The Greatest Gift Page 4

  “I’ve discovered that restaurants throw out their leftover food at the end of the day because they can’t resell it the next day,” she explained. “I found five restaurants that are willing to let me have what they don’t sell.” Her eyes brightened as she warmed to her subject. “And now I’m looking for places to donate the food and people to help me carry it and sort it into parcels.”

  “You’re almost homeless yourself, and you’re spending your free time feeding other people?” He was astounded.

  She grinned. “It helps me to stop worrying about my own problems if I’m busy helping others with theirs. Feeding the hungry is a nice way to spend my spare time.”

  “I’m amazed,” he said, and meant it. “I don’t have a way to go…”

  “I’ll come by and pick you up in the afternoons before I make my rounds,” she promised, “if you’re willing to help.”

  “I’ve got nothing else to do,” he replied gently. “I don’t have anything of my own, or any other place to go except here,” he added, glancing around. “They haven’t tried to throw me out, so I suppose I can stay.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Bev laughed as she joined them. “Of course you can stay, Mr. Harlowe!”

  “Sam,” he corrected. “Call me Sam. Do you know about Mrs. Crandall’s new project?”

  “Mary,” she corrected. “If you get to be Sam, I get to be just Mary.”

  “And I’m Bev,” the older woman laughed. “Now that we’ve settled that, what’s this project, Mary?”

  “Remember I told you I discovered that restaurants throw away their food at the end of the day,” Mary said.

  “And they don’t save the leftovers….” Bev said with a frown.

  “They can’t. It’s against the law. So all that food goes into the garbage.”

  “While people go hungry,” Bev mused.

  “Not anymore. I’ve talked five restaurants into giving me their leftover food,” Mary said. “I’m carrying some to a lady who’s in hiding from her husband.”

  “Doesn’t she know about the battered women’s shelter?” Bev asked at once.

  “She does, but she can’t go there, because her husband threatened to kill her, and she doesn’t want to endanger anyone else,” Mary said. “She’s trying to get in touch with a cousin who’ll send her bus fare home to Virginia, before her husband catches up with her. She’s got two kids. So I’m taking her food. There’s an elderly lady staying in the motel where we are, and I take some to her. But there’s still so much food left over. I thought you might like some for the shelter,” she added hopefully.

  Bev smiled from ear to ear. “Would I!” she exclaimed. “Have you thought of the men’s mission and the food bank?” she added.

  “Men’s mission?” Mary asked blankly.

  “It’s another shelter, but just for men,” Bev said. “And the food bank provides emergency food for families in crisis—where one or both parents are sick or out of work and there’s no money for food. Or disabled people who can’t get out to shop, and elderly people who have no transportation and no money.”

  Mary started to feel a warmth of spirit that she’d never had before. Her own problems suddenly seemed very small. “I’ve heard of the food bank, but I never knew much about it. And I didn’t know we had a men’s mission.”

  “There’s a women’s mission, too,” Bev told her. “We have a Meals-On-Wheels program with its own volunteers who take hot meals to elderly shut-ins. There’s quite an outreach program, but you wouldn’t know unless you’d been homeless or badly down on your luck.”

  “I’m ashamed to say I never knew much about those programs, and never noticed them until I got into this situation,” Mary confessed. “But now I’m wondering if there wasn’t a purpose behind what happened to me. Otherwise, I’d never have been looking into the restaurant food rescue.”

  “It’s nice, isn’t it, how God finds uses for us and nudges us into them?” Bev teased.

  Mary’s eyes shimmered. “I don’t think I’ve ever thought of that before, either,” she said. “But whole new avenues of opportunity are opening up in front of me. You know, I never knew how kind people could be until I lost everything.”

  “That’s another way we fit into the scheme of things, isn’t it?” Bev said. “Until we’re caught up in a particular situation, we never think of how it is with people in need. I was homeless myself,” she said surprisingly, “and I ended up in a women’s mission. That opened my eyes to a whole world that I’d never seen. When I got involved trying to better the situation of other people in trouble, my own life changed and I found a purpose I didn’t know I had. I became useful.”

  Mary grinned. “That’s what I’m trying to become. And so far, so good!” She glanced at Mr. Harlowe. “I’ve just found a willing volunteer to help me parcel up and pass out food.”

  Bev’s eyebrows lifted. “You, Sam?”

  He nodded. “I do think I’ve just become useful, myself,” he said with a chuckle. “I can’t lift a lot of heavy things,” he added hesitantly. “I had a back injury from service in Vietnam, and it left me unable to do a lot of lifting.”

  “The food parcels the children and I have been making up aren’t heavy at all,” Mary was quick to point out. “We try to make sure we have bread, vegetables, fruit and meat in each one. And dessert, too. But that was only from the one restaurant. With the four new ones added, we can make up larger ones.”

  “You’ll need containers,” Bev said. “I know a woman at one of the dollar stores who’s a good citizen. She contributes paper plates and cups to our shelter, and if you go and see her, I’ll bet she’d contribute those plastic containers for your project.”

  Mary, who’d been buying such things herself, was surprised and delighted at the suggestion.

  Bev had a pen and paper. “Here. I’ll write down her name and address for you. And I’ll see if I can find you one more volunteer with a car and some free time.”

  “That’s great!” Mary exclaimed.

  “You borrowed a car, didn’t you?” Bev asked. “Does the person who loaned it mind if you use it for this?”

  That was something Mary hadn’t asked about. She bit her lower lip. “I don’t know,” she confessed. “I’ll have to go and see her and ask if it’s all right.”

  “That may not be necessary. We have a patron who has an old truck that he’s offered to donate to us,” Bev volunteered. “I’ll ask him if he’s still willing to do that. You might talk to one of the independent gas stations and see if they’d donate gas.”

  “Bev, you’re a wonder!” Mary exclaimed.

  “I’ve learned the ropes,” Bev said simply, “and learned how to get people to follow their most generous instincts. After you’ve been in the business for a while, you’ll be able to do that, too.”

  “I never knew how many people went to bed hungry in this country,” Mary commented. “I’ve learned a lot in a few days.”

  “Welcome to the real world.”

  Sam sighed. “Well, then, when do we begin?”

  “Tonight,” Mary said enthusiastically.

  “Wait just a minute,” Bev said, and went to the phone. “I want to see if I can get in touch with our patron before you go.”

  Amazingly she did, and he promised to have the truck at the shelter promptly at 6:00 p.m. that evening.

  “Thanks a million, Bev,” Mary said.

  “We’re all working toward the same goal,” Bev reminded her. “Go see that guy about the gas, okay?”

  “I’ll do it on my way back to the motel.”

  Mary stopped by the gas station, introduced herself, mentioned Bev, and outlined her new project. “I know it’s a lot to ask,” she said, “and if you don’t want to do this, it’s okay. I’ve been paying for the gas myself…”

  “Hey, it doesn’t hurt me to donate a little gas to a good cause,” he told Mary with a chuckle. “You bring your truck by here before you start out tonight, and I’ll fill it up for you. We’ll set
up a schedule. If I’m not here, I’ll make sure my employees know what to do.”

  “Thanks so much,” Mary told him.

  He shrugged. “Anybody can end up homeless,” he commented, “through no fault of his or her own. It’s the times we live in.”

  “I couldn’t agree more!”

  Mary told the children what was going on, and how much work it was going to be. “But we do have a volunteer who’s going to help us with the deliveries,” she remarked. “It will mean getting up very early in the mornings to get your homework done, or doing it at school while you’re waiting for me to pick you up.”

  “We could stay at the homework center until you get off work, instead of you coming to get us as soon as school’s out,” Bob suggested.

  “Sure,” Ann agreed. “We wouldn’t mind. There’s a boy I like who’s explaining Spanish verbs to me,” she added shyly.

  “This will work, I think, until we get some more volunteers,” Mary said with a smile.

  “We want to help,” Ann said. “It’s not going to be that much work.”

  “It’s sort of nice, helping other people. No matter how bad it is for us, it’s worse for many other people,” Bob agreed. “I like what we’re doing.”

  Mary hugged them all. “When they say it’s better to give than to receive, they’re not kidding. It really is. I feel wonderful when we take these packages out to people who need them.”

  “Me, too,” Ann said. “I’m going to do a paper on it for my English class.”

  “Good for you!” Mary said.

  “We’re doing okay, aren’t we, Mom?” Bob asked gently. He smiled at her. “Dad didn’t think we could, I’ll bet.”

  The mention of her ex-husband made Mary uneasy. She’d been afraid at first that he might try to get custody of the children, just for spite. But perhaps he didn’t want the aggravation of trying to take care of three of them. Mary had never minded the responsibility. She loved her children, she enjoyed their company. As she looked at them, she felt so fortunate. Things got better every day.

  That evening, she and the children went to the homeless shelter to pick up the donated truck.

  “Can you drive it?” Bev asked worriedly, when she noted petite Mary climbing up into the high cab of the big, long bed, double-cabbed vehicle. It was red and a little dented, but the engine sounded good when it was started.

  “I grew up on a farm,” Mary said with a grin. “I can drive most anything, I expect. I’ll bring it back, but it will be late, is that okay?”

  “If I’m not here, George will be,” Bev assured her. “You keep the doors locked and be careful.”

  “Don’t you worry,” Sam Harlowe said as he climbed up into the passenger seat. “I may be old, but I’m not helpless. Mary will have help if she needs it.”

  “Sure she will,” Bob added, chuckling. “I play tackle on the B-team football squad.”

  “Good luck, then,” Bev called to them as Mary put the truck in gear and pulled out into the street.

  Mary stopped by the gas station. True to his word, the manager filled up the tank and even checked under the hood to make sure the truck was in good running shape. He checked the tires as well.

  “Thanks,” she told him.

  He grinned. “My pleasure. Drive carefully.”

  “I will,” she promised.

  She pulled out into the sparse traffic and headed toward the first of the five restaurants. “We’ll probably have to wait a while at first, until we get into some sort of routine.”

  “No problem,” Bob said. “We all brought books to read.”

  Sam laughed. “Great minds run in the same direction.” He pulled out a well-worn copy of Herodotus, the Histories, and displayed it.

  “I’ve got my piecework, as well,” Mary said, indicating a small canvas bag with knitting needles and a ball of yarn. “I’m making hats for people in the shelters. I can only knit in a straight line, but hats are simple.”

  “I wouldn’t call knitting simple,” Sam assured her.

  She laughed. “It keeps my hands busy. Okay, here we are,” she added, pulling into the parking lot of the first restaurant.

  The waiting was the only bad part. They had to arrive at or near closing time in order to gather the leftovers. On the first night, the last restaurant was already closed by the time they got to it.

  “We’ll have to do better than this,” Mary murmured worriedly. “I hadn’t realized how long it would take to do this.”

  “First times are notoriously hard,” Sam said. “We’ll get better at it. But perhaps we can find one more volunteer to go to the last two restaurants for us and pick up the leftovers.”

  “There aren’t a lot of volunteers who can work at night,” Mary fretted.

  “Listen, if things are meant to happen, the details take care of themselves,” Sam said. “You wait and see. Everything’s going to fall into place like clockwork, and you’ll wonder why you ever worried in the first place.”

  Mary glanced at him and was reassured by his smile. She smiled back. “Okay. I’ll go along with that optimism and see what happens.”

  Sam glanced out his window confidently. “I think you’ll be surprised.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  AS THE DAYS PASSED, Mary and her helpers got more efficient at picking up the food and parceling it out. The truck ran perfectly, and Mary got better at managing her finances. She picked up two more cleaning jobs, which was the maximum she could fit into the week.

  Debbie, who’d loaned her the car, also suggested that a slight raise in her hourly rate would provide her with more money. Mary was hesitant to do that, for fear of losing customers.

  “You just tell them that I raised you two dollars an hour and they’ll be ashamed not to follow suit,” Debbie said firmly.

  “What if they let me go?” Mary worried.

  “You’ve come a long way in a short time,” Debbie said. “You’re much more confident, more poised, and you’re a whiz at organization. I’m amazed at the change in you.”

  “I’ve changed?” Mary asked hesitantly.

  “You’ve taken charge of your own life, and the lives of your children. You’ve organized a food rescue program to benefit needy people, you’ve kept the children in school and up with their homework, you’ve found a decent place to live and you’re on your way to financial independence.” Debbie grinned. “I’m proud of you.”

  Mary smiled. “Really?”

  “Really. You just keep going the way you’ve been going. You’re going to make it, Mary. I’m sure of it.”

  That confidence made Mary feel on top of the world. “You’re sure you don’t want the car back now?”

  “When you can afford one of your own,” Debbie said, “you can give mine back. Listen, honey, it sits in the garage all day and hardly ever gets driven. You’re actually doing us a favor by keeping it on the road, so that it doesn’t gum up and stop working.”

  “You make things seem so easy,” Mary said. “You’ve done so much for us. I don’t know how to repay you.”

  “I’m doing it for selfish motives,” Debbie whispered conspiratorially. “If you leave, my husband will divorce me when the dishes and the laundry pile up and start to mold.”

  Mary knew that wasn’t true. Debbie did, too. But they both smiled.

  The food rescue program was growing. Mary now had ten restaurants on her list, and two more volunteers who helped to gather the food and make it up into packages. One of the new volunteers had a car. And his identity was a shock.

  It was Matt Clark, the policeman they’d met their first night in the car. He was wearing a neat new sports shirt and khaki slacks with a brown leather bomber jacket. He’d had a haircut and he looked younger.

  “I’ve never seen him look so neat off duty,” Bev whispered wickedly as Mary entered the shelter with armloads of packaged food. “I think he’s dressing up for somebody. Three guesses who.”

  “Hush!” Mary exclaimed, blushing.

 
; “Well, hello,” Matt greeted her, taking some of the containers from her arms. “I had some free time and I heard you were looking for help. So here I am.”

  “We’re happy to have you here,” Mary replied breathlessly. “There’s so much food to pick up and deliver, and it takes a lot of time.”

  “I don’t see how you managed, when you were doing it alone,” Matt remarked as they put the food parcels on the long table.

  “I’m beginning to wonder that, myself,” Mary had to admit. She smiled shyly at him. “This is just the first load. There are two more in the truck, at least, and the other volunteers will be along soon with even more.”

  “Where do all these go?” Matt asked.

  “There’s a list,” Sam volunteered as he joined them, grinning, with an armload of food. “How’s it going, Matt?”

  “Fair to middling, Sam,” came the reply. The two men smiled and shook hands, and then Sam went back to collect some more food packs.

  “You know each other?” Mary asked Matt curiously, in a low voice.

  “Before he retired, Sam worked for the city as a building inspector,” Matt told her. “I had to rescue him from an irate client once. We had a beer together and discovered we had a lot in common. We were having lunch once a month until Sam’s bad luck.” Matt shook his head. “Pity about what happened to him. I remember a time when ethics were the most important part of business. Now it seems to be that only the corrupt prosper.”

  “I know what you mean,” Mary agreed. “It’s nice of you. Helping us make the deliveries, I mean.”

  He smiled at her. “It isn’t as if I have a hectic social life. Mostly I work.”

  “Same here!” she laughed.

  He hesitated, his dark eyes quiet and searching. “You’re an amazing person,” he commented quietly. “Most people would be thinking about themselves in your position, not about helping others.”

  “I wasn’t always like this,” she said. “I can remember a time when I was afraid of street people. It makes me a little ashamed.”