ONE MORE TOMORROW

ONE MORE TOMORROW

BY JOHN TUFT

Hannah rises before the sun every morning. She puts her legs over the side of the bed and waits for the pain to subside. Her circulation is poor, and her calves are covered with knobby lumps of blue veins. Hannah is in her mid-50s and has worked hard all of her life. Her legs have carried her through waitressing, selling door to door, and now up and down the corridors of the cheap motel at the edge of town where she cleans the rooms and changes the beds. It is a daily grind for minimum age. Retirement is an impossible dream and it’s up to her legs to keep her going. She lives in a one room apartment over a garage, with steep wooden stairs she slowly climbs each evening when she returns from her labors.

At one point, she could walk the mile from her place to the job, but now that is asking too much of her own legs. She is taking Uber instead. It is maybe a $5 ride. At the end of each ride, both to work and coming home, she adds a $5 tip to the fare. How do I know this? Her regular Uber driver, Bernie, told me. Because he is so impressed with this level of humility and graciousness. He estimated that only ten percent of his riders give tips. Most surprising, waitresses are nontippers. Right along with businesspeople on expense accounts, college students, and other salt of the earth types. The lowly cleaning woman is the most generous. Consistently. With no fanfare or expectation of reward.

One Sunday afternoon, I climbed those steep, rickety steps in my own halting way. My back, hips and knees have their own order of ascension. Hannah is suspicious at first. After all, how many people come knocking at your door as the Grace and Humility Police? She’s in a housecoat and slippers. She finally invites the old, white-haired man with the white beard into her home, an act of courage all its own. “You write stories? About what?” she asks over half glasses perched near the tip of her nose. “Human beans,” I tell her. “Human perishables. Human beans. Nothing more, nothing less.” “Why me?” She wants to know. “Why not you?” I respond because one good question deserves another, in my book.

“Hannah, why do you give Bernie such a tip every ride?” She peers across the top of her glasses like I’ve must be daft. “Bernie has a big mouth.” I shrug. “I can be persuasive.” Hannah harumphs at that. “You’re the one they call Preacher Boy, ain’t ya? You ain’t no boy.” Another shrug. “I tend to think like one, I guess.” She harumphs again. “I bet you haven’t preached in years, have ya?” I shook my head. “Some tags stick to you, no matter what you do.” Hannah exhales slowly and steadily through pursed lips. “Ain’t that the truth.” We sat with that for a moment. I sampled the custard pie and coffee she sat in front of me. Not chocolate, but I can manage.

Something tickled at the back of my brain. “Have you ever been in love?” I asked. Hannah sat back abruptly. “What?” I tried another angle. “Who was your first love, Hannah?” “Thomas.” It sounds like an involuntary gasp, more than a name. One she could not help but say. I sat and waited. A faraway look came into Hannah’s eyes. She was no longer in the little room over a garage. “He took me on a picnic. He thought I was somebody special.” A holy space opened up between us across the aluminum and linoleum veneer table. “Aren’t you somebody special?” I whispered into the sacred portal. Her eyes filled with tears. “I didn’t think so.” She shook her head over and over. “I didn’t think so.”

“But Thomas thought you are.” There came a rustling, maybe the wings of angels, if you believe in such. And in that disturbed air, she inhaled sharply. “Yes.” She swiped at the tears tracing the wrinkles in her cheeks. “Yes, he did. He believed in me. He,” she paused, as though this was a thought long locked away, “Thomas loved me.” I can feel my own eyes burning as she let herself be revealed. I finally mange, “What became of Thomas and his love?” She sat in silence for the longest time. “You’re a pain in the ass, Preacher Boy.” I nodded. “So I’ve been told.” A shudder passed through Hannah. “By the end of summer, I knew I loved him. It was magic. I don’t know what else to say, but it was magic.” Another shudder, this one stronger. “He was killed in a car crash on his way to college. Can you imagine? He was smart enough for college and he loved me.”

A cloud passed in front of the sun and for a moment I could barely make Hannah out across that table as she said, “He’s with me. All the time. I’d give anything for one more tomorrow with him.” And that’s when I knew. “He is with you, isn’t he, Hannah? That’s why you pay the tip. You’re paying for Thomas’s ride.” She nodded and nothing more needed to be said. You find saints where you can…

Words are magic and writers are wizards.