"This is Darren Thomas from AutoDirect. It's about the loan..."
"Hey; it's Scott. Hon, the bank can't give you that loan..."
"Sarah! I don't care HOW busy you are! You're comin' in on Saturday!"
"Mary, from Greydon Electric - I need to speak to you about your bills..."
Sarah Williams ripped the phone out of the wall and hurled it across the small, dingy living room at the opposite wall. The window there smashed as the machine ripped into it, littering the floor in a small sea of broken glass.
Sarah's nerves shattered with the window. Grief tore into her soul, eating her mind and her reserve as the box in the broken telephone began to repeat the messages.
"This is Darren Thomas from . . ." the machine hissed to a disgruntled stop and fell silent. Outside the broken window dark clouds rolled into an angry, stormy sky, reflecting how Sarah felt. Lightening flashed for a split second on the horizon. There was a period of indescript silence, then came a loud, answering crack of thunder. Rain began to fall.
Sarah stood silent and still as the water poured through the broken glass of the living room window. She didn't move to fix the damage. Her dark green eyes contemplated the angry, jagged glass that framed the storm outside. Water streamed slowly down the slippery surface of the smashed pane, collecting into large puddles on the floor. Lightening flashed again.
Slowly, almost mindlessly, Sarah approached the window. Thunder rolled again in the distance, reverberating through her head like the angry voices on her answering machine.
She stared out at the filthy, litter-strewn streets that made up her town. Rows of apartment buildings lined the streets, their roofs sagging, their many windows black, and empty. The buildings were gray, like the sky, and the streets on which they stood. Sarah's eyes followed the line of the sidewalk at the foot of her building. There, in a puddle just below her, lay the broken telephone, wet with the rain. She stared at it for a moment before looking away.
In every building she saw and heard the messages that had been left on her answering machine. The loans, the bills; she couldn't face it all. It surrounded her day and night. New memories, nightmares, from the day, haunted her like ghosts. Every day she made new ones. Just living, each and every moment was like torture. It was like cruel, unusual punishment for the way she'd lived her life. There were people, many people, laying in wait. They hated her.
Darren Thomas. The AutoDirect. Another loan that she just could not have. Bills from the electric company. More work on Saturday. And now, even Scott couldn't give her a loan.
Scott.
He was her friend and companion, and had been for many years. Scott had always come to her financial rescue. His father owned the bank that Sarah used, and so far, they had always helped her. Until now. Trouble, as everyone knew, always struck at once.
She started at the sound of a small, sharp cry from the bedroom.
Danny. Her Danny.
Sarah turned and headed into the room where her two-year old son lay huddled in his crib. As Sarah approached, lightening ripped through the sky once more, flooding the tiny bedroom with blinding white light. The baby awoke as the resounding thunder shook the entire house. Sarah jumped and her pulse skipped a few beats. In the crib, the baby stood up unsteadily on his tiny legs and began to wail.
"Mamma!"
Sarah hurried to her son and lifted him up into her arms.
"Hush now," she crooned softly, "Mamma's here." Slowly Danny's cries quieted into soft little whimpers and moans. Sarah stroked her son's dark curls as she rocked him gently back and forth.
"We're in trouble again, Danny," she said softly, looking down sadly at the frail form of her child. As she rocked him, Sarah felt a small flurry of fear rising in her chest. She feared for her future, for her child, and for their future as a family. They were a small family, but they were a close one, and there seemed to be so much that threatened to break those teetering bonds. For as much as Sarah would try to protect her son, there was nothing she could do against bankruptcy.
A small beeping noise, ringing from out of the living room, startled her out of her reverie. Danny had fallen back asleep already, so Sarah laid him gently back into his crib before hurrying out to find the source of the sound. Her jacket lay discarded on the floor where she had thrown it. Reaching into the left pocket she pulled out her cell phone. It had been a present from Scott, who dutifully paid the bill for it and was the only one who called her on it.
Sarah flipped it open and put it to her ear.
"Hello Scott."
Scott's voice was too cheery at the other end. "Hey beautiful; how did you know it was me?"
"The same way I always know." Scott laughed. Sarah closed her eyes and sank down onto the floor, laying a tired hand over her face and her head back up against the wall.
"What do you want, Scott?" she sighed. Her current mood did not allow her to talk decently. All of her emotions were drained and she was feeling extremely tired. Her eyes were stinging, but Sarah resisted her tears with vigor.
Scott was immediately concerned. "Well, not much," he answered slowly. "I just wanted to call you...to see how you were."
Sarah was struggling against her tears now.
"I'm fine," she insisted, too harshly. "I don't need anything."
There was a pause on the other end as Scott seemed to feel her tone.
"I - I wasn't, that is; I didn't mean - " There were a few background noises other end. "Uh, Sarah?" Scott said slowly, "Could you hold on? I've got another call coming in."
"Fine." Sarah's voice was a whisper. Slowly she let her hand drop to the floor, the phone still clutched in her palm. Rain still streamed in through the broken window. As she watched it fall, she felt all hope within her draining away, leaving her spirit shattered. A tear slipped silently over her cheek. She brushed it away hastily but another one slid down after it.
"This is pathetic," Sarah told herself in a quavering voice. Despite her admonishes, her tears were falling fast now. She heard Scott's voice calling her from the phone in her hand.
"Scott?" Sarah put the phone back up to her ear.
"Hi, uh; Sarah..." he said vaguely.
Sarah sniffed. "Who was it on the other end?" She could hear the tension in the pause that ensued. "Scott..."
"It was the bank."
Sarah was taken aback. "Your bank?" she asked. "My fathers,' yes," Scott replied slowly. "Baby, they're...they're going to repossess your house if you don't pay off your debts."
The phone dropped to the floor. Vaguely, Sarah heard Scott calling her name, but she didn't care. Her home was going to be taken away.
It was unreal.
That was the sort of thing that happened to other people, and somehow Sarah had always figured that it would never happen to her. There wasn't anything she could do to stop it because she had absolutely no money.
She started to run back down the hall, but she fell on her knees.
"Oh my God," she sobbed, burying her face in her hands. All around her, her life was falling apart. She had no foothold, nothing to cling to. Sarah felt broken.
Feverishly, tears still pouring down her cheeks, she crawled back to the place where she had left her phone. She picked it up. There was nothing on the other end but the dull beep of the dial tone, for Scott had already hung up.
Sara felt to weak to redial. Her hands shook so hard that the phone slipped from her fingers. The world was spinning all around her; the lightening flashed and in the distance, thunder cracked, shaking the house and her very soul. Her breathing shortened.
"Sarah!"
Suddenly Scott's arms were around her, holding her close. His hands brushed her hair, threading it through his fingers, calming her.
"It's okay, it's okay." He talked to her. She clutched his arm. "Where will I go?" Sarah sobbed into his jacket. Scott hushed her. "You'll come and live with me," he told her, kissing her head. Sarah crawled up near him, pressing her body against him and wrapping her arms around his neck. She was still shaking violently.
"Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you."
Within fifteen minutes Sarah's suitcases were sitting in the trunk of Scott's Rolls. She had been forbidden to take anything besides her clothes, because she could not afford it with out letting Scott pay her bills; something she flatly refused to let him do. Sarah had no desire to take any of it besides the clothes she needed, and already she felt that her friend had done enough for her without paying her debts as well.
Scott escorted her out of the house, faithfully sheltering her with an umbrella. Sarah held the sleeping Danny in a blanket in her arms.
"Any last words?" Scott asked.
"Sarah looked up at her stairwell, and the broken pane of her apartment, and shook her head.
"Just lock it," she said shortly.
Moments later, they were driving away from the building. Sarah was leaning up against Scott's arm sleepily. "I hope I never go back," she murmured.
Scott glanced down at her.
"You won't have to," he said grimly. Not while I'm around.
As the car sped down the block, a large white owl landed on a nearby building and watched them until they had faded into the distance.