The Night of Seven by Nadia Siddiqui (each kindness read aloud .TXT) 📗

tries her best, but she’s a Sunday school teacher and a part-time substitute teacher whenever she can manage to make that work for her. She doesn’t make much money, and Sawyer has been out pounding the pavement each and every day for the last nine months and is almost ready to take up panhandling in an effort to pay the bills. If nothing else can happen, what choice will he have? It is luck that had him in the right place, at exactly the right time. About three weeks ago, he was exiting a job fair whenever he was approached by a man in a gray suit. It was perfectly tailored to his frame; his shoes looked like they cost more than Sawyer's whole car, and he spoke with such a smooth voice that it was hard even for Sawyer not to be quickly suckered into everything that he was saying. He was clearly a man who knew what he wanted in life, and he was also certain how to set about getting that accomplished. He offered Sawyer a temporary position, which Sawyer had thought was incredibly strange but whenever he asked ‘why him,’ the man simply shrugged and said that he liked Sawyer's face, that he had kind eyes and that was all that he was really looking for. Now normally, that would be the sort of thing that Sawyer would question further, but there was something about that man that didn’t invite further questions. Something about him just gave the impression that if he chose to speak to you, then you better choose to listen. Sawyer was never more happy for trusting such a random opportunity in his life.

Then again, given that his family was so close to losing the mortgage on their home...it was literally the only thing that could possibly save them. He would have taken any job, doing just about anything. The man finally introduced himself as a Mr. Carilles and since then, he has been flying Sawyer around the country for various different odds and ends and bits, all first class. Sawyer asked him once if he was going to be his personal assistant after he was flown to New York to pick up dry cleaning. Sawyer expressed that he didn’t mind in the slightest, but the jobs were all so varied that he wanted to be absolutely certain. Mr. Carilles said no, and that if his wife were to ask him, that Mr. Carilles wanted Sawyer to tell his wife that he was starting an accounting job.

That was the first sign that Sawyer might have made a mistake.

The pay is good. It’s more than good. It’s allowed him to start building up a savings account and really starting to push himself and his family out of the hole that they have been in. Though, the errands that he’s being asked to run are more and more strange...and Sawyer thinks that they might be bordering on the illegal. He hasn’t yet decided if he has a problem with that or not. Something about Mr. Carilles makes him think that he’s not going to be getting into any sort of trouble that Mr. Carilles cannot buy them out of. Certainly not how Sawyer imagined his life going. Today’s mission would be given to him after he lands...he doesn’t even know where he’s going, but he certainly cannot tell his wife that.

“It’s in the laundry room, honey!” the sweet voice of his wife comes wafting up the stairs. “If you hurry, you can scarf a waffle instead of that bagel! I made extra for the drive!”

He doesn’t know what he will do if anything ever happens to that woman. He loves her so much. Sawyer jogs into the laundry room and pulls his tie from the rack and starts to slip it under his collar while hopping to pull his other shoe onto his foot. He jogs downstairs to the smiling face of his wife slaving over the kitchen stove with waffle batter all over herself. Their son sits at the breakfast table with his homework in front of him, but it doesn’t look like he’s actually getting any work done. That doesn’t stop Sawyer from ruffling his son’s hair despite the verbal protest to the action and kissing his wife on the cheek. “I should be back tomorrow. I think he might even be flying back tonight if we can get all of this solved in time. I might not be there for the teacher meeting tomorrow though if it doesn’t.”

Sawyer’s wife grabs his tie and fastens it, not even aware that she’s left smudges of waffle batter by the knot, and Sawyer doesn’t care enough to bring it to her attention.

“You tell your boss that I’m going to want my husband back sometime soon.”

“Yes, dear,” Sawyer laughs and pecks her cheek, and then the top of his son's head and jogs out the door to his perfectly average car to board his flight to Las Vegas, wondering from the location just what sort of exciting things that his boss might have him doing today. He doesn’t like lying to his wife, but they are finally approaching a point where they might just become financially stable, just maybe. That has to be worth it, he thinks. It’s going to have to be.

The airport pushes him through with first-class accommodations as he’s starting to get used to. It’s so much fancier than he ever saw in movies. It’s like living in a whole other world that he never thought he would ever be able to touch. His family wasn’t wealthy growing up; they always had what they needed and nothing more. It was a decent living, and they were happy, that was what was important. Until meeting Mr. Carilles, Sawyer’s ambitions never reached any higher than that small scope of life that he has always known.

Sawyer boards the plane early, as is his privilege and takes