Any Minute (23 page)

Who was the father of the baby? Neither the school superintendent nor the rows of concerned parents nor the teachers thought it important to name him. Who had done this to her? No one thought to ask.

Although, of course, some names would get tossed about. There would be speculation. Rumors. The students would talk. But eventually some new tidbit, some other scandal would come along, some other girl’s reputation to defame, and the gossip would fade away. And Jane Cattalo would never tell.

Chapter Fifteen

P
lenty of youngsters visited the friendly confines of Wrigley Field, scrambling over tiers of bench seats, shoving and climbing to find the best view of the ballpark, and Wingtip didn’t pay much attention to any of them. But this one blond kid with the claw, who kept jerking his dad’s sleeve and peering in every direction, who kept his little hand flat against the metal bench in spite of guys five times his size trying to convince him otherwise, well, Wingtip could spot a courageous young soul when he saw one.

Wingtip honored God. He’d served in the ranks and would be serving for all of eternity. The Heavenly Father had different assignments for each of his servants, and when Wingtip knew his he didn’t hesitate. He marched forward like a revolutionary soldier ready to go anywhere, anytime, and do anything the Father asked of him.

The Father had given him the address in a brisk, no-nonsense matter: 1060 West Addison Street, Chicago, Illinois. “The corner of Clark and Addison,” he’d added.

“Will I know it when I see it?”

“Oh,” God had assured him. “You will.”

And when Wingtip found himself at the entrance to Wrigley, he couldn’t believe what God had done! Here again was proof that the Father took a deep desire and, with it laid before him as an offering, used it to fulfill his good plan. Astonishing! Astounding! The Master and Lord over all creation remembered how much Wingtip had loved the Cubs and baseball in general and had chosen him to defend, protect, and watch over the Cubbies! That day, as Wingtip had shored up his shoulders and stepped through the cement portico, he felt awed God had trusted him with such a weighty responsibility.

Not every lineup was granted a team angel. Ah, but the Cubs! The Lovable Losers. The team with the long-suffering fans. It had been a long, long, long time since anything good had happened for them. Every time they made a run at the pennant, these guys couldn’t quite make it happen. They gave it all they had to give, carrying all the past failures and all the past successes and the expectations of four generations to the ballpark; they were just a bunch of kids trying to take it one game at a time. They hadn’t won a series for a hundred years.

Which could be quite a challenge for a member of the heavenly realm, if you stopped to think about it.

Not until Wingtip had noticed Mitchell in the bleachers, not until that boy’s innocent hope had tugged his heart harder than the rope tugged his arm when he strung up the flags, did Wing-tip start to think that, perhaps, the Heavenly Father might be using him for something more as well.

Wingtip had braced his elbow on the ledge and peered over the crowd, doing his best to keep Mitchell in view. Wingtip was so intrigued with him that if someone hadn’t hollered, “Top game! National League! Two runs in the seventh!” he might have missed posting the score altogether. Tenderness for this child chose Wingtip instead of the other way around. As he knelt for conversation with the Heavenly Father that night, Wingtip said, “Well, Lord. I guess you expect me to do something about that kid.”

“Ah.” The Father hadn’t seemed surprised in the least. “So you noticed Mitchell Harper.”

“I did. And I think he noticed me too.”

“Good job at that.”

“Thank you.”

“I want you to take care of him, Wingtip.”

“I will.”

“More than that, I want you to care for Mitchell’s family.”

“You know, Lord, I am always ready to do whatever you want me to do.”

“Yes, but this job might be more of a challenge than the Cubs.”

“Nothing could be more of a challenge than that, Lord.”

Which evoked a hearty laugh from the Heavenly Father, the Creator of heaven and earth, the Creator of laughter, the Creator of humor itself. After which he said, “Oh, I don’t know about that.” Even now, Wingtip could still remember how the Heavenly Father had smiled.

“I don’t want to see anything else. Please,” Sarah begged. The glaring lights of the meeting hall faded and in its place appeared a small, dark, melancholy house. How they traveled so quickly from the boardroom so jammed with people to this other place so forlorn and empty, Sarah had no idea. “I feel like I’m in a rendition of
The Christmas Carol
,” she said.

Wingtip shrugged. “Hey, it worked for Charles Dickens, didn’t it?” Which couldn’t help but endear Wingtip to Sarah even more. It felt so nice that God and his angels had a sense of humor.

The angel went to the door and opened it. The door hinges creaked as if they hadn’t been oiled in years. Wingtip stood aside with his hand on the knob and gestured for Sarah and Annie to enter.

Inside the front room, an older Jane twisted sideways to inspect her waistline in a cloudy mirror. She scrutinized the belt around her middle and frowned with distaste. She stood taller, sucked in her stomach, jutted her bosom forward, and, yanking with the same single-mindedness as someone tightening a saddle around a horse’s girth, successfully cinched the belt one notch tighter. She smoothed the front of her dress with both hands, turned sideways to examine her midriff in the mirror again, and raised her chin higher.

A child, a little girl with dark curly hair and hazel eyes, no more than six years old, came bounding in with a fistful of dandelions, some with dirt still clinging to the roots. “I picked you a bouquet, Mama,” came the child’s voice, innocent as a chirping sparrow.

Sarah gasped as realization flooded her. With one arm, Annie drew her close, holding her steady. “It’s
me
.”

“Don’t touch!” Jane swatted the child away and did a little dance step to keep from brushing against those filthy little hands. “Take those right back outside where you got them. You’ll get my dress all dirty.”

“That’s
me
,” Sarah said again, as if to convince herself as much as anyone.

“For heaven’s sake, Sarah, they’re just
dandelions
. Go wash up and let’s get out of here.”

“Dandy lions,” the little girl repeated. “They’re so pretty, Mama. I could get a jar for them.”

But Jane was busy gathering up her car keys and looping her purse over her arm. “Pitch those nasty things out and get in the car. I’d get to work on time if I didn’t have to drop you by the babysitter’s. I swear, Sarah, you’re so much trouble.”

And because a girl believes what she hears about herself, because a child at that age takes her mother’s messages into her heart as truth, the little girl stood still and thought,
I
am. I’m certainly a lot of trouble.

“You’ll be at the babysitter’s late tonight.” Jane checked her reflection in the mirror. With her pinkie fingernail, she scratched a speck of lipstick from the corner of her mouth. “I have a date.”

This was exciting news. The little girl bounced with excitement. “Is he taking you out on the town, Mama?” She touched her mother’s skirt, loved the smell of her, loved the way her hair caught the light in colors of September. “Are you going someplace special? Are you wearing a fancy dress?”

Jane stepped away from the child’s hands once more. “No. None of that. I’m cooking him a nice dinner at our house.”

“Our house?”

“Yes.”

This took some consideration. “If it’s at our house, why do I have to stay at the babysitter’s? Why can’t I come too?”

“You? Come too? Of course you can’t. Then it wouldn’t be a date. Besides, no guy would be interested in me if he knew about you.”

And the little girl thought,
Mama would be better off without me.

“Now, hurry up and get in the car. When we get to the sitter’s, you have to hop on out and march right on up to the front door by yourself because I can’t have you holding me up.”

As the child meandered her way down the walk with her head hanging and her fists rammed so hard inside her skirt pockets that she’d probably rip the seams, purposefully scuffing the toes of her Buster Brown shoes against the sidewalk (“What did you
do
?” her mama would shout, but it didn’t matter—she didn’t care), it was the second time that grown-up Sarah wrenched herself away from her grandmother’s arm and tried to follow. The child’s knobby elbows jutted sideways, her arms thin as kindling sticks.

“Can’t I do something to make her hear me, Annie? I’ve got so many things I need to say.”

“If she
could
hear you, what would you say to her?”

“That she isn’t responsible for how unhappy her mother feels. That it isn’t fair. She’s just a little girl.”

Sarah stared at her unlikely angel, who had changed numbers in Wrigley by hand ever since the scoreboard had been built. He’d been a huge Cubs fan all the way back to 1908 when they still played at West Side Grounds, the last time Chicago took the series. A hundred years and counting and he’d seen every sacrifice fly, every tag at the plate, every grand slam. And once he’d gotten appointed to the job at Wrigley, he’d accounted on that board for every run batted in since.

“Don’t you see?” he asked. “That’s what Annie was always praying for—that you would know it wasn’t your fault. That little girl is listening, only she’s inside your grown-up body now. You can still tell her what God the Father would like her to hear, that she is valuable and loved. You can still tell her that she isn’t responsible for her mother’s misery and that she was created in her mother’s womb by the hand of God, who created her carefully and who made her very special.”

As they watched the child head to the car across the trodden grass, the ancient Oldsmobile loomed tugboat-large in the driveway.

For goodness’ sake
, Sarah thought,
that car looks bigger than the ship they raised the bridge for this morning in Chicago!
The little girl tried to open the door but, at the age of six, her thumb was much too small to manage the button on the massive chrome handle. She pressed it with both hands and still couldn’t get it. The third time, she bit her tongue in concentration. She pushed so hard that she twisted sideways and her feet lifted off the ground.

Here came her mother tramping down the walk, her sling-back pumps making little snaps of displeasure on the cement.