There go I

The man and two beautiful little girls were sitting on a bit of concrete curbing outside the Starbucks that adjoins the grocery store. "Excuse me...can I ask you a question?" he said.

The little girls had matching coats on, hot-pink fleecy trim on their hoods. The older girl was sucking her thumb--surreptitiously, exactly the way my cousin used to: casually propped up behind her free arm, fooling no one. That was the detail that broke me.

Their father explained that they were homeless, had spent the last two nights sleeping in a bus-stop shelter. Could I spare any money? He specified the dollar amount they needed to get...somewhere, something, I've already forgotten. "I don't have any cash on me," I said. "But can I--can I get you some food? Can I buy you lunch?"

They all looked surprised, at that. There's a Panda Express counter inside the market, and after a moment they decided on orange chicken bowls, with fried rice. "A soda?" the dad asked. "A Sprite?" The girls, gap-toothed and warming to the idea, requested apple juice.

And so I ran into the store and bought three crummy bowls of steam-table Chinese takeout, little bottles of juice and lemon-lime soda. I got cash back at the checkout. When I emerged, the thumbsucker jumped up with excitement and ran to me. They were so polite, thanking me as I handed over the bag of hot meals and cellophaned fortune cookies. I slipped the dad $20. "Get them somewhere safe tonight, okay?" I said.

And then I went into the Starbucks, where I had come because I was bored with the obscene quantity of leftovers in my warm, dry, clean house. I sat with my coffee and a magazine and could not focus on a single paragraph. The family were visible through the window. They ate their lunch. A few more people stopped to chat, though I don't know if or what they shared. I watched one man solemnly fist-bump the girls. Eventually, it started to rain, and they got up and crossed the parking lot and the street--the girls skipping and jumping around a little, then running to catch up. I watched them ride away on the bus.

I don't know what I'm supposed to feel. I don't feel better. I'm not writing this down to say oh, look how righteous and good I am. Look at my tiny, meaningless gesture, a stupid greasy rice bowl in the face of this city's homeless emergency. Maybe I got scammed, but I am above worrying about it!

I'm writing it down because I saw those kids. I knew those girls, in their matchy-matchy jackets like Sis and I used to have. I knew the not-at-all-secret thumbsucker. We never went hungry, but sometimes our mother did. I knew kids who did. We were never without a bed to sleep in, but I knew kids who were. A hundred thousand accidents and choices across a dozen generations, and I can go shop in the QFC while someone else sleeps behind it. There but for the grace of God go I, I'd say, but I am not a believer. There but for the total, utter randomness of fate go I. There go I.