Double for Your Trouble

Dawn was exhausted. She was 19 years old and had been working 3 different jobs, saving every penny that she could for college-which would be a very big deal for her. She had a difficult childhood. Her mother was a single mom and never believed in herself, let alone Dawn. Part of the reason Dawn was so driven was that she needed to prove (mostly to herself) that she was somebody worth believing in.

Though her mother and her had a strained relationship Dawn jumped at the chance when her mother offered to help with college money. Whether it was out of guilt, remorse or what, she wasn’t sure, but her mother offered to match whatever Dawn managed to save. Plus, since she knew Dawn wasn’t great at saving money, she offered to save it for her. Dawn could give her cash with each pay day.

“What’s your goal?” her mother asked.

“I’m aiming for $10,000. That should cover the deposit, first year and part of second year,” Dawn said.

“Deal,” her mother replied.

A couple of weeks later, Dawn was out having dinner with her friend Anna. She was shocked but happy to hear that Dawn’s mother was being so supportive about school.

Anna was a good friend and had been there for Dawn throughout many hardships in her life. . She was so proud Dawn had worked up the courage to apply to college and happy that the future was looking brighter for her dear friend who seemed to have a much harder life than her own.

As they were leaving, they bumped into Pastor Simon.

“Well look who it is! It’s Dawn! So good to see you! I heard you are going to college in the fall. Good for you!” he said.

“Well, I haven’t been accepted yet but I am hopeful. Just focusing on getting the money together while I wait to hear.”

“Good, good. Well, I won’t keep you. It was so good to see you. I hope to see you in church sooner than later,” said Pastor Simon as he made his way to an available table.

“See you in church?!” asked Anna.

“Ya, I have been going once in awhile. Mostly on special occasions like Christmas,” Dawn replied. Anna chose to leave it at that.

Just as they were about to walk out the door, their waitress ran up to Dawn and said, “Wait! You left this at the table,” before Dawn could protest, the waitress was off running to the kitchen to grab the next order.

Dawn and Anna looked at one another confused.

“Is there a name in it or any writing?” Anna inquired.

“No, it’s just blank,” said Dawn.

“Well, just keep it then,” she said “you love to journal! Not like it’ll go to waste.”

“True.” Dawn said. She tucked the mysterious black notebook into her purse and they headed out.

The next day Dawn woke up tired and was cringing at the schedule that lay ahead of her. First job started at 10am, then she had a 40 minute dinner break before heading off to her second job which was 5pm until the mall closed at 10pm. Assuming she could get all of the customers out of the store on time, she would make it to her 3rd job at the convenience store to do her night shift 11pm to 7am.

Each week was the same. The good news was now, with the help of her mom, she was saving more money than before and with her mom matching it, she could hopefully earn full tuition for the 2 year program.

The night shift could be pretty slow going. She didn’t complain of course the night shift paid an extra $2/hr premium. It also gave her time to read a book or write in her journal. Speaking of journals….she almost forgot about the mysterious black notebook. It couldn’t have come at a better time, she had just finished her last notebook and was about to buy a new one before this one showed up.

She grabbed her purse and pulled it out. It sure was a nice looking one. She flipped through the pages, front and back flap. Good quality. Thick paper. She cracked open the first page and smoothed it out with the heel of her hand. There was nothing like the feeling of a fresh, blank journal. New beginnings. As she did with every new journal, she wrote her name on the inside flap and under her name, the month she started to write in it, followed by a dash which she left blank until she knew the month that she would complete it.

She had been writing in journals ever since she was a little girl. Like a close friend, she could share her innermost thoughts, hurts, and aspirations. These days, she mostly wrote about whether or not she would be accepted to college, and mapped out the internal battle of whether or not she was good enough. One thing she knew for sure was that she was sick of working minimum wage jobs and night shifts. Maybe a college diploma would elevate her to a better paying office job. All of these sort of things she wrote out in her mysterious black notebook.

As the days went by, she thought to herself that there really was something special about this notebook. It had a quality that she had never experienced before. As she wrote, her pen felt like a butterfly floating along so effortlessly. Dancing across the pages. She noticed her writing appeared uncharacteristically legible and tidy. She was writing so much that she was worried about filling the book up too quickly and then where would she be able to find another one like it? Somehow, no matter how much she wrote, there always seemed to be lots of blank pages left. It was as if the notebook had no end.

Every spare moment it seemed like she was in the restaurant, sipping coffee, writing in her notebook. Often, bumping into people she knew like Pastor Simon.

Such a kind man. He had been pastoring Dawn’s family church for over 20 years now. She referred to it (in her journal) that way because if she actually attended regularly, she, would be the 5th generation of her family to be apart of that church.

Right from Scotland and a staunch Presbyterian, her great, great grandfather had worked hard to bring the church to the small town. He personally went to each resident and asked them to commit to a monthly amount in order for them to build and maintain a little little wooden church. Over the decades, his children and then their children, and then their children, gave of their time, finances, heart and soul to the church and community. Now 175 years later, much larger and made of concrete, it is still well attended and Pastor Simon oversees its care.

It seemed like spring would never arrive. Dawn had been anxiously awaiting for a letter to appear in her mail and finally, today was the day. Had she been accepted or rejected? She took a moment to take a deep breath and prepared herself for whatever the news may be. She unfolded the letter and it said she had indeed been accepted!! She couldn’t help it, tears just appeared in her eyes. Just reading the words “you have been accepted” felt so very good to her! Now, she just needed to send them a deposit to secure her spot.

Beaming with pride, Dawn called her mother with the good news.

Silence.

“Mom?” Dawn inquired. “Are you still there?”

More silence.

Dawn was confused by this. Was she mad? Jealous? What exactly was going on?

Finally, her mother said something….“Well, where are you going to get the money for the deposit?”

“From the savings account where you have been depositing all of the pays I have been giving you!”

Her mother scoffed. “You call those ‘pays’? You barely make any money at all, I’ve been waiting for you to bring in real money.”

“What?” Dawn was stunned.

“There’s no way you ever would have saved enough money for school with that piddly amount. The only reason I agreed to match it was because I knew it was never going to happen.”

“So, what have you done with all of the money I have been giving you?” Dawn asked, fighting back tears.

“I spent it.” And with those words she hung up on Dawn.

She was devastated. According to her math, there should have been at least $8000 of her half saved so far. She couldn’t believe it..all of that work. No sleep. Her mother hadn’t changed after all. What was Dawn thinking trusting her? How could she believe that her mother actually believed in her? That she would help her? What a fool she had been.

Now, what was she going to do? She already knew that she didn’t qualify for the loans the government offered students because she was under 21 years of age and was considered in their eyes a “dependant” under her mother and according to their calculations, her mother made enough money to be able to afford to pay for her college tuition.

Hurt, Dawn decided to unload it all in her trusted journal, and started to make her way to the restaurant. She wrote. Ate. Then wrote some more. Finally, headed back home. Like she did every night, she changed into her pajamas, pulled out her journal and laid it on her night table. But tonight, she couldn’t find her journal! She always kept it in her purse. She must have left it at the restaurant. She called them right away. It had her name in it and there were so many private things she had wrote about. She was feeling embarrassed at the thought of someone getting their hands on it. The waitress checked before returning to the phone saying “Nope, don’t see it. But if it turns up we’ll give you a call.” Urgh!!

Laying in bed after a sleepless night, her phone rang.

It was Pastor Simon.

“Well hello Dawn! I don’t know if you realised it or not, but you left your journal in the pew at church.”

“What? I haven’t been to church since Christmas….” super confused.

He asked her if she was available to meet for a coffee and he could return it to her.

Eager to get the journal back she said “YES!”

They sat in the booth that Dawn usually sat in to write. He placed her journal on the table and slid it over to her.

“I have to make a confession to you Dawn,” he said very sheepishly “when I found the journal in the pew and your name was written on the inside, well, I read a few of your entries. I want you to know that I won’t repeat to anyone what I read. I also want you to know how very sorry I am to learn about your college money situation. Will you please forgive me?”

“Yes, of course I will forgive you Pastor! I’m just so thankful that you were the one who found it and had the decency to return it to me,” Dawn replied.

“Phew! What a relief. You definitely have the genes of your ancestors to be so quick to forgive me like that.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” Dawn humbly replied.

“Well, I do,” said Pastor Simon as he reached inside of his blazer pocket and pulled out an envelope with Dawn’s name typed on the front of it. He handed it to her.

“Open it,” he said to her with a nod.

Inside was a cheque from the church for $20,000 and in the memo section it said “double for your trouble”.