The Ward

“Which one is yours?”
The grey haired woman was wearing an Armani suit, with navy blue pinstripes.
She had sunglasses on masking her eyes and the thin lines that crinkled next to them.

The younger man brushed a brown curl off his forehead and pointed vaguely across the street to the cafe. “The blonde haired one. short. pixie cut.”

The woman smoothed a wrinkle from her pant leg, “do they still call it a pixie cut? I’m not sure?”

“Don’t care” the man sighed and looked back down at the newspaper in his lap.

The woman smiled, “I’m Grace. The lovely one in the pink dress who just arrived is mine.”

The man looked up briefly, “She is lovely.”

Grace’s smile widened, “So is yours.”

“Not really.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, before Grace cautiously interrupted, “You know this is a big moment for them right? We are changing their outlook on life….it changes everything.”
She looked at the table of young women happily chatting away. “They are so young and free, they deserve a second chance.”

“Debatable…” Eoin put down his newspaper. “Youth is not a desirable trait to anyone but the old. And it certainly isn’t a marker for one who deserves good things. Neither is beauty.”

Grace shushed him, “It’s almost time. Don’t distract me.”

Moments later a larger refrigerated truck lost control a few blocks away. It swerved and swayed as the terrified driver tried to avoid hitting cars on the roadway. The truck hopped the curb and careened down the sidewalk towards the table of women, all frozen in fear.

Eoin watched as Grace flew across the street and swept pink dress up in her arms, tossing her lightly and safely into some bushes out of the trucks path.

He slowly unfurled his legs, stretched, then dashed across the street just in time to pull pixie hair and her companion into the street and out of the way. The truck crashed through the cafe patio and into the brick wall of the cafe store front, causing an explosion of bricks and mortar before it came to a stop.

Grace rejoined Eoin on their bench away from the fray. “Why did you wait so long? And why did you put them in the street, that’s hardly a safe spot?!” Her pink dressed woman was struggling to extract herself from the prickled branches of the bush she sat in while pixie hair lay in the middle of the street surrounded by rubble. Her friend knelt next to her cajoling, “You’re fine, just sit up….we are okay. Look at you, all flushed….you are glowing!”

Eoin shrugged, “she’s okay. A little dramatic, so no doubt she’ll still be taken away in an ambulance.”

Grace shook her head incredulously, “In all my years I’ve never seen one so cavalier.”

Eoin picked up his newspaper, “I have to get to the hospital and check things out, she’s prone to infection.”

As he walked away, Grace shouted, “What is wrong with you?!”

Without turning around he replied, “Guardian angel or not, my ward is a pain in the ass.”