Any Minute (36 page)

The inside of the scoreboard looked just about the same as it had back when it was finished in 1937. The paint was the same rust red as always, and the shadowed corners were littered with all sorts of junk—folding chairs, coolers, lost-and-found jackets—from years gone by. A three-story steel catwalk stretched across the entire width of the monstrous front wall and could be accessed only by a skinny metal ladder.

If it had been an ordinary day at the ballpark, Wingtip would have been happy standing on the second story of the catwalk, watching hits and runs. He would have made sure all the stats were properly displayed for all to see. But plans could change when the Heavenly Father spoke up.

“Mitchell Harper needs you,” said the Creator of the universe. “Are you willing to help the boy?”

“Yes,” Wingtip said. “You know how I feel about that kid. I’ll do anything.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Lord.”

“Even leave your post at a crucial moment in the game?”

“Yes, Lord. You know I will.”

“Ah,” the Heavenly Father said. “You are a good and faithful servant. You are the right person for this job. I knew so from the very beginning.”

“For the job with the Cubs?” Wingtip asked.

“For Mitchell
and
the Cubs,” the Lord of Hosts told him.

What could make a difference for the team
and
for Mitchell?
Wingtip was about to ask. But he never got the chance to finish his own question. At that moment, he spied Mitchell climbing up the steps in the bleacher seats, weaving his way through the rowdy crowd. No matter how many people stood in his way, the little boy managed to shoulder his way through the hordes.

Even from this distance, just as he’d done the first time he’d laid eyes on Mitchell, Wingtip could sense the little boy was troubled. The baseball fans didn’t pay him much mind as he shoved his way past and kept climbing to the top of the bleachers.

Suddenly Wingtip knew what Mitchell was doing.
He’s coming to find me!
No young boy ought to attempt such a climb. No young child had legs long enough to make those last precarious steps. A friendly gentleman cuffed Mitchell on the sleeve and said something Wingtip couldn’t hear.
Stop him. Please!
Wingtip ached to make the man hear him.
Don’t let that little guy try the ladder! Ask him where his parents are. Ask if you can help him!

But the man didn’t heed the tug in his heart. He glanced around once, as if he didn’t know what to do. “Hey, kid,” he asked. “Are you supposed to be going up there?”

“Yep,” Mitchell said. “I got a friend up here. I’m going to find him.”

Much to Wingtip’s distress, the guy shrugged Mitchell off and turned his attention back to the game.

Mitchell snuck beneath the scoreboard and started his assent as Soriano snow-coned a catch against the ivy and hurled it toward second base. It was a tricky climb to make it up the spindly metal ladder, but once Mitchell started, he never looked down, only up. The wind blew in from the lake in a steady gale. Halfway up the rungs, Mitchell lost his baseball cap. It blew off his head and probably landed somewhere on Sheffield Avenue. “Bottom game, top floor, American League,” someone shouted to Wingtip. “One run top of the seventh. The score! Who’s changing the score?”

But Wingtip wasn’t about to go higher on that catwalk while Mitchell Harper was in danger. The numbers remained unchanged. It was the seventh inning, and everyone was having a good time; no one thought too much of it. Mitchell was intent on his climb.

“Wingtip?” he called. But the wind blew his voice away. “Are you up here?”

Halfway up the ladder, the metal rungs seemed to widen and stretch farther apart. Mitchell grabbed the next rung and pulled himself up, but not before his sneaker slipped and his knee banged against the metal. He steadied himself and, for the first time, he looked down. A pebble had dislodged from the sole of his shoe. He watched as it bounced against metal and sailed out into open air. Mitchell watched it fall and froze in fear.

Sarah and Joe entered the ballpark at that moment, a security officer in tow. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” the officer was saying at her elbow. “Security’s tight around the scoreboard. They’d never let a kid climb—”

But Sarah gasped and pointed. Beneath the scoreboard, inside a cage of chain-link fencing, Sarah could see a small figure inching his way toward the trap door at the top. “There he is.” Joe grabbed his wife’s shoulders. Sarah gripped her husband’s arm.

He’s going to fall.
But Sarah didn’t dare think it.

“Joe,” she whispered. “We’ve got to do something.”

“We will.” This he promised his wife. In that one instant before Joe took off running, the rift between them dissolved. There was too much at stake. Too much to think of losing.

“Help him,” she whispered.

High atop the ladder, Mitchell forced himself to move. With shaking hands, he pulled himself up three more rungs. He’d almost made it to the top. He stretched as far as he could and, with one fist, pounded on the piece of plywood meant to keep everyone out.

It took precious seconds for someone to move the two-by-four that wedged the door shut. The lumber moved with a terrible grating sound. “I’m looking for Wingtip?” he asked the head scorekeeper the minute a crack appeared.

“Kid! You can’t be up here. What do you think you’re doing? Why didn’t someone stop you?”

“ I—I’ve got to talk to Wingtip.”

“There’s security down there. Supposed to keep idiots from climbing up here.”

Mitchell was crying. “He’s up here, he’s got to be. He can do anything. He could make them stop fighting.”

“Who? There’s not anyone named Wingtip that I know of. Just us scorekeepers.” The man reached to pull him up. “Good heavens. Kid, grab my hand. Let’s get you safe.”

Mitchell reached up. Their fingers brushed. But before the man had a good grasp of the boy’s knuckles, a wind gust came off Lake Michigan, stronger than most.

The whole scoreboard moved. The huge flags and their lanyards clattered against their poles overhead. The tin walls vibrated.

The numbers shuddered in their windows.

Mitchell lost his balance… and fell.

Wingtip had stayed in his corner of the scoreboard scaffolding, watching, waiting. And in this split second, he finally understood. All these years he’d thought he was here to nurse the Cubbies through a century of losing, to help them make it through the play-offs and, finally, to emerge victorious in the big game. But now he knew he’d been put on this earth for something else entirely. He’d been put on this earth to be a guardian angel for one eight-year-old boy who needed him, for one family that deserved another chance, for one woman who longed to be whole.

Wingtip flew into the Windy City sky without counting the cost to himself. The Heavenly Father might have to do some searching; angels might have a few reservations about overseeing the Lovable Loser Cubs these days. But Wingtip had no doubt that God could assign the Chicago Cubs another angel someday. It
was
time. For him to do the job he’d been called here to do.

And from where she stood across Wrigley, Sarah caught a glimpse of her son falling. At the same time, she thought she saw something else. She saw another silhouette catch up and pause in midair. A flash of motion, and then all went still. The action on the field went silent. All Sarah could hear was the heavy flap of feathered wings, and she could only think that the sound was the seagulls as they dipped and screeched and wheeled over the ballpark, knowing there would be plenty of snacks to scavenge after the game ended.

For a long time the people who saw it would speak in reverent whispers of the day a boy fell from the scoreboard with only a broken arm to show for it. They would talk about how the boy’s father came racing up the bleachers, the woman right behind him, only to find their kid sitting up and looking confused and asking what had happened.

Only the Heavenly Father knew why the momentum switched and the Cubs suddenly lost a game they had been winning. Only the Heavenly Father knew that a trustworthy angel had made a choice to forget about his favorite baseball team. Only the Heavenly Father and a grateful mother and a relieved father knew that Wingtip had saved a little boy’s life that day.

Sarah stood in the hallway and peeked into her son’s room. Joe and Mitchell were reading a chapter book together, each of them taking a page, their heads drifting together as they drifted closer to sleep.

When Joe came to the end of his page, he didn’t hand the book over. Instead it fell into his lap, and he began to snore. Mitchell didn’t complain because he was already sound asleep.

Sarah watched father and son for a long time before she tiptoed across the room and awakened her husband. “Hey,” she whispered when he lifted his head. She spoke in a tone that let him know she wasn’t afraid anymore, that she wasn’t protecting herself from being hurt, that let Joe know everything was going to be all right. “We need to have a long talk.”

He smiled back sleepily. “I think so too.”

“Are you going to stay in here all night, or are you going to come with me?”

Joe smiled again. “What do you think?”

She asked Joe to come downstairs and sit on the couch with her. They both got comfortable, and as Sarah started to talk, tears filled her eyes. “Joe,” she said, “I have an amazing story to tell you.”

She told him in vivid detail everything she had seen during the time she was gone. She told him that she now realized she had been living all wrong and that all of her motivation for what she had done was selfish. She tried as best she could to help him understand how fearful and insecure she had felt all that time. When she finished, Joe was visibly moved.

Their eyes locked.

At that moment, Sarah felt free. Taking responsibility for her behavior, being completely honest with Joe about everything, lifted a weight from her that had made her more miserable than she could have ever imagined. Sarah knew, at that precise moment, that no matter how difficult it might be, she would always be completely honest. No more pretending for Sarah Harper. She was going to be real and genuine with everyone, especially with her husband.

Chapter Twenty-Four

J
ust past four o’clock, Sarah logged onto her computer and entered the Web site for
www.nannyrating.com
. It had been far too long since she’d checked how Mrs. Pavik and Kate were doing. But these days she found herself not checking into the Web site nearly as often as she used to. She punched in her ID number, and new data began to load. The site appeared, and Sarah scrolled down the page.