Warm You Up, a Short Story by William Cass

Picture of a woman painting by WIX

Agnes started her morning the same way she had for the sixty-odd years she’d lived alone in that house: with a cup of tea while she said the rosary at the kitchen table. She mumbled as she prayed. Dawn crept through the sheer curtains over the sink.

            When she finished the rosary, Agnes made toast and ate it at the counter with another cup of tea. The plate and cup she used had been her grandparents’, as was most of the furniture in the house. She looked into the backyard as she ate and was vaguely aware of the sounds of traffic increasing beyond the hedge and down the hill on the town’s main street. The maple tree at the far corner of the yard had made its seasonal turn, brightly-colored leaves circling its base. When Agnes opened the window to set her crusts on the sill for the birds, she was surprised by the chill breath of air that came inside. Not yet mid-October and already someone had a fireplace burning nearby. Like always, the realization of another fall deepening saddened her: the shortened days, the colder weather, the passage of time.

            She said, “My.”

The sound of her own voice was unsettling, too. She couldn’t remember speaking the previous day, nor the one before that.

~

By eight, Agnes had showered, dressed, made the bed, and was ready for her morning walk. She put on the old Mackinaw coat that had been her grandfather’s and left through the front door, jiggling its handle afterwards to be sure it was locked. She started down the hill towards the elementary school where she’d taught for forty years. Its entry bell rang as she came up beside the playground, and she smiled. She stopped to watch the clambering children, diminished in numbers over the years, being shuttled into the building by staff members. Agnes only recognized one of the adults, a tall man who’d started there as a teacher’s aide shortly before she retired; she felt her eyebrows knit as she realized his hair that had been jet-black then was mostly gray now.

            Agnes continued up to the main street and waited for the traffic light to change to cross it. She looked down a few blocks at the old fertilizer plant that had closed up a decade before and the train depot just beyond it that had shut down, too, not long afterwards. The buildings loomed large, dark, still. When the light changed, she crossed into more streets not unlike her own with small houses and tall trees along the curbs. Like most of the neighborhoods in town, nearly as many houses were for sale or boarded up as were occupied.

Five minutes later, Agnes came to the town’s central park. She had it entirely to herself as she made her way past the baseball field, the jungle gym, the miniature pavilion, and up onto the footbridge that crossed a small brook. She stopped there and watched the water babble by. She thought of collecting pollywogs in a jar along the brook’s banks as a girl and trying to cross it from rock to rock after it had risen in the spring. Agnes could hardly believe she’d been that young once, that she had been that girl. The memory was like thinking about another person altogether.

            She crossed the remainder of the bridge and had almost come to the park’s opposite entrance when she saw two feet in high-top sneakers protruding from a cluster of bushes near the pathway. Agnes felt a jolt; she sucked in her breath and looked about her for someone to help. But she remained alone, so she swallowed and took tentative steps into the bushes. A heavy-set woman in a hooded sweatshirt and jeans lay on her back there. She appeared to be sleeping, but her breathing was slow and shallow. Agnes bent down, shook the woman’s shoulder, and got no response. She grabbed her cell phone from her coat pocket and called 911.

            Agnes stayed at the woman’s side, recognition slowly filling her, until she heard a siren approach, then hurried to the entrance and waved the ambulance up to where she waited. She stood off to the side while the two male paramedics examined the woman. The older paramedic lifted one of the woman’s eyelids, then shouted, “Get the Narcan!”

            Agnes had heard about Narcan and its use. She put her hand over her mouth and began to pray.

            The paramedics treated the unconscious woman, then arranged her on a stretcher inside the back of the ambulance. Agnes heard the older paramedic report into a hand-held receiver that they had a drug overdose in transit and were heading to Memorial Hospital.

            The younger paramedic rode in the back with the woman. Before the older one climbed into the driver’s seat, he asked Agnes, “Are you with her?”

“No, I just stumbled upon her, but I know her. She was a third-grade student of mine many years ago.”

            He nodded.

            Agnes felt her lips trembling. “Will she be all right?”

            “Don’t know. Hope so.”

He got inside, started the engine and lights, and sped away. Agnes watched after it, considering, until it disappeared and she could no longer hear the siren. It had been the woman’s wide forehead and small mouth that had first led Agnes to recognize her; even thirty years later, both were distinctive. Her name was Jean, and she’d sat at the back of the last row in Agnes’ classroom. She’d been unusually quiet as a little girl, taciturn, shy. Her father, like those of most of school’s students, had worked at the fertilizer plant.

            Agnes changed her normal route and walked over to St. Matthew’s Church. Like the park, it was empty. She lit a votive candle in the little alcove dedicated to the Virgin Mary, lowered herself onto the kneeler there, and prayed some more for Jean. She remembered that as a girl, Jean had been larger than most of her classmates and rarely had interactions with any of them. The exception was one bitterly cold winter afternoon after dismissal when she saw Jean creep back into the classroom; at the time, Agnes was in the room’s storage closet, but could see her through the doorway. The girl opened her backpack, took a paper bag out of it, set it on the seat of a boy’s desk, and quickly left the room again. Through one of the windows, Agnes watched her scamper away across the playground, then went over to the boy’s desk. His name was written in green crayon on the outside of the bag. Agnes opened it. Inside were a pair of mittens, a scarf, and a knit cap, all well-worn. The boy’s house had burned down the week before, and his family had lost almost all of their belongings. Agnes replaced the bag where it had been and looked out the window again. Jean was nowhere to be seen.

~

That afternoon, Agnes tried to take her regular post-lunch nap, but couldn’t sleep. Instead, she lay there thinking about Jean, the dealt hands of life, and the dwindling number of days she herself had left on earth. Finally, she bundled up again and drove over to the hospital. She found the emergency room receptionist behind a glass window and asked about Jean.

            The receptionist regarded Agnes evenly and paused before asking, “Are you family?”

            Agnes shook her head.

            “Well, if you’re not, I’m afraid I can’t disclose that sort of information to you. All I can let you know is that she’s no longer here and hasn’t been admitted upstairs.”

            “She’s left then, been discharged?”

            The receptionist stared back and said nothing.

            “Or I guess it could mean she didn’t make it at all. That she passed away.”

            With pursed lips, the receptionist showed her palms.

            “All right,” Agnes said. “Thank you.”

            She went back outside and drove home. When she got there, Agnes checked the phone book and did an internet search but couldn’t find any contact information about Jean or her family’s surname. She thought to herself: thirty years is a long time; if she’s alive at all, she could be anywhere. Agnes looked out her window and across the street where the weeds surrounding an abandoned house rustled knee-high on the small breeze. She thought back to when the town and region had been thriving; it seemed so long ago. Many people had lost their way since then. Jean was just one of them. She touched her fingertips to the window’s glass and blew out a long breath.

~

On her walk each morning afterwards, Agnes slowed her steps though the park and looked for Jean. She looked for her, too, when she passed by people huddled together outside taverns, empty storefronts, or in alleyways. She looked more hopefully at church, the supermarket, the gas station.  She continued to look, but to no avail.

            As the days shortened further, Agnes filled her time in the usual ways to which she’d grown accustomed: praying, reading, drinking tea, knitting afghans for the church’s winter bazaar, watching nature programs on television. Gradually, all the deciduous trees became completely bare, and the titter of birds no longer greeted her upon waking.

            Two Mondays before Thanksgiving, as the afternoon’s light had begun its descent towards gloaming, Agnes opened her front door to get the mail and stopped dead in her tracks. Her palms flew to her chest. Jean was standing there on the porch looking directly at her. She was dressed in the same sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers, but a timid smile creased her lips.

“Ms. Stafford,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry to startle you, but they told me at the hospital that you found me that morning and called for the ambulance. You saved my life. I wanted to stop by to thank you.”

            Agnes slowly lowered her hands to her side and said, “You’re all right.”

“Well, I just got out of rehab. You know what they say: one day at a time.”  She paused.  “I was struggling with some things.  But, so far, so good.”

“And you have a place to stay?”

            Jean nodded. “My cousin has a spare room.”

            “How about a job?”

            “Not yet. Need to find one, though, and quick.”

            Agnes thought: we all make mistakes. A sudden idea struck her. “I’ll hire you to paint my house,” she said. “Start on the outside while the weather holds, then I need the inside painted, too. I have all the supplies you need in my garage.”

            Jean’s eyebrows rose. “Paint your house.”

            “Why not?”

            Jean gave a little snort-like chuckle. “Well, I suppose I could do that.” She cocked her head, her eyes narrowing. “Why are you doing this, Ms. Stafford?”

            “Because I believe in you.”

            Jean shook her head. “That’s what you said when I was eight.”

            “And I still believe it.” Agnes paused. “I do.”

Jean continued shaking her head, but her smile widened. “Okay, I guess. When do you want me to start?”

            “Tomorrow morning. Be here at eight and we’ll have a cup of tea before you begin.”

            “I don’t think I’ve ever had a cup of tea.”

            “It’ll warm you up.” Agnes smiled, too. “All right, then. Eight o’clock. Don’t be late.”

“I won’t.” Jean stepped down from the porch onto the front walk, turned and said, “Thank you, Ms. Stafford.”

            “Of course. Take care, Jean.”

The big woman nodded. Agnes watched her go down the walk and turn towards the school. She watched her make her way down the hill and disappear around the bend. Streetlights blinked on, and a dog barked in a neighbor’s yard. Agnes could hear the familiar, quiet murmur of traffic from the main street. It was the time of day when the shift change whistle used to blow at the fertilizer plant. A train rumbled by in the near distance, passing the town’s shuttered depot, coming from somewhere, heading somewhere else.

---

William Cass has had over 395 short stories accepted for publication in a variety of literary magazines such as december, Briar Cliff Review, and Zone 3.  Winner of writing contests at Terrain.org and The Examined Life Journal, he’s also been nominated once for Best of the Net, twice for Best Small Fictions, and six times for the Pushcart Prize.  His three short story collections were all published by Wising Up Press.  He lives in San Diego, California.