It Started With A Stickup

I took a deep breath holding it in for a few seconds before releasing it slowly. My hands were starting to shake, and my heart was pounding so hard I could practically hear it in my ears. I started to think back on my morning and what could have possibly led me to my current situation. I had my usual morning bowl of Frosted Flakes and drunk the last bit of coffee left.

Coffee, that was it. We had run out of coffee. I don’t know why I made the decision to go out and buy more when mom and I were once again in the middle of not speaking with each other.

I cringed at the thought. While not out of the ordinary it wasn’t how I wanted to leave things. Mom and I had been bumping heads for the last year but now more than ever I wanted to hear her prying words and have her overbearing arms wrapped around me.

“Hey, you’re safe. Take another deep breath” The gruffy older man sitting next to me coached. He started breathing deeply and I followed his guidance, taking deep, long, breaths.

“We aren’t safe!” I shrieked as my whole body began trembling once again. I couldn’t keep the steady breathing that he wanted.

“Hey, hey. You’re okay sweetie. We’ll be out of here before you know it” the older mans wife stated reaching over him to grab my hand. I gripped hers tightly taking comfort in the physical contact.

She crawled around him and sat next to me wrapping an arm around my shoulder as she gripped my hand tighter. I leaned into her embrace happy that she was giving me the comfort that I needed.

“Do you think they’ll get in here in time?” I asked as my eyes filled with tears.

“Of course, sweetie. Let’s talk about something else shall we. What’s your name?”

I sniffled, trying to keep myself from having a full-blown break down as she patiently waited for my response.

“It’s Harmony.”

“Harmony? That’s beautiful sweetie what were you doing here so early in the morning?”

“Mom ran out of coffee she has to have her coffee when she wakes up. I didn’t even tell her I was leaving” I started panicking again.

“It’s okay, you’ll be home in no time to give her the coffee. Jim and I will make sure of it”

I smiled at the woman’s kind words. For some reason I believed her. Since it was just mom and I growing up I never got a chance to meet my grandparents, but I imagine that that’s how grandparents are. Loving, strong, sweet.

“Jim” I nodded tattooing his name to memory.

“Yes, that’s Jim, and I’m Marie.”

“Why were you two in here this early?” I asked looking around as a crash sounded in the aisle over. My chest tightened and my body tensed in fear.

“Oh, we just wanted to come and play our tickets like we do every morning” she answered calmly. Her even tone eased some of the fear that was paralyzing me. She even smiled a little as she explained that her and her husband have been playing the same two sets of numbers for the last two years.

They asked me about school and what I planned to do with my life. Once I told them that I wanted to take a year from school and travel they opened up about all of the beautiful places that they’d been to.

Marie looked at Jim and he smiled at her before handing me one of the tickets in his hand.

“That ticket is lucky I feel it in my bones. You’re going to walk out of here and you’re going to travel” he smiled warmly.

Before I could dispute it and give it back the telephone rang, and we all tensed as a man ran forward to answer it. He was tall and lanky in a way that looked borderline sickly.

“No! I said you had two hours; it’s been three” he screamed angrily waving his gun around.

I whimpered biting my lips to hold in the need to break down.

Marie gripped my shoulder tighter as the man turned to us with his gun pointed. We both froze as Jim slid in front of us with his hands held out.

“Why don’t you let the women go sir. You can keep me here”

“Quiet” the man croaked while his hand shook violently.

I couldn’t quite understand how my brain automatically slowed everything down. I watched as his hand grew pale as it gripped the phone to his ear, as his eyes filled with tears, and then as his whole body all of a sudden relaxed.

“No! You didn’t hurt anyone son. You can still walk away from this in one piece”

Jim stood slowly with his hands out in front of him moving forward. Tears started flowing from the man’s eyes and the phone dropped from his hand.

I faintly felt Marie lifting us off the ground slowly as my eyes stayed glued to the scene in front of me. She started leading us back towards the door as we watched as Jim stopped right in front of the gun.

“It’s not over. This is not the end of your story. Now I’m going to let these women go and I’m going to have my wife tell the officer that you’re going to walk out with your hands up. Ill be right by you the whole time.”

The mans hand shook violently as he shook his head no. I started crying as my panic surpassed anything that I’d ever felt before. I wanted to be free, I wanted to leave and never enter the small convenient store again, but more so I wanted Jim to walk out with us.

I just knew that at any moment the man’s finger would slip and Jim would be gone, Marie would be a widow, and I would be witnessing a kind man taken too soon.

“No, no, no” the man repeated before putting the gun to his own temple.

I looked between the two quickly as my brain tried to catch up to what was happening. My feet remained glued to the floor as Marie tried to continue us towards the door. Jim must have already known what the man was planning because he didn’t flinch. He stayed calm the same way that he and his wife had been calm with me through out the whole ordeal.

“Hey, look around no ones hurt. That’s the cashier’s gun not yours. You didn’t come in here with the intention of hurting anyone. You’re going to do some time, but you will walk away from this. You have your whole life ahead of you don’t give up”

The man was bawling now, and it only made me cry harder because I couldn’t understand why I was feeling sorry for him. For three hours we’d been sitting on the ground in fear that he was going to shoot us at any minute.

Marie had finally gotten us to the door, and we were quickly swept away by a couple of officers and after that everything was a blur. I don’t remember the cops questioning us or calling my mother it took a while for me to even realize that she was sitting next to me.

What I do remember is the one gunshot going off and the police surrounding the building with guns drawn.

I paused my story to take a deep breath. It was the first time that I was reliving everything from start to finish and It didn’t help that the admissions counselor was staring straight at me.

“Afterwards,” I continued, “I faintly remember Jim leading the crying man out of the store and into the hands of the police but what I remember the most is Jim and Marie never leaving my side. They stayed right by me talking to me just as calmly as they had from the beginning. They drove my mother and I home which my mother later explained was because I wouldn’t let go of Marie’s hand.

So, to answer your question of a time in my life where I knew from that moment everything would change, well that was it.”

I watched as the admissions counselor scribbled notes in her little black book like she’d been doing the whole time.

“I was mentally and emotionally out of it for a few weeks,” I continued, “but Mom, Marie, and Jim were constants in my life. Marie showed up every morning to sit with me and we’d talk while Jim fixed things around the house that we never realized was broken. It was another week before any of us realized that both lottery tickets had hit. Jim’s for half a million and mine that Marie had given me for twenty- thousand dollars. I tried giving it back and they still refused. The following month we were all on a plane travelling the world. “

“So, what you’re saying is the money wasn’t the life changing moment?”

I shook my head at the counselor and smiled before looking down at my lap. My stomach still filled with butterflies when I thought about Jim and Marie.

“If I had just won that money on my own or if they would have given it to me under any other circumstances it would have never meant as much as it did. I would have never thought about them again. They became a fixture in both mine and my mom’s life. Money can’t buy the kind of happiness we experience when we’re together. Jim and Marie are like my adopted grandparents and whether or not they’d given me that ticket I know for sure after going through what we went through we would still be exactly where we are now. The travelling was fun, but it was the memories we made together that means the most. They’ve taught me how to appreciate life and everyone around me no matter what they’ve done. They even cared about the burglar enough to go and visit him in prison even after he did that to us. They understood on a deeper level that it wasn’t about us that day. They’ve helped him heal and change and from what they tell me, when he gets out, he’s going to go to school and change his life around. Money cannot do that. So, again, no, the money wasn’t the life-changing moment for me.”

The counselor nodded, scribbled in her notebook, and then stood holding her hand out for me to shake. I stood, shook her hand, and followed her as she led me back into the lobby. The only people remaining there was My mom, Marie, and Jim, who stood as I approached.

“no matter what we’re proud kid” Jim spoke first hugging me quickly.

I smiled believing his words without a doubt.

“Ms. Keller?”

I turned as the counsellor approached us with a small smile on her face.

“This is all of who you’ve just spent the last hour going on about?” she asked with a hint of amusement in her tone.

I nodded looking around at them all as I grabbed my mom’s hand.

She shook there hands nodding once.

"You'll be hearing from us soon," was all she stated before walking away.

I acted as if I didnt notice the small smile that she tried to hide. It was my dream school but there were others and that was one thing that I always tried to remember. Things can chang in the blink of an eye and sometimes it may not be in the way that we envisioned it but it doesnt always mean that its a bad thing.

Some of the best experiences, the most profound discoveries, the most life altering moments, happen by accident.