Committee of Seven

The sponsorship group met in the basement of St. Andrew's on the second Thursday, and by meeting nine it had settled into the shape that committees settle into, which is that everyone had become a role. There was Alan, who chaired, because he had chaired things. There was Pat, who did the money, and who had brought the spreadsheet. There was Sister Bernadette, eighty-one, who did not use email and who had raised more at the bake sale than the rest of them had raised online. There was Leila, who had come through the same program eleven years ago and who was the only one of them who had any idea what it was actually like on the other end. There were the two retired teachers, married, who did the housing. And there was Kevin, who was new, and who had come because his wife had made him, and who had not yet said anything at any meeting. The family was four people. A mother, a father, two boys under ten. They had been in a camp for six years. The group had a photograph and a two-page document and a target of thirty-two thousand dollars, and as of Pat's spreadsheet they had nineteen. "We're behind," Pat said. "We're not behind," said Alan. "We're where we are." "That's what behind means." Leila said the flight date was not the group's decision. The government would say when. It could be March. It could be next year. The group's job was to be ready whenever it was, and ready meant thirty-two, and thirty-two meant thirteen more, and thirteen more was a lot of bake sales. Sister Bernadette said she'd do another bake sale. The retired teachers had found an apartment. Two bedrooms over the hardware store, the landlord had agreed to hold it until January if the group covered a month. Pat put it on the spreadsheet. The number went the wrong way. Then the conversation went where it always went, which was the town. Whether the town would be all right. Whether the boys would be all right at the school. Whether the man at the hardware store meant it when he said "no problem" or meant something else. Nobody said the word they were all thinking. Leila, who had lived the answer, looked at the table.

"They will be looked at," she said eventually. "For a while. And then they won't be. That's all. That's how it goes. You can't do the looking for them. You can be there after." Nobody said anything. Then Kevin, who had not spoken at eight meetings, said, "I've got a truck." They looked at him. "For the move. Furniture. Whatever. And I know the guy at the hardware store. He's my cousin. He means it." He looked at his hands. "That's all. I've got a truck." Alan wrote "Kevin: truck" in the minutes. They closed at nine. Pat took the spreadsheet home. Sister Bernadette was driven back by one of the teachers. In the car park, Leila and Kevin stood by his truck, and she asked what kind it was, and he told her, and she said the family had two boys who'd never seen snow, and he said the truck had done a lot of snow, and that seemed to be enough for both of them.