The Warmth of Apple Pie

The Warmth of Apple Pie

By: K.L. Wilborn

The man in the McDonald’s drive thru blurted out the familiar tune to Justin Bieber’s Peaches, only, the lyrics were different from the original song.

“I get my milk down from Kroger, where they get it, I don’t.” His SUV idled behind a young couple while they all waited for the line to move.

Caleb, and Samantha waited to approach the drive thru window. Samantha turned back and glanced through the rear window to see the thin-white hair of the elderly man flopping back and forth as he belted out the words like a mad man.

“Is he drunk?”

“I don’t know, but I think I love this guy.” Caleb blurted in response as he pulled up to the first drive thru window.

The adolescent man behind the cash register glanced over at the screen in front of him. “Two apple pies and a large Dr. Pepper?”

“No, we had the two, number sevens with the large, sweet teas.” Caleb corrected.

The blonde pimple faced teen gave an embarrassed grin. “Yeah, sorry. That’ll be nine seventy-five.”

Caleb looked back at the old man who still danced about in his large vehicle yelling out off the wall lyrics to the familiar melody before turning back to the boy to hand him his credit card. “Is the apple pies the vehicle behind us?”

The boy nodded his head as he took Caleb’s card.

It had been a rough week, so the joy spilling over behind them was a breath of fresh air. “I want to pay for his too.”

Samantha smiled and leaned in to make sure the boy could see her. “Also, tell him thank you for the entertainment.”

The worker smiled and did what Caleb had asked. It was always great to see something positive in a job that was usually met with unfriendly faces and people too busy to appreciate the work it took to get them their rushed meals.

Caleb and Samantha drove off to head toward their destination, they were on their way to pick up a gift for their daughter who had been in the hospital with what they thought was a small case of pneumonia. They had been up all night with the sick girl. They were both struggling with exhaustion and starving. It was a blessing to see the older gentleman blissfully singing out with zero cares of who could see and hear him.

****

 Jerry pulled up to the drive thru window to pay for his pies and soda. He had found out an hour before hand that his daughter had gotten the promotion of a lifetime at a local hospital. She was still at work, but he wanted to surprise her with her favorite desert from McDonalds. He often stopped in to say hello and make sure she had enough to eat on the days she pulled doubles. It seemed like a simple gesture, but he knew she would be thrilled.

“Hello sir.” The teen in the window greeted. “The guy in front of you already paid for your order. You can go to the pickup window.”

Jerry gave a grateful smile. It was so kind of the previous customers to treat him. He wanted to make sure that he could do the same for someone else, so he reached into his wallet and pulled out his card. He wasn’t hurting for money and his day was already great. He figured why not pay it forward.

 “I’ve got the vehicle behind me.”

“Are you sure? It’s a large order.” The boy tilted his head to the side and glanced back to the screen, his eyebrows turned inward.

“It’s no problem, I’m good for it.” Jerry pushed his card toward the window and waited. “Also, add a couple bags full of apple pies.”

The boy took his card and tapped it against the screen. He looked up with a toothy grin and stuck his hand back out the window to return Jerry’s card. “I almost forgot. The couple before you said thanks for the entertainment.”

The teenager had contemplated taking his life one night before, but the kindness that he was experiencing through his more generous customers was making him realize that not everyone in the world was bad. It gave him the hope for his future that he needed to help him survive his last year of high school.

Jerry took back his card and chuckled under his breath, happy he could make someone’s day. He pulled up to the second window, grabbed his pies, and headed to the hospital to treat his daughter.

****

Sandra, a worn-out mom of seven, pulled up to the first window of the McDonald’s drive thru. Her van was packed with loud children covered in dirt, toys covered the floorboard, and the youngest cried out, hungry for suckle of his mom’s milk.

They didn’t eat out often, but she’d received word from her mother that her ten-year-old niece had been killed when a car swarmed off the road and hit her. They had drove from out of town to be with family.

Her sister needed someone to sit with her other children while she went to the hospital. Her mother was appointed but wasn’t handling the loss of a grandchild well. Sandra was on her way to console her mother and to keep her other nieces and nephew busy with their cousins. They’d not been told of their sisters passing yet. They only knew that she was badly hurt.

Sandra reached out her arm to give the boy a wad of cash before driving off to get her large order from the second window. She wasn’t only feeding her own children, but everyone else waiting at her sister’s house. She couldn’t really afford it but felt it was the only thing she could do to help.

“The man in front of you already paid. You keep the cash.” The young boy waved her off to the second window and gave her an odd glance as she began to bawl her eyes out in front of him.

“I’m sorry, it’s been a hard day.”

The boy reached in front of him and produced a tissue. “Here ya go. I hope your day gets better.”

Sandra wiped her eyes and tried to pull herself together as she drove up to grab her order. It had been an awful day, but the love from a stranger wasn’t only financial relief, it was a moment of kindness in a time she needed it the most.

           Two large bags of food were handed to her through the window. She hadn’t ordered drinks, so she assumed it was all she was getting, but the girl in the red McDonald’s cap proceeded to hand her more bags.

           “What’s this?” Sandra peaked in and the smell of cinnamon and apples wafted her nostrils. The familiarity of the scent transported her to a place in time when life was simple and the world felt warm.

           Sandra reached into the bag of pies and handed the girl two of the rectangular boxes. “Here’s a pie for you, and if you could, please give one to the young man at the first window.”

           “Yes. Mam.” The girl beamed as she reached for the pies.

           Sandra still had the weight of the world on her chest, but it felt like at least ten of those pounds had been lifted. She took a deep breath and let out a sigh. It was time to face the reality of the home with the child that wouldn’t return.

****

Caleb and Samantha set in the parent room of the hospital. Their daughters’ lungs had begun to collapse, and she was rushed into an OR. What they had thought to be pneumonia was a fully formed tumor that was crushing their baby girls’ lungs.  They could barely breath as they set and waited to hear the outcome. Clarissa was their only child after three failed pregnancies. She was only nine years old. They couldn’t lose her. She was their rainbow after their repeated storms.

In the room over set Jerry, waiting for his daughter to have a moment to come out and say hi to her old father. He only wanted to give her the apple pie and he would then be on his way. It was getting cold, and he grew worried that he wouldn’t get a chance to give it to her.

“Hey Ben, have you heard from Beth yet?”

Ben was a Certified Nurse’s Assistant that Jerry had gotten to know from his frequent visits to see his daughter. Ben looked up from his clipboard, reached in his pocket and glanced at his work phone. His faced scrunched up in a grimace as he stared at the green lit up screen.

“Sorry man. There was an emergency. It may be a while.”

Jerry hated that he knew what an emergency meant in Beth’s line of work. It was her job to get transplant parts safely from the donor body to the patient. Emergency meant someone would die if she didn’t make it on time. There was no way she would get done before the pie became inedible.

“Let her know I stopped by.” Jerry stood up and started to stretch. “I’ll visit her tomorrow morning when she gets out of here.”

Ben waved as he turned to answer his work phone. That was Jerry’s que that it was time to move on. The hospital was having a high census day.

Jerry made his way down the hall. He started to walk by a door with a small rectangular window. He could see a couple holding each other, tears stained their blood shot eyes.

 It was the parent room, which meant they were a mom and dad waiting to hear back about a child. His stomach hurt with the thought. He couldn’t imagine the pain of a parent whose child was suffering. Jerry walked over to the door and a gave a light tap on the glass.

Caleb looked up and recognized the old man from the drive thru. What were the odds? It was such a small world.

“Sammy, look up.” Caleb said as he gave his wife a slight nudge.

Samantha raised up her chin, looked through her tear-filled eyes, and smiled at the old man behind the door. His face was even friendlier up close.  She stood up and walked over to let him into the small room.

Jerry presented a McDonald’s bag and gave a warm smile. “I had ordered some pies, but the person I wanted to give them to is busy, I think you might need these more.”

Samantha took the bag and smiled at Jerry. “Thank you, these are our daughters favorite, we appreciate your kindness.”

They didn’t bother to mention that they’d been the ones to pay for the pies. There was no point. It was funny how life worked out sometimes. Caleb and Samantha opened the pies and enjoyed the taste of crisp cinnamon crust, overflowing apples, and filing that oozed into their mouths.

Jerry was pleased he could help. He said a quick prayer for the family and left to go home. He hadn’t got to congratulate Beth, but it turned out that the pies were never meant for her in the first place.

****

Sandra set in the living room of her sister’s house and waited with her mom. The kids were out back playing while the two women sat in silence. There was nothing to be said. They could only sit and stare at their phones.

The hospital had reached out to her sister to ask permission to harvest her daughters’ organs. She didn’t have too much time to think, another child in a hospital across town was in immediate need of a set of lungs. Sandra knew that it wasn’t an easy decision.

The phone rang and broke the silence. Both women jumped as if they had been brought back to life. Sandra reached for her phone, but it wasn’t the one lit up. Her mom grabbed her own cell phone and placed it on speaker so Sandra could hear what her sister had decided.

Her sister let out a whimper and then began to speak. “I didn’t let them take all of her. She needs to see…” she sobbed in between words, “and she needs to have her skin. But that other little girl needs to breathe.”

Sandra waited for her sister to let out a few more cries before she encouraged her to continue. “We’re here for you. We all loved Nancy.”

In the background they could her the shuffle of papers and the creak of a door opening.

“Mam, I’m Beth. I will oversee transporting your daughters’ lungs. I was told you wanted to see me first.”

“Yes, please tell the other family that Nancy was a fun-loving girl. I hope that her lungs are able to save their little one, so they don’t have to ever feel this type of pain.”

Sandra’s heart ached at the sound of her sister’s voice. She looked down at her purse and remembered her wad of cash that she hadn’t yet spent thanks to the man who paid for their meal. She wasn’t sure what she could do with only two hundred dollars, but she had to do something to honor the memory of her niece while saving other children from meeting the same fate.

The woman that hit Nancy had worked an all-nighter. She was on her way home from her factory job and fell asleep behind the wheel. Nancy had been riding on the sidewalk when the vehicle struck her. It gave Sandra an idea. She wasn’t going to let her niece’s death be in vain.

Sandra used her money to start saving towards a device that would help wake up drivers who had just worked long shifts. It would send off an alarm the moment their breathing began to slow down. Drivers would then be required to pull over until they felt fine to continue driving. The Kickstarter took off and raised enough money to produce it. It was done in less than three months. Within a year the product was being distributed to companies everywhere.

Who would have known that Caleb and Samantha’s kind gesture and some warm apple pies would start a domino effect that would one day save lives?