Sienna asked. The club contributes. There are people in the network, business owners mostly, who give regularly and quietly. We have one anonymous donor who has been giving a very significant amount annually for six years and who has never once told us their name or asked for anything in return. Darlene's mouth did something that was almost a smile.
Hawk thinks it might be a former family we helped who got back on their feet and decided to pay it forward. He has no way of knowing. That's sort of the point. Sienna sat with that for a moment. And my role would be finding families, Darlene said.
The way I describe working the network, knowing the signs, building relationships with the eyes we have in communities we don't have good coverage in yet. You'd be carrying cases, you'd be coordinating delivery, and you'd be doing what you already know how to do without being trained, which is look at a person or a situation and know in your gut when something is real and when it isn't. You think I can do that? I think you already do it, Darlene said. "I think you've been doing it your whole life with no resources and no support and no system behind you.
I'm offering you the system. " Sienna looked at the table. "I still haven't said yes. " She said. "I know. " Darlene said. "Take your time. " But time in Sienna's life had always demonstrated had its own schedule. It was Thursday when things changed.
Not slowly the way she'd been expecting. Not the gradual accumulation of more information, more conversations, more careful internal deliberation. It changed the way the weather changes when a front moves in fast. You look up and realize the sky is a different color than it was 10 minutes ago. And there's nothing to do but get inside or get wet.
She was at Harland's mid-morning rush when her phone buzzed in her apron and she almost didn't check it. But something made her a feeling a pull a specific instinct she'd been developing over two weeks of learning to pay attention to things she couldn't fully articulate. It was Cole. Not a text this time. A call.
She stepped into the back quarter. "Something's happened. " Cole said and his voice had a quality she hadn't heard in it before. Not panic. Cole didn't seem like a person who panicked easily. But something tight and controlled that was managing something underneath it.
"What? " she said. "A family on Clement Street. Single mother, three kids, oldest is disabled, cerebral palsy, wheelchair, requires equipment. Their power got shut off this morning. Temperature's dropping tonight and the kids' medical equipment runs on electricity.
We've been trying to work it for two days, but there's a backlog at the utility company and the equipment provider won't authorize a temporary battery solution without a form from the medical supplier. And the medical supplier says it'll take five business days. " "Stop. " Sienna said. "What's the mother's name? " A pause. "What? " "The mother, what's her name, Arton? " "Angela. Angela Torres.
How old are the kids? Eldest is 14, middle is 11, youngest is 7. What's the name of the utility company? Cole told her. She wrote it on her palm with a pen she kept tucked in her apron because the pad was always too slow.
I know someone at that company, she said. Not officially. I went to school with a woman who works in their emergency services department. I haven't talked to her in 2 years, but I have her number. You can do that, Cole said.
I don't know yet, Sienna said. Give me 45 minutes. She went back to her tables and she worked with one part of her brain for 20 minutes and finished her section rotation and then she went to her manager, a tired decent man named Phil who had known her for 3 years and who had on two separate occasions advanced her a day's wages when a bill came early and she said, "Phil, I need a 30-minute personal break. It's a family emergency situation, not mine, someone else's. " Phil looked at her for a moment and then looked at the clock and then looked at her again. "25 minutes," he said.
"I can cover your section for 25. " "Thank you," she said. She went outside and called the number. Her old classmate Vanessa picked up on the fourth ring and Sienna could hear from the background noise that she was at work and it wasn't a good time, but Vanessa said, "Sienna Clark, oh my god. " In the voice of someone for whom old school contacts arrive like a slightly unexpected gift. And Sienna talked fast and clear and precise the way Darlene had been teaching her to think about situations, what is needed, how urgently, what needs to happen first. 18 minutes later, he had a verbal commitment that Angela Torres' power would be restored by end of business that day classified as a medical emergency, which it technically and legitimately was.
She went back inside and picked up her tables. That evening she called Hawk. "Okay," she said. "Okay," he said. "Yes," she said.