There is no such thing as a coincidence.
Gibbs’s rule #9, NCIS
Green Hills, Oklahoma, was no longer so small that every single person knew all the others, but it was still small enough for Maree to notice the new addition to fire engine #33.
She bought fruit at the Piggly Wiggly grocery store every Monday morning. And almost every week, a fire truck from station #2 was parked in front of the building while she was there. She knew the firefighters cooked the majority of their meals at the firehouse, and she had learned from a cashier that each shift created their own menus and shopped for ingredients at the beginning of their twenty-four hours on.
They were always polite, high-fiving kids and saying hello to customers throughout the store. Other than noticing that and being impressed with their friendliness when no doubt they were in a rush to get in and out, Maree had never paid them all that much attention.
She was on her own grocery-gathering mission and had a tendency to go about her shopping with a singular focus. Her Monday morning ritual stemmed from cherished childhood memories of her mom providing fresh fruit for a youth shelter every week. Maree could close her eyes and be transported back to those days. How special she’d felt as a preschooler accompanying her mother on what Momma always called their “most important business” with her trademark wink and a stunning smile that radiated warmth in Maree’s heart.
Maree was young enough to go every week, but the very best shopping adventures occurred when her older siblings, Max and M’Kenzee, went with them during school breaks and summer vacations.
Each Monday morning, Momma would wake up all three kids, feed them some breakfast, and scuttle them into the car to take them on her weekly errand. If the kids groaned with exaggeration about not being allowed to sleep late during vacation, she’d tease that they were “blessed to spend time with their adoring mother.” If they faux-complained about going to the grocery store, she’d point out the “beautiful bounty to behold all around.” And if they dramatically dragged their feet going into the shelter, she’d quietly point out that “any old building becomes a home when we put a little love into it.”
Maree thought Max and M’Kenzee were clever and funny. She would quietly giggle watching them give Momma a hard time, fussing and moaning as if she was torturing them. Of course, they were just pretending. Every one of them knew how much they loved going on this mission. All three of them, and in fact, everyone Maree ever saw in Momma’s presence, seemed to bloom under the glow of her attention like a flower opening its face to absorb the sun and blossoming to its greatest potential.
Momma made those fruit deliveries year-round and without fail. If they were to be out of town for some reason — maybe away on a family trip — she always arranged for someone to do the shopping and drop off the fruit in her place. There was something steady and stable about knowing exactly what Momma would be doing following school drop-off on the first day of every week. She was consistent and true, dependable, and always there for those in need.
But then came the greatest tragedy of Maree’s life, and like it was just yesterday, she remembered waking up in a cold sweat the first Monday after her parents died. She couldn’t stop crying because she knew that just as she was lost and staggering without her, those kids at the shelter would be missing Momma. She begged everyone to drive her to the store. The friends and neighbors and social workers stepping in to help take care of the three orphans wanted only to placate her; no one listened past her tears. She cried to Max and M’Kenzee that they needed to take care of the fruit, that it was “most important business” just as Momma had always said, but both of her siblings were lost in their own sadness and grief. Everyone said the exact same thing, even though they knew good and well it was nothing more than a lie meant to reassure: “Everything will be okay.”
It was not okay with Maree. Not then, and not in the years to follow. As soon as she was on her own in college, she found a shelter that could benefit from a box of fresh fruit every week and reinstated the tradition. She did it in honor of Momma and their Monday mornings together.
When she moved to Green Hills right after her college graduation two years ago, she was not able to find a shelter or church that would accept her donations. The people she spoke with appreciated the offer and loved the idea, but Green Hills was a small town with philanthropic citizens who liked to take care of one another without much fuss. Everywhere she went, she heard that there simply wasn’t enough need, that too much would go unused and be thrown out.
She had mentioned her goal — and her struggles attaining it — her landlord at Marshall Mansion, the bed-and-breakfast where she had lived until she’d found a place of her own. Without a moment’s hesitation, Miss Sadie said she’d be blessed to receive that fruit each week, to share with her boarders and passers-through.
Miss Sadie could afford her own fruit, but Maree needed to be needed. Miss Sadie and Maree could both see that as plain as day. With Max and M’Kenzee both pursuing careers across the country, feeling engaged in her new community was vital to fighting off the loneliness that crept up on Maree from time to time. Maree believed that God had created human beings to connect with and count on one another, that people were wired to be together. She longed those connections. Above all else, she needed to maintain this very special memory of her momma, who seemed so terribly far away after all the years since her death.
Like clockwork, every Monday morning Maree hit the grocery store around 9 a.m., selected several dozen pieces of fruit that looked the best, and drove the bags out to Miss Sadie. She never did her own shopping at the same time; she treasured this particular trip too much to water it down with distractions. On top of that, the one time she’d asked her mother why they bought only the fruit for the shelter when they had groceries on their own list, Momma had replied, “Our needs can wait; today is about others.” That lesson lived close to Maree’s heart, as a guide to life as much as a guarded and precious memory.
Then, one bright, shining Monday morning, while sunbeams filtered into the produce section through the wall of glass at the front of the store, Maree was humming an old Loretta Lynn classic to herself, soaking up the beauty of a perfect day, and basking in her weekly routine. She was sorting through the apricots and delighting in their perfectly sweet smell when the firefighters entered the store.
To say that they made an entrance was quite an understatement!
With heads held high and purpose in their steps, the firefighters exceed strength with their quiet yet confident assurance. They wore turnout pants and suspenders over gray cotton t-shirts with the letters GHFD prominently and boldly stamped across their muscular chests, black leather station boots, and heavy belts with radios and tools hanging low on their hips. It was only natural to take notice when their group walked in.
Like everyone else in the Piggly Wiggly, Maree glanced up as they walked through the sliding glass doors that Monday morning, the backlighting of sunbeams making them appear ethereal and Godlike. Were they actually glittering, or was that just her imagination?
And then her gaze locked with a set of uniquely gray eyes.
Maree had never seen this firefighter before. Their stare held for a smidge longer than a split second. Then he nodded a brief acknowledgment and kept walking. It took her a blink or two — or maybe ten — to get her wits about her.
He was definitely new in town, because there was no way she would have forgotten having seen him before. Taking a deep, intentional breath and with a little shake of her head, she broke out of the mini-trance she’d found herself in, forced herself to refocus, and finished her shopping.
She giggled at herself when she recounted the whole second-and-a-half time lapse of the not-quite interaction to Miss Sadie when she delivered her fruit a half hour later. When Sadie asked what the rest of him looked like, Maree honestly had no idea.
“Miss Sadie,” she confessed, “I didn’t make it past those eyes.”
“Well, that’s surely a shame,” Miss Sadie crooned. “Now you’ll never know if it’s the same fellow when you meet him in town or simply walking down the street.”
She was giving Maree a hard time, teasing in good fun, but Maree wasn’t worried.
“Oh, I’ll know him,” she replied with dreamy confidence. “I’m certain I’d know him anywhere.”
