Gail Sattler - Changing Her Heart

“She always puts smaller items in her bra so no one will challenge her to put them back. But last year when I caught her and started calling the cops on my cell phone, she dug everything out real fast and ran.”

Lacey gasped. “You’re kidding!”

“I wish I was.” Randy straightened. “But most of the time, the sidewalk sale is a lot of fun.”

Lacey glanced from side to side. “Have you noticed that we’re nearly the only ones here? I think we lost track of the time.”

Randy looked around, confirming that she was indeed correct.

“Yeah. I guess we should go.”

While he signaled the waiter for the bill, a strange sense of loss came over him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed himself so much. He was at an age where most of the women he knew were sizing him up for a husband, so those situations quickly became awkward. God had shown him that he wasn’t husband material, and he never would be.

But Lacey was marriage material. Randy couldn’t help but think that her boyfriend was indeed one lucky man. Tonight, Randy had thoroughly enjoyed himself, but for tonight he was on borrowed time, and the lender had called in the loan. It was time to go home.

When she dropped him off in front of his apartment building, a surge of melancholy for what could never happen coursed through him.

Once inside, instead of settling down, Randy walked to the patio door to his balcony and looked out the window. They’d stayed at the restaurant so long that it was dark, and all the city lights were on. His suite faced downtown, so he had a good view from the seventeenth floor.

Randy stepped out onto the balcony to take in the city below. He couldn’t make out specific details, but he could see the brightly colored lights of the mall in the distance.

He gazed over the expanse of the city, paying particular attention to the high-rise towers in the downtown core, wondering which building was Lacey’s.

“I’ll be back in two hours, Kate,” Lacey called as she stepped into the mall.

As she began walking toward the mall center, Lacey glanced into the computer store on her way past, but she didn’t see Randy at work.

Randy.

Being out with him had almost felt like a date, except it wasn’t. He was only helping her select the right computer for Bryce. Yet, after going out with him only once, she couldn’t help but like him. In fact, he was almost too good to be real.

Lacey had learned the hard way that when something seemed too good to be true, it usually was.

She pushed thoughts of the charming salesman out of her head as she continued walking toward the mall’s feature display of the week. The police department had set up a display to raise public awareness of the dangers of drinking and driving and Lacey had volunteered to help give out information at the booth.

Drunk driving had ruined her family and she didn’t want to see it happen to anyone else.

Lacey didn’t remember her father being a heavy drinker, but at the time, her perspective had been that of a child. Most of his drinking would have been at night, after she had been put to bed. Most of her memories of her father were good, doing typical family things together. Usually their family was happy, but she did remember her parents arguing after her father had been out with his friends. She remembered him acting rather strangely when he came home, but she hadn’t known why. The only thing she knew then about her father’s drinking was that he “went out for a drink” with his friends after work on paydays. On paydays, he always came home acting more strangely than other days.

It was on one payday that her father never came home again.

Because he died in an accident that he’d caused, and because he’d been drunk, no insurance would pay on the policy—not the auto insurance, nor the life insurance, and there was no life insurance on the mortgage. Slowly and painfully, over the next year, their home was foreclosed on, their savings were eroded and their extended family was torn apart. As she grew up, Lacey’s most vivid memories were of her mother, crying, all alone, after she thought that Lacey and her brother and sister were sleeping.

Lacey didn’t want the same thing to happen to anyone else, yet she saw it happening to Susan, her sister. No matter what Lacey said or did, she couldn’t get Susan’s husband, Eric, to see the risk he was creating for his family, and that if he died, the same thing would happen. Eric also wasn’t taking into account the strangers who would be innocent victims if he continued on his path to self-destruction.

Eric insisted that he wasn’t a serious drinker because he didn’t drink every day. He often accused Lacey of trying to cause trouble between himself and Susan. Eric didn’t know about the countless times Susan had called her in the middle of the night, worried because Eric still hadn’t come home when she knew he was out drinking with his friends. On other days, Susan said she shouldn’t have let the moment get to her, that Eric’s drinking wasn’t that bad.

Since those whom she loved wouldn’t listen, the only thing Lacey could do was to try to help strangers.

As Lacey approached the display, a police officer was talking to the volunteer who would be working with her, as well as a woman who was packing up a few things, ready to leave.

Lacey’s breath caught when she saw who she was to be her partner for the next hour.

“Randy. Hello.”

The officer smiled at her. “I see you two already know each other. That’s great. I’ll leave Randy to show you what to do, and I’ll get back to my area.” He returned to the Breathalyzer and other equipment that was only for police use, leaving her alone with Randy.

Randy smiled as he wrote up a name tag for her. “We’re supposed to split our time between pointing out different focus areas for people who try out and keeping the tables tidy, putting new brochures into the displays as people take them and just smiling and looking friendly.”

Lacey nodded. “I can certainly do that. It’s nice to see you volunteering your time.”

“It’s not really such a sacrifice. I have personal reasons for being here. A good friend was killed in a drinking-and-driving accident a few years back, and I want to do what I can to raise awareness. I know a lot of people, so maybe someone will recognize me and come and ask questions.”

“Oh.” Lacey’s throat constricted. The only person killed in her father’s accident had been her father, but she often lay awake at night, wondering if he’d ever caused an accident he either didn’t know about, or wouldn’t admit to, when someone swerved to avoid him. She didn’t want to think that there could be, but she had to accept that it might have happened. It was too long ago to have been a connection between the death of her father and the death of Randy’s friend, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened to someone else.

The possibility made her even more angry at how some people could be so irresponsible, both with their own lives, and of the lives of others around them.

She rested one finger on the schedule. “There are still a few slots not filled. I want to put my name down for another shift. What about you?”

He nodded. “I’m on the list for Saturday because that’s the mall’s busiest day.”

“But you’re off on Saturday, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. That way I can be here for more than just the length of my lunch break.”

Guilt raced through Lacey. She should have been giving up more of her time, too, but she had set Saturday aside to prepare for Bryce’s party. Now, thinking that all she was doing was getting ready to do something fun, she felt selfish.

As she had been instructed, she began to tidy the piles of brochures, when a young couple entered the area. The woman approached her and asked for help to find a brochure that contained recipes for nonalcoholic punch. Lacey pointed to the Alternatives section and stepped aside.