The Quilters’ Gift

Delores looks down at the firefighter, indignant at his hands extended out in an embrace towards her.

“Please, trust me ma’am. I’m here to help,” the fireman says.

He’s a native, that’s for damn sure. She found one sleeping last week in the apartment lobby, blocking the apartment building door so she couldn’t exit.

Even though she is standing at the window of her apartmentand there is a gas leak, she still doesn’t want to go into his arms.

“Please ma’am. There are others. There is no time to wait.”

He is on top of the ladder, ready to meet her at her apartment window on the second floor of 154 32 Street. He has the recognizable yellow jacket of the firefighter, with a yellow brimmed hat.

She feels a bit weak at the knees when she remembers her husband, William in his yellow brimmed hat. She is old now, 88, a short greying lady with a grey bun, and he died more than decade ago of a blood cancer. It was acute exposure to some chemical explosionat William’s job as a firefighter.

“Please ma’am.”

She hesitates. He wears the recognizable uniform of William. He never let her down during their 25 year marriage. Not since that first day at the altar, when William put the ring on her finger, and he kissed her in front of both sides of the family. They didn’t have money for a honeymoon, but it didn’t matter for that first night together. He left the next morning, and remembers polishing his hat with the corner of her apron, beforeplacing it carefully on his head. She remembers buttoning his yellow coat and kissing him goodbye.

“I love you,” William had said.

“Have a wonderful day, dear. Stay safe, my hero.”

Delores trusts the yellow hat, and the fire alarm is screeching in her ears.

She puts one foot on the sill, and the native firefighter grabs her around the waist. She closes her eyes and wraps her arms around the familiar yellow jacket. When she opens her eyes, she is on the ground, safely away from the building. She looks at her apartment building. There are numerous indistinguishable yellow figures running up and down ladders.

Delores does not want to hear the sirens anymore but has nowhere to go. She can’t drive, because the doctor took her license. The street is blocked off, and a crowd is gathering in the street and staring at her apartment building.

She peers past the crowd at the new condo building across the street. There is a billboard on the perfectly manicured lawn that says “Luxury condos for rent.” Through elegant, postmodern steel and black windows, a man in a green leopard suit and a black comb-over exits and stops to peer at Delores’s building. She’s seen that man before, by the high school on the bus ride to the grocery store. He is a drug dealer, she is sure. The bus stops in front of the school, and she sees him pass something in a white baggie to a blond boy on the basketball court. The boy gives him a green wad of cash, which the comb over man stuffed into his front pocket.

Now, the drug dealer walks up and trips on the sidewalk. Nobody sees but her. A black leather notebook drops out his jacket pocket, but he doesn’t see. Instead, he is distracted by the siren and looks way up at the fireman at the windows.

Delores glances around and wonders if anyone else has seen what happened. She is not prone to shout into crowds. She saw a blond lady drop 50 dollars in the supermarket a month ago. Delores had been shopping on her fireman’s pension.

The blond lady had a designer purse. Delores picked up the 50 behind her, watched her check out the organic food and followed the woman out to her BMW. The woman with the designer purse never looked back, so Delores stayed silent. Later, Delores bought a 50 dollar bouquet for Williams grave, stopping by the florist on the way to her weekly visit to William’s grave.

Now, in front her building with firetrucks on her side of her, she walks across the street and picks up the unnoticed notebook. She tucks it in the purse that William had bought for her years ago when she said that she liked it. The zipper is broken, but she decides to keep the purse until it is on its last thread.

She sits down on a bench across the street, as she is too old to stand with a leering crowd as the firemen carry on. After an hour, a fireman comes around the back of the building.

“OK, folks, false alarm. The area is secure. You can go back inside,” says the fireman.

“All that fuss over nothing!” barks the man in the green suit.

Delores continues to sit as the firetrucks clear and the police re open the street. It is a warm summer night. She spent many warm summer nights like this on the balcony with William until dusk. They had tried for years to have a baby, but after the years went by, they preferred to spend their summer evenings on the patio. When the sun is down, she goes back inside.

The next morning, she wakes up in her single bed and stares at the ceiling, another day alone in her apartment. She hasn’t seen the yellow helmet in years. She wonders how the fire-hall looks like these days, or if it is still there. Might be fun to visit and do something different today. She remembers the street where William used to work.

Delores decides to take the bus to the fire-hall. When the driver stops in front of a grocery store, she waves Larry away as he looks back at her.

“Not today, Delores? Not getting off for groceries?”

“Not today, Larry. Down two more blocks to the fire-hall.”

Larry shrugs and cranks the door shut.

Standing in front of the fire-hall, she sees that it is still the beautiful building of her memories It is a simple sandstone building, but she admires its antique beauty The huge garage doors to the right are still ready to whip open at the sound of the siren. The street lights across the street are still ready to warn passersby to stand and wait and tell the drivers of cars to allow the firetrucks through.

Inside, Delores approaches the front counter. She doesn’t recognize the young guy at the counter, a young guy with goatee and a crew cut.

“Excuse me, do you know a native fireman?”

The goatee fellow stares at her. “Excuse me?”

“There was a native fireman who helped me yesterday”

“Oh, I see,” the young man smiled. “Glad we could help you.”

“Who is he?”

“Oh, I’m sorry ma’am. We can’t release the information. But I would be glad to pass on your regards. The guys love to hear feedback.”

“Well I suppose that you can tell him my late husband was a fireman.”

“Absolutely, ma’am. Have a good day.”

Outside, Delores stares at the summer sky, remembering the summer nights with her fireman William. Across the street, the Dominion Bank stands. That building is new with plastic siding. This whole street has changed since she came here with William.

Staring across the street, she remembers the notebook she picked up. She rummages around, and at the bottom of her purse, she still has the notebook.

There is another bench and she sits down under an old oak tree. On page one is a list of numbers. The green suited man was counting and adding sums in the book.

“This is a ledger,” thought Delores.

For pages and pages in the notebook, it said, 2000 plus 3000, plus 2000.

The sums start at just a few thousand on the first page and gradually add up.

“I wonder what is on the last few pages,” thinks Delores, and flips through as many crinkled pages as possible.

“$500,389” was printed half way through the book.

“Well,” though Delores, “this man shouldn’t advertise.”

Delores flips back to the first page. She hadn’t noticed, but there is writing and a bank card tucked on the inside of the front cover. She looks closer.

Dominion Bank account #957346095

Pin: 0483

Women’s Quilt Sale for Red Cross

“So that’s how drug dealers do it,” thinks Delores, “Put it in a charity bank account and nobody notices. Like how nobody notices an old woman.”

As Delores closes the notebook, she sees a pretty, young native woman with smooth black hair and cocoa skin walk up the street. The woman stops in front of the fire-hall, and walks up the steps to its entrance.

“She must be meeting her hero,” thinks Delores. “Reminds me of when we were young.”

Delores decides to follow, and nobody notices a short, old woman, with a grey bun. Delores stands at the back while the native woman speaks to the goateed man.

“Dylan,” says the native woman, “Where is Jake? I need him.”

“Sorry, Janine,” says Dylan. “He’s out on a call.”

“His name is Jake!” thinks Delores.

“I’ll get him to call you as soon as he gets back.”

Delores follows Janine outside, down the steps and on to the bus stop down the block. She gets on the bus with Janine and follows her into the middle-class neighbourhood. It’s a suburb with cookie cutter houses.

Janine stops in front of a blue house with a white fence, and goes inside. The window is open and Delores can hear inside.

“Go play outside kids,” Delores hears from Janine.

Two native kids come out to play. A native boy with shoulder length brown hair and girl in a pink shirt with a big gap between her two front teeth.

“What does foreclosure mean?” asks the girl. The two kids don’t notice an old woman with a grey bun on the curb.

“I think it means moving,” says the boy.

“Mommy says we have to pack up our toys right away. And we are going to live with grandma.”

Delores notices the dangling, wooden sign on the lawn. The house is for sale. Delores is too shy to open the fence and knock on the door. She goes back to bus stop and then back to the fire-hall.

In front of the fire-hall, she sits back on the bench. It’s now late afternoon. She would like to go back to her apartment’s patio and enjoy the summer evening before dark.

She remembers the notebook. The Dominion Bank is across the street. She looks like a typical quilter. She could try and nobody would second guess.

She enters the vestibule with the bank machine. She learned how to use a bank machine from William, as he insisted that it would be quicker.

She puts the bank card from the notebook into the machine and taps in the pin. The amount shows up, just as the notebook says.

“How much would it take to pay for a foreclosure?” wonders Delores, “so how much does a house sell for these days?”

She is sure that “$500,389 will do it. She requests an e-transfer to her own bank account for the entire $500,389.

“Transfer complete,” says the screen. She can accept it at the library tomorrow. The librarian will show her how to accept an e-transfer on the internet.

Outside the bank, she walks back to the bus stop. She knows where Jake and Janine live. On the bus, she pulls a pen and chequebook out of her purse. She write a cheque to Jake and Janine for $500,389. In the memo line, she writes, “with love from Delores and William”.

At Janine’s stop, she gets out and walks to the blue house with the white fence. The long-haired boy and the girl with her pink shirt are no longer playing out front.

Delores opens the white fence and puts the cheque in the mailbox by the front door. She rings the bell and Janine opens the door.

“Oh hello, dear,” says Delores. “I was just dropping off something for your husband.”

“Oh, you know Jake?”

“Why yes, he is firefighter just like my husband. The wives of the firefighters, we always stick together, don’t you know.”

“So we do!” smiled Janine. “I will tell him you stopped by.”

“Yes, he was so helpful and handsome in his yellow jacket. He helped us so much at quilters’s charity group and the Red Cross. We decided to donate something to your family. I understand you’ve been having a hard time,” Delores points at the sign.

Janine stopped smiling, “Yes it’s true, but Jake always comes through for us.”

“He already did,” says Delores,“the quilters’ gift is in your mailbox. Please accept it with our gratitude. And don't feel uncomfortable in taking it. We have millions and millions and plenty more where that comes from.”

Janine smiles, “Ok, thank you so much. I will tell Jake to check the mailbox.”

“See you later dear,” says Delores.

Janine waits for Delores to close the white fence, then waves and closes the front door.

“Just like me and my William,” thinks Delores. “The hero and his wife.”

By @msdietvorst