"Fate, or some mysterious force, can put the finger on you or me, for no good reason at all."--DETOUR
Morgan Stern's fate was sealed the moment she left her office.
A silent countdown ticked away as she took the elevator down the first floor of the monolithic Michigan Avenue building where she worked and slipped outside, where the frozen air foretold what was about to happen. The city's huddled denizens shuffled along on the other side of New Year, days before Christmas. The two degrees displayed by bank clocks didn't account for wind chill. Lake winds punched Morgan in the face felt more like 15 below as she emerged that December morning.
She clipped along in her black DKNY business suit, carrying a red Vicelli leather handbag past the carolers, the Santa Clauses ringing their Salvation Army bells, the every bell and whistle you would expect from a holiday-decorated Michigan Avenue street and turned the corner past an upscale electronics store.
There, moving haphazardly, as if she were over-medicated, was a filthy rag-tag of a woman, rattling a tea cup in front of passers-by for spare change. Morgan's face indicated her repulsion. Some panhandlers knew their place and didn't violate space. Not this one. She wore a truly desperate expression and was in the face of every passing holiday shopper. As Morgan passed the hag was all over her. How dare she? Morgan thought. It was offensive. Couldn't this woman just go away, pick another corner, bother somebody else?
Morgan sought shelter from this wretched woman in Mickey's Food Mart, a B-rate pantry she hardly patronized.
Inside, she purchased a coffee. The counterman tried to engage her in conversation but Morgan was too distracted, peeking out the window to make sure the wretched Christmas beggar had gone. Then, as Morgan stepping back out onto the street, incredibly, a shabbily-dressed man harassed her! Was there no end to this?!
She pulled back, disgusted and repulsed by his smell-my God, the stench! His hands reached out to her. Morgan darted into the street to flee him...
She darted into the street to get away... and in the street...
She would die!
Now, for most people, the unlucky ones, that would be the end of the story. But not for Morgan Stern.
From here, her new life would begin. A life in which she would experience one of the greatest Christmas love stories ever told. Not love as in the romantic kissing and smooching you see in television and young couples doing, mind you... But of a greater love. And not just a love story, but also a story of miracles, and in the spirit of giving, one of the greatest gifts of all will be given and received by none other than Morgan herself.
Sound confusing?
Well, in that case, let's turn the hands of time back. Back to where this story got its start fifteen years ago...
