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Ned Bailey lived a non-descript life as a custodian at Case Middle School, except for the fact that he walked with a severe limp due to one leg being shorter, and incredibly thin. It was easy for Ned to get caught in a wave of kids, while galloping down the hall, dragging his weak leg behind him. They made faces when he wasn't looking. Some had a nickname for him. "The Pencil Walker."
Every day Ned had an escape hatch when he started his afternoon shift. He would dive in to a janitor closet among all the broom handles, garbage bags, and leaky chemicals. He would turn it in to a prayer closet until most of the children left for the day.
Ned sits on the butt of a small metal garbage can, and opens his bible. A picture of his wife Mary falls out, from when they were married. He used it as a marker. It takes flight and almost slips under the doorway beneath the scuttle of feet. He picks it up and remembers how when he was a young man, no one wanted to date him. It seemed like yesterday he drags himself up to the door of her dad's farmhouse with a half dozen roses in his hand. Before he had a chance to ring the bell, her dad's voice echoes through the cornfields. "You can't be serious with this boy. Just look at him. How will he ever support you? Why he can't even hold himself up without leaning on something."
Truth is Ned's heart was strong, and it would carry him wherever he went. But wherever he went that darn leg was often his ball and chain, not to mention the pain of his own childhood he kept buried inside, having been given up for adoption. As he looks at her picture, he knows he traded up. Her eyes sparkle as blue diamonds off set by dark shoulder length hair. To her credit, she told him he looked like John Wayne in the movies. He would do anything in the world for her, but the one thing they wanted most was a child. He puts her picture back in place next to his folded secret prayer request.
All 32 people at the Wesleyan church on the farm road just outside of town knew what his prayer request was, or so they thought... Every Sunday night the hearty souls would gather for the ritual of passing prayer notes. Ned let the folded paper slip in the basket firmly clasping his wife's hand. As time slipped away, some in church began to whisper, maybe they should adopt? Nevertheless, the same note circulated forward. UNSPOKEN.
The last afternoon bell rings. In his converted prayer closet the roar of feet subside, to infrequent scampers.
When night came, yellow lights reflected a mirror image of the marble hallways. Ned would scurry along from room to room, doing his blessed part to disinfect a doorknob, wipe a desk, close an open window, just making sure that in the morning, the kids he loved, had a safe place to learn.
A cold wind stirs the night, and a few snowflakes dance in the rear entrance light. The ache in his back from his twisted body creates a struggle to get his jacket on completely. He grabs the piles of garbage, and struggles out the door against a growing wind.
For a moment he stops, and listens over the wind. It sounds like a stray cat, but comes from inside the dumpster. He releases the garbage. Just enough light from a pole shines in the slider. He hears an unraveling wine. Inside the dumpster is the reflection of tiny fingers. He tenderly parts twigs that lay over a baby wrapped in crimson stained clothing. She smacks her lips. He draws her to his warmth. She is alive.
On Sunday the little church was packed. Ned, not known for speeches, stood up with his wife in the back pew, as she held the baby for all to see. He cleared his throat. "I know what you must be thinking. What about that unspoken prayer? Over the years it changed. We started out praying for the miracle of conception, but one day like a thunderclap it struck us. God wanted us to pray for a throw away like me."
The congregation wept sore. Yet baby Amanda, which means, "worthy of love," smiled with her heavenly dimples, until every empty heart filled with joy.
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