his hands and knees. 

“Here’s the baby sitter.  See if you can drag her out into the hall.  She’s small.  I’ve got to get Sam”

She followed  his voice to be brought up sharply by running into a large piece of furniture.  She frantically felt around for a person. coughing and choking.  There. On the floor. She grasped a wrist and an ankle and pulled, backing away.  Breathing was agony. 

The furniture she had bumped into moments before, erupted into flames.  The heat hurt her skin!

 Strong hands gathered her and her burden up and moved her through the door into the hall.  People were streaming for the stairs.

 “Anyone else in there, sister? asked the fireman behind the mask.

 “A man.  And his baby.  Bedroom on your left”.

“Someone evacuate this pair.  They’re in bad shape” he said to another masked man, and he turned and vanished into the apartment.

 

Even while the ambulance man tended her, she watched the building. He had to come out!  She’d only known him twenty minutes, and yet she knew him.

A stretcher crew came out of the building and a masked fireman behind him with the limp body of a small child.  They loaded them both into the ambulance next to her.

“I have to go she said.  In the ambulance.  It’s them”.

“You need to go anyway, lady. You breathed a lot of smoke and both hands are burned”.

 

After they bandaged her hands they told her she could go home.  She sat outside the emergency doors and waited. 

“I don’t even know his name” she thought.  “Oh, that baby was so still, even though they worked over her all the way!  What a beautiful little dark-haired girl-child!  Imagine calling her ‘Sam””

 The door opened and he was there.

 "Are you still here?  Your hands….”

“Are burned – not bad….   How’s  Sam?” she asked.  ” She’s so little and sweet.  And what about the babysitter?  I never did see her."

 “You may not have seen her, but you saved her life.!  At considerable risk of your own, I might add.  I hope you’ll forgive me for taking your help for granted.   She’ll be here for a while, but she’ll live,  the baby …  I don’t know.”

 “ Will you please come here, Sir” said a nurse in the doorway.  “Hurry!” 

 Jae waited an hour after that and finally decided she’d have to go home.  Later, in bed she realized that she still didn’t know his name.  “I’ll probably never see him again.  His apartment is burned.  He doesn’t know my name either” she thought..

 

After several weeks Jae’s hands were healed enough to t go back to work again. She was glad everyone had made it safely out of the building, but it all seemed kind of dim.

Except him.  And Sam.  But Sam WHO?

 Resolutely she put it out of her mind and went on with her life, going to work on the bus, working in  the impersonal atmosphere of her job, shopping on the way home. 

 

The last leaf fell off and a piercing wind blew.  ‘

Soon there will be snow’ she thought ‘and Christmas’. As she

came into the apartment, the phone was ringing.  It was Jessica.

 

‘Well’ she thought, I might as well give up and have Thanksgiving dinner with her.’ 

Like all matchmakers, Jessica was not about to give up!

 

Thanksgiving Day dawned grey and dismal, with dark

cloud scudding along ahead of the wind, dropping fine snow

as it went.  It rattled against the

windows, contrasting with the warmth and delicious smells inside.    

Jessica had asked that same “widower with a small child” again, and they were late.

He probably doesn’t want to meet me either’ Jae thought,’ Looking out at the storm.

 

“Jaelythe, I want you to meet Chris Gould and his daughter Sam” said Jessica's voice.”I tried to introduce you months ago.”

“So that’s your name!  I wondered…. I wondered if I’d eve see you again. 

Is Sam okay?  All okay?”

"It's really you! You're not just a figment of my imagination. I

turned over heaver and earth trying to find you.  That hospital wouldn’t give me your name!”

 “They wouldn’t tell me either.”

 

Sam pulled at  his hand and he let go of her.  She ran happily to play with Jessica’s daughter.

 

The just stared at each other.

 “I” they both said in unison. 

Chris reached out and took her hand.  “I never want to lose you again!

 Jaelythe?”

 

“My mother was a reader of romance novels” Most people call me Jae”

 “Jaelytthe suits you.  You know Jessica told me all about you

why I should meet you, but a few minutes forged a bond ten

times stronger than sensible reasons.”

 

“But isn’t it nice that those are there too?”   Dumbo is on at the

 Bijou.  Wouldn’t Sam like that?”  Jessica smiled from across the room with satisfaction.  She’d done it again! A perfect match!

 

Chris and Jae caught the look.  She really didn’t know….let  her believe she did it for today.

It was a day to be Thankful.

 

 

’Beverly Youngs

all rights reserved.

 

 

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