The Journal

Ellen’s sweat-soaked tracksuit warmed her body, despite the chilly April temperature grazing her cheeks as she ran. The benches at the bus stop on the corner of Main and Sixth were never vacant on her outbound jog. As usual, a young girl, maybe nineteen, sat writing in a brown leather-bound book. As Ellen approached, the young girl looked up.

“Good morning!”  Ellen said smiling, her greeting waning in the noisy traffic as she passed.

The girl’s eyes acknowledged Ellen, but her lips tightened into a quasi smile, as she returned to her page. Ellen’s heart pondered the youth’s pain-filled expression. She had seen this sad face every day for the last three months.

The 7:15 bus had swallowed up the passengers by the time Ellen reached the stop on her return, but something lay on one of the benches. Compelled by curiosity she stopped. It looked like the girl’s book. The soft leather cover bore a gold, embossed cross at its center.

She turned the closed book to see its spine imprinted with Daily Journal, then lifted the cover guardedly seeking some identifying information. She felt like a thief, breaking into a stolen treasure chest meant for no one to open but its owner.

Doodles in every color decorated the inside cover. But no words or numbers. Ellen sighed. She closed the book. She knew she couldn’t resist reading the secret words inscribed beyond the scribbles if she ventured any further.

I’ll just skim it. Names of places, maybe even addresses, may jump out to her, she reasoned. But she’d wait until after work. Later tonight. In private.

--

As Susan sat in her regular spot waiting for the bus, she jotted her prayer for the day.

April 21^st, 2023. Dear God, Please heal Mother. I have prayed often these past few months, but the nurse called this morning and said, this might be her last day. Every day before it seemed she had a little more time. Mother says I need rest. I have to work you know. So, I go to see her, then work, then to see her, then home. Over and over. Of course, You know that. But not today, Lord. I’m staying with her tonight if they let me­­­­­­­­.

Susan fought her tears as she looked up from her writing in time to catch the familiar face of a woman in sweats. The jogger always greeted Susan with a smile and “Good morning” though the traffic drowned the sound of her words. Susan wanted to smile and reply, but every time the pain in her heart fought against her. She managed a counterfeit smile and looked back to her journal.

One day, when everything has ended, I’ll stop the lady jogger. I want her to know how much her smile has meant to me.

A tear escaped Susan’s cheek and splattered on a wordless line. She grabbed a tissue from her bag and dabbed it dry as she heard the bus braking. Standing, she closed the book against the tissue and slipped it toward her low-hanging shoulder bag filled with clothes and toiletries. She scrambled through the loading passengers. But the journal had landed on the bench.

“Good Morning, Miss Redwine,” the receptionist said as Susan signed the check in log.

“Good Morning, Miss Jane.” Susan tried to be friendly, but the urgency to see her mother compelled her through the hall doors. The care center reeked of sickness and death cloaked in powerful cleansers.

Nurse Thompson stood by the closed door of Susan’s mother’s room. Susan breathed deeply.

“Hi, Susan,” the nurse said. “Doctor Johnson is with your mother. Her pain has intensified. He plans to increase her morphine.”

“Thank you.” Susan sighed. As the nurse grasped her nervous hand and led her into the room, Susan whispered, “May I stay tonight?”

“Yes, but…” The nurse’s eyes spoke louder than her words.

She didn’t have to finish the sentence.

--

Ellen waited until bedtime to examine the Journal again. She had contemplated it all day, so curious to read it, yet so aware of its personal nature. She sat in bed, gazing at its beautiful design by dim lamplight. She ran her fingers over the shiny gold emblem. The cross. A symbol of both death and life.

Ellen felt strangely connected to the young girl now, as she held the youth’s thoughts expressed in whatever form inscribed within. Would the book explain the pain she had seen in her eyes? The girl’s face flashed in Ellen’s mind, and a thought hit her like a palm to her face.

“Ellen, you are so dense! She’ll be at the bus stop in the morning!”

Nestling into the bed, Ellen laid the book on the nightstand and flipped off the lamp. She drifted to sleep in the darkness, her thoughts lingering on the sad expressions of the leather journal’s author.

--

Susan glanced around the room as she sat in the recliner by her mother’s bed. Cards and pictures filled the walls. A whiteboard had Susan’s name and number and the date written beneath her mother’s name. She had watched the date change every day for so long, hoping, but doubting her mother would leave this place alive.

She contemplated death as the silent room amplified her mother’s labored breathing. She knew her mother held to her faith in Jesus without doubt. She believed they would meet again one day in a better place.

“Susan,” the weak voice broke Susan’s thoughts.

“Yes, Mom.” Susan leaned close to her mother’s lips.

“I love you.”

“I love you, Mom.”

“Remember the letter,” her mother’s voice cracked.

“I promise Mom.”

“Susan. I… love… you,” her words drifted.

“I love you mother.” Susan kissed her mother’s forehead as tears trickled from her eyes and splashed her mother’s cheeks.

Susan knew. Those would be her mother’s last words.

Susan pulled her shoulder bag up from the floor and reached in for her journal. She scrambled through the bag, pulling out her clothes and other items. She couldn’t find it!

Oh no, this can’t be! She glanced around the room. Disheartened, she sat down. Searching through her bag again, she found a small pad of paper and a pen.

April 21^st 2023. Dear God, I know Mom is coming home to you. She believes you know what’s best. Help me to believe that too. And please help me find my Journal.

She returned the pad and pen to her bag and reclined in the chair as sleepiness claimed her tired mind, and she rested.

Susan woke to the sound of her mother’s erratic breathing. She called for a nurse and held to her mother’s hand. Within moments she succumbed to death’s call.

“Eleven PM,” the nurse whispered holding the lifeless woman’s wrist. She laid it down gently and retreated from the room.

Susan rested her head on her mother’s arm and wept. Nothing in her life had ever caused so much pain.

She arrived at her apartment around 1:00 AM. Exhausted and forlorn she changed her clothes and collapsed into bed. She didn’t want to sleep. She wanted to go to the bus station to see if anyone had found her journal, but her body wouldn’t let her. She had to rest. She contemplated the funeral and the days to come. And she would have to go back to the care center to clean out her mother’s room.

Memories flooded Susan’s mind with visions of good times and sad, her mother’s smiles and frowns. Susan’s father had passed away in her childhood. This wonderful woman had raised her all alone.

I'm truly an orphan now. The thought whirled in her mind as she cried herself to sleep in the darkness.

--

People filled the benches as Ellen pulled her car into a parking space near the bus stop the next morning. She didn’t see the girl. Her phone read 7:00. She sat down on a bench beside an older woman and pulled out the journal. Ellen leaned toward the woman and asked if she knew the girl who wrote in the journal every morning.

The woman, swaddled in a thick sweater and scarf, peered at the book in Ellen’s hand. She shook her head and said, “No, I don’t think so,” and looked back toward the street.

Ellen sighed as she contemplated her next move.

“Hey, why do you have that girl’s book?”

“What?” Ellen responded to the scolding voice of a short stocky woman standing by her.

“The girl. She’s always here. She writes something in that book every day. I know it's the same book. I see it all the time. Why do you have it?”

“Do you know her?” Ellen asked, standing, “I found this journal. I want to give it back to her. Do you know where she takes the bus?”

“I get off the bus before she does. But you should know if you’ve read what she wrote.”

“I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it. It is a private journal.”

“I know what she wrote.” The woman’s clutched her sweater against her throat as a chilly breeze blew a frizzy curl into her dark eyes.

Ellen stared at her.

“I can’t help but see what she’s writing. I’m right here beside her most days.”

Brakes screeched, and the crowd scrambled. Ellen punched a number on her phone as she followed the passengers, trying not to lose sight of the stocky lady.

“Hey, this is Ellen… yes… I’m taking a personal day… yes. Bye.” Her eyes scanned the seated passengers as she boarded the bus. A vacant spot awaited her by the lady’s side.

The woman stared out of the window until Ellen seated herself beside her.

“Well, hey there,” the lady said.

“Would you help me?” Ellen asked.

“Find the girl?”

“Yes. Can you tell me anything about her?”

“I only know what she wrote.” The woman tilted her head. “You said that’s private stuff!”

Ellen sighed, her concern growing for the girl’s absence.

“Her mother is dying,” the lady said, looking out of the window.

“Dying?” Ellen’s heart skipped. That would explain the girl’s sadness. Ellen could relate to the grief and agony of losing someone.

“She must’ve died last night. That’s why the girl’s not here this morning.”

“That’s an assumption,” Ellen said. Her mind reeled. It seemed even more important to find the girl now.

“Look at what she wrote on yesterday morning.” The woman looked back at Ellen and tapped the journal. “You’ll see. She always says, ‘Dear God, Please heal Mother’ but yesterday she wrote that the nurses told her it may be her last day.”

Ellen cringed at the woman’s audacity, reading someone’s personal thoughts, but she seemed sincerely concerned about the girl.

“If you want to find her, you read the journal. Back in February they moved her mother to some care center 'round here. That’s why she started riding the bus. She goes to see her mother, then work, then back to see her, then home. So, the girl’s here somewhere, but I don’t remember everything she wrote.” The woman stood as the bus slowed to a stop. She squeezed passed Ellen. “The girl’s name’s Susan. I hope you find her.”

Ellen looked out of the window as the woman disappeared. Her heart pounded with the rhythm of the bustling city. She had to find Susan. She had named her own daughter Susan. The one she’d lost so many years ago.

--

Susan woke to the sounds coming through her window from the morning’s heavy traffic, but she stayed in bed staring at the ceiling for a while. Her mind seemed empty. She analyzed the white paint and the shadows from the sunlight dancing across the room as the noisy vehicles passed by.

A deep sigh escaped as she picked up her phone. 7:30. She used to call her mother every day before she became too sick to talk so much. Now she would never hear her voice again. Her mind floated from one memory to another until her thoughts rested on the lost Journal. She sat up and punched in the number for the bus station.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. You’ll have to come down here and check with lost and found. We only keep stuff for a few days, then it’s usually tossed.”

Susan longed to bury herself in grief beneath the covers of her bed, but she needed her journal. She forced herself to get up.

  --

February, Ellen repeated in her mind. That’s what the lady had said. I’ll just read a few entries from that month. Maybe Susan wrote down the name of the care center.

As Ellen got off the bus at the next stop, a coffee shop beckoned. She ordered a latte and sat outside, laying the journal on the table. She stared at the etched cross as she reached to open the cover.

“Hey, I know someone else who has a book like that!” the server said as she sat down Ellen’s latte.

“You do?” Ellen’s voice resounded with disbelief as she slapped the book closed.

“Yeah. She works here. Only—she’s not here today.” The girl’s voice quietened. “Someone called a little while ago and said her mother passed away last night. Poor girl. It's been really tough for her.”

“Is her name Susan?”

“Why yes! Susan Redwine, that’s her!”

“Susan—Redwine?” Ellen almost swallowed the words. “Do you know what care center Susan’s mother was in?”

“St Joseph’s on Maryland Ave.”

Ellen glanced at the server’s name tag. “Thank you so much, Tanya!” She tipped the girl generously, grabbed her coffee and the journal and hailed a cab to take her back to her car.

-- 

Susan’s mind spun as she stepped into her mother’s empty room, the reality of her mother’s absence still playing like a dream. Someone had erased the whiteboard. She pondered the metaphor.

She turned with tears to the wall of cards and pictures. Her mother’s smiling face shone bright in most of the photos, accompanied by family and friends. Encouraging words filled the cards her mother had needed and appreciated.

Susan didn’t hear the woman enter the room.

As Ellen stood watching Susan pulling cards and pictures from the wall, her own tears seeped.

Susan heard a teary sniff and turned.

The two women looked at each other in silence.

“You’re the jogger,” Susan said as her eyes fell to the object Ellen held, “You found my journal.”

“Yes.”

“Did you—,”

 “No, I didn’t read it.”

“How did you know where I would be?” Susan stepped closer as the tearful woman handed her the journal.

“God led me to you.”

“That’s sounds like something Mother would have said.”

Ellen flinched. “Nancy Redwine?”

“Yes. That was her name.”

“Did she ever give you a certain letter?”

Susan’s heart skipped. She laid the journal on the bed and carefully opened the back cover. Her mother had slit the inside panel just enough to hide the letter.

“She told me about the letter. But I didn’t want to know what it said. I always told her she was my real mother. I never wanted her to feel like anything less.” Susan said.

Ellen stepped farther into the room as Susan pulled the aged page from its hiding place.

“Mother gave me the journal last Christmas and hid the letter inside. When her doctor told us she didn’t have long to live, she asked me to read it after—,” Susan looked back at Ellen. “How did you know about the letter?”

Ellen only stared in response, fear gripping her heart.

Susan turn to the letter and read it aloud.

“Dear Susan,

I held you in my arms today for a long time. I fell in love with you. So tiny and sweet, the product of my own womb. I want you to know I gave you to the Redwine’s because I love you. I can’t care for you properly. I have no job, your father has died, and I have no place to go. They promised to name you Susan. I hope one day when you are old enough you will want to know me. I will never take you away from your family. I only want to see you again one day. I know that John and Nancy Redwine will be great parents.

I will always love you.

Love,

Ellen Brogdon”

Susan’s eyes met Ellen’s again.

“I’m so sorry you lost your mother,” Ellen said.

“You’re Ellen?”

Ellen’s heart pounded as she nodded through her tears.

“You don’t know how many times I’ve wanted to stop you to thank you for your smile when you ran by the bus stop. You always made a point to greet me. Did you know who I was?”

“No. I found your journal on my return jog yesterday. When you didn’t show up at the stop this morning, I boarded the bus. You know there’s a lady who likes to read what you write.”

 “Yeah, I know,” Susan said with a half grin.

“That woman didn’t remember enough to know where you were, but by pure Providence, I stopped at your coffee shop, and Tanya recognized the journal. When she told me your name, I just hoped you were—the same Susan Redwine.”

“Thank you for bringing me the Journal,” Susan said, choking back returning tears. She looked toward the empty bed, then to Ellen again.

A doleful silence filled the room.

“I miss her so much.”

“I know. And she will always be your mother. She was there for you when I had to let go of you.”

  “Yes, but now you are here for me as I’m having to let go of her.” Susan laid her head on Ellen’s shoulder. They held one another weeping, mourning and rejoicing, in death and life, in sorrow and in hope.