As Spring Blooms

  "Abby Stone please stand up and follow me back to the interview room." Said a brunette Lady in a white cotton blouse, a red pencil skirt, and black kitten heels. I took a deep breath, gathered my items up, and then stood to follow her to the back. This was it. My last shot to make it.

  Back in December I lot my job right before Christmas. I worked for a finance office and our main branch decided that my office was not doing a good enough job. So their answer to the problem was to shut our branch down. I had been a manager and thought I would be valuable enough to Silversmith Finical that they would let me transfer to another branch,but they said no. That no one from our branch would be rehired to the company. Then just a few short weeks later my husband, Jonathan Stone, died in the line of duty on New Yeas Eve due to a drunk with a gun who was trying to commit suicide. He left me and our two sons, Ford and Kent, all alone and with no income. Nothing had prepared me for losing my job and my beloved husband all at once. Nothing had prepared me to be a single mother to two young boys at the age of twenty-three, but here I was and now I had to fight to take care of all of us. Everything hung on this job interview. Jonathan's life insurance check had not com in yet and I had used up all of our savings to make ends meet while I looked for another job.  

   We had come to a door at the end of the hallway. The brunette woman opened the door and ushered me inside without a single word. The lights were bright and a single conference table with five black office chairs stood in the middle. A skinny blonde man with glasses and a suite sat at the head of the table.

  He stood and said "Please come in and have a seat Ma'am." 

  I swiftly went to the chair directly across from him. I reached out to shake his hand and said "Hi. I'm Abby Stone."

  He firmly shook my hand "Hello. I'm Jayden Adams the hiring director for Lincoln Memorial Bank."

  "Nice to meet you sir."

  "Same to you Ms.Stone. Let us take a seat and get into the interview. Tell me about your last job Ms.Stone."

  "Well I worked for Silversmith Finical's Cedar park branch until they closed in December. I was one of the office Managers. I oversaw all of my tellers and loan officers . I finalized loans for our clients. Made sure that the tellers had done all of their transactions for the day correctly. That all of the money in the tills matched that of the listed transactions for that till that day. I interacted with a number of local businesses who came to us for finical advice or loans." I stated in a matte of fact tone. While Mr.Adams nodded along and reviewed a copy of my resume. 

  "That sounds like a lot of work for you Ma'am." 

  "It was Sir, but quite frankly I loved my job and hated when they decided to close our branch."

  "To be honest Ms.Stone you are overqualified for the position you have applied for here."  

  "I know that Sir. I have applied to many jobs that i was qualified for and they passed me over because of the fact that the branch I worked for as a manager was closed down. They thought that I somehow must have contributed to the failure of that branch since i was part of the management team there. To be fully honest Sir I need a job. weather I'm over qualified for the position or not. Not long after my branch closed my husband died in the line of duty. He was a police officer and he had to work on New Years Eve. He responded to a call from a frightened neighbor saying that her neighbor was out on his front lawn drunk and holding a gun in his hand. She told the 9-1-1 dispatcher that he had fired several shots into the air and that he had young children in his care. My husbands unit responded to the call. When he got there the man was still on his front lawn. He had a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a pistol in the other. The man was in an agitated state and seeing a police officer pushed him over the edge. The neighbors said my husband tried to calm the man down. That he tried to talk the man into putting his gun down, but none of it worked. My husband had his firearm all ready drawn at the time, but he wasn't a quick enough shot. The man fired six shots at him and four of the shots hit my husband. Only one of the shots was fatal. The rookie he had been training was frozen and too slow to respond. By the time help got there it was too late for anything to be done for my Jonathon. He left me and our two sons." I paused right quick to draw a breath in and steady myself. I was fighting back tears and did not want him to see my tears. I did not want him to think that i was weak. 

  "I have lost count on the number of jobs I have applied to and been given a no from. So as you can see Mr.Adams I need this job and can promise you that I will be devoted and always give you my best."

 He looked at me for a few moments and then said "Okay. I can tell that you have been through the ringer lately. I'm going to give you a yes from me, but it's not just a yes. We have a manager position open that we have not been able to fill. No one has seemed to be the right fit for the job. So I am offering you our manager position. How do you feel about that?"

  I shook my head yes excitedly. "Yes I will take it! Thank you so much Sir for this opportunity! I can promise you that you wont regret giving this to me." 

 "You are very welcome Ms.Stone. You start at eight o'clock sharp on Monday morning. Welcome to the Lincoln Memorial Bank family. We are more than happy to have you on board here." 

 I gave Mr.Adams a beaming smile then walked out of the room. I quickly made my way out of the building and to my car. I just could not wait to get home and tell Ford and Kent that mommy had a job now. That we did not have to worry any longer. Spring was going to bloom for us just as she bloomed for the earht.