Ella
“Come on, people. Your work isn’t going to do itself.”
The office froze for a moment and then quickly gained volume as papers shuffled and keys were pressed. Carrie strode down the aisle the desks created and shuffled into her own office. With a Starbucks cup in one hand and a fax in the other, she pretended to be just as energetic as if it were any other day; one that wasn’t Monday. It was 8:45, and she was determined to make it until 12:00 without having some sort of breakdown.
As she put the fax she had just received on top of a pile of papers sprinkled with donut remains, Carrie took a deep breath and glanced at the phone. After a few sips from her coffee cup, she picked up the phone and dialed a number she had printed onto a sticky note.
“Mr. Johnson’s office.”
“Yeah, this is Carrie Harris from Harris Insurance. Is he in?”
“Mr. Johnson? He just stepped out. Can I take a message?”
“Mhm. Tell him his message is to never call my agency again. I’m tired of dealing with idiots who clearly don’t know what a calendar is. If I don’t get the money he owes in the next twenty four hours, I’m filing a lawsuit.”
As she slammed the phone down, a smirk glided across her face but was gone in an instant. She threw herself back into her brown leather chair and propped her feet up on some manuals that she’d never bothered handing out. The coffee cup was in the trash within five minutes.
12:00 refused to come fast enough. It seemed as though each time she looked at the clock, the minutes were creeping by at an even slower pace than before. After failed attempts at creating ways to control her impatience, Carrie slammed her laptop shut and thrust her chair away from the desk. It was 11:37, but she was the one who wrote the checks. A few minutes without her wouldn’t kill anyone.
“Answer the phones. Send the faxes. Check your Facebooks for all I care. Just don’t call me while I’m gone. I’ll be back at one.” She managed to strut through the room without making eye contact with a single person.
Pulling on her blazer, Carrie walked up to the elevator doors as a gray-haired woman pushed the down button. The doors opened and the two of them stepped inside.
“Fifty two floors,” the woman half shouted, to Carrie’s displeasure. “It almost seems like we’d be better off without these business corporations.” Carrie swallowed a remark, but only out of an intuitive respect for the elderly. She simply tried for a polite smile. To pass the time, she examined the woman. She must have been at least eighty-five. No kids; maybe a few nieces and nephews. Just as she was contemplating the possibility of a husband, the elevator doors swung open and the woman darted out, faster than Carrie expected she was capable of. Before she had time to walk a few feet, she noticed that the woman had dropped something. It looked like a notebook, but the cover was torn off, revealing a stack of time-weathered pages. Carrie bent down and picked it up, but the woman was too far-gone to return it now. She decided to keep it and entertained the idea of flipping through it over Subway.
The traffic was almost as unbearable as her co-workers, but Carrie managed to make it downtown within a few minutes. She grabbed her purse and the tattered notebook and headed to the door of the McDonald’s she had pulled into. She’d changed her mind about the Subway; it was Monday, and choosing a sandwich over a cheeseburger could pass for a sin. She groaned when she looked through the glass toward the long line that was forming.
She couldn’t quite understand why, but Carrie was so anxious to read the notebook that she couldn’t stand it anymore. Realizing the time it would take for the line to go down, she sat down at a table and began leafing through the pages, which were larger in number than she had thought. It seemed to be a journal of some sort. All the pages were dated and contained a few neatly printed sentences. She read the first entry.
January 1, 1944
It’s the first day of a new year, and I decided to make this notebook my resolution. I’m starting a prayer journal.. I probably won’t be as timely as I should, but I’ll surely keep my promise. God, you told us that the way to discover ourselves is through You. So, if I keep this journal, will you stay true to Your promise, too?
Ella
So, the woman had a name. As much as she wanted to loathe her for wasting paper to talk to this “God” of hers, Carrie couldn’t help but be intrigued. She continued to read through similar entries. Ella surely had kept true to her word. There were about twenty entries for every year. They never grew in length, but each entry became more intricate. Carrie couldn’t stop reading. As her eyes moved over each page, she felt closer and closer to Ella, envisioning what she may have looked like in her youth based on the brief encounter in the elevator.
As time rolled by, Carrie sat in her booth and continued to read, forgetting her hunger and forgetting about work. Minutes turned to hours, and people began to stare as her emotions surfaced themselves. She never imagined that one individual could go through so much. Carrie had been wrong about there being no children. There were three and a husband to father them, but toward the end of the notebook they were gone. In fact, everyone seemed to be gone, yet Ella kept such composure.
Carrie felt a sense of disappointment as she noticed that she was near the end of the notebook. She started to read one of the last entries, which was the longest yet. For the first time since she’d started reading, she began to question Ella’s character.
March 12, 2010
You’ve done it, Lord. You’ve answered my prayers. Maxwell was here! He came back to me! I knew you wouldn’t fail me, Lord. I know that this was Your work, but it’s too much for me to keep inside. I’ll write it on these pages so I can remember it until I die; remember it until I can see him again.
I was so lonely I just couldn’t bear it. I tried to tell myself that they’re all with You, but even that wasn’t consolation enough. I was missing them all; him exceptionally. It was late, but I couldn’t sleep. I just sat there in my rocker and wept. Then, I heard something. It sounded like a voice, but these old ears tend to deceive me. It kept growing louder until finally I was able to make out a few words. It said ‘Ella, dry your eyes.’ I grew fearful at first, but the familiarity of the voice soothed me. I looked up…and there he was: my Maxwell, standing right before me! He held me, Lord. I could feel him! It was more than just a memory. It was real, and I refuse to believe anything else.
Oh, my soul aches to see him again. I ache for another encounter with all of the ones I love so dearly. But, alas, I won’t fret. I know I will see him again; see them all again. You have given me this for the strength to carry on. My God, I love you with all that is in me and I thank you.
Ella
Carrie quickly closed the notebook, scared to go on. Surely this old lady was senile. Things like that didn’t happen. They couldn’t happen, unless…no. She wouldn’t fall for it. She looked down at her watch and realized how much time had passed, and all of it she’d wasted reading a bunch of nonsense. It was too late to return to work now. She grabbed her things and headed for her car, trying to hide the embarrassment that had slowly crept in. She could feel the dried mascara on her face.
As she sat down in the seat of her car, she took a deep breath and pulled down the rear view mirror to meet her face. Looking past the tearstains, she glared into her own eyes. Thoughts raced through her mind faster than the people outside, rushing back to their jobs. Maybe…maybe…
Suddenly, Carrie’s eyes switched from their daze into a steady focus. She sat and stared at her reflection for just a moment, then hastily put the key into the ignition and thrust the car into gear. As she drove home, the questions faded into thoughts of tomorrow’s day in the office. With her cell phone in one hand and the other ready to honk at whoever slammed on their brakes next, Carrie began to ramble to herself about the things she’d have to make up the next day. She sighed heavily and a frown swept over her face, but a gleam in her eyes shown, ever so slightly.