He looked at his son for a moment. Arnold had gangly arms and a bad attitude when he was 15. He always had his face pressed against his phone screen. The boy had grown up in ease, never knowing the hard times that came before their present wealth.

Arnold mumbled, “I’ll be right back,” and put his phone in his pocket. “Need to find a bathroom.”

Peter nodded and put on his headphones to block out noise. “Don’t wander too far. Boarding starts in 30 minutes.”

“I know, Dad. I’m not five!” Arnold rolled his eyes and walked away, his shoulders slouched in that way that teens do when they’re bored or mildly angry at the world.

Peter gave a small smile as he picked out a podcast on his phone. It was high time for this trip to see Grandma with Dad. There might be a way for them to reconnect after a week away from computers and plans.

Peter thought to himself, “Just like your dad.” “Always thinking you can fix everything.”

Arnold squished through the busy terminal, avoiding people who were in a hurry and rolling bags. He had already seen the signs for the bathrooms, but his eyes went to a pretzel stand instead.

There was a lot going on at the airport. Businesspeople were frantically tapping on their computers, parents were keeping their excited kids in line, and airline workers moved quickly and smoothly.

It looked like everyone else had something important to do except the woman who was slowly pushing a cleaning cart up against the wall. People walked by quickly and without noticing her because she moved slowly and carefully.

Arnold moved back to let a family go by, but his heel caught on something. He fell backward and tried to get his balance by flailing his arms around. There was a loud splash, and all of a sudden, soapy water was all over the floor around him.

“Be careful,” the woman said as she turned from her cart and looked worried. She looked about 55 years old, and her brown hair was all over the place. Her blue uniform hung loosely around her thin body. She had a “ALICE” name tag on her chest.

Arnold felt ashamed as he looked down at his wet shoes. People walking nearby looked over at him.

He got angry and asked, “Are YOU telling ME to be careful?” “Why’d you even leave that there?! Can’t remember things anymore?”

The woman sank to her knees and gripped the mop handle tighter.

“I’m sorry, I was just —”

“Maybe it’s time to retire… somewhere you won’t mess things up for everyone else!” Arnold said.

He was angry about this trip and his dad’s nonstop lectures about everything, and this poor stranger was an easy target for his anger.

People nearby looked away awkwardly, but Arnold wouldn’t stop.

He ended with, “God, I hope I never end up like you.” His voice was filled with disdain.

The woman’s eyes sparkled, and her worn-out hands shook a little as they worked on the mop. She didn’t answer; instead, she looked down at the puddle that was growing.

“ENOUGH, ARNOLD!”

The boy was scared by the voice behind him. He slowly turned around, already knowing the sound of his dad’s voice.

Peter was only three feet away and was shocked by how his son was acting.

“Dad, I —”

“I said enough.”

Peter moved past his son to look at the cleaner, who was now blinking quickly to keep the tears from coming out.

“I’m deeply sorry for my son’s behavior. There’s absolutely no excuse for speaking to anyone that way.”

The woman nodded quietly and continued to avoid making eye contact. Peter saw that her hands were rough from work, with big veins and slightly swollen fingers. Hands that had been used for decades of hard work.

Peter reached for the mop and said, “Please let me help clean this up.”

They looked at each other, and her face went from hurt to surprise as she raised her voice in protest. She slightly tilted her head to look at his face.

“Wait a minute,” she said in a voice that was almost whisper. “I know you!”

Peter looked more closely at her face. He saw the fine lines around her eyes, her thin lips, and the small scar on her right eyebrow. Something made him remember something.

Then he looked at her name tag one more time and saw ALICE.

His heart beat faster.

He breathed out “Alice?” and almost didn’t believe it himself.

Her face lit up when she recognized him. “You’re Peter! The pilot! I cleaned your flights years ago.”

Arnold looked at the conversation in shock as Peter smiled in a real way.

He stated, “I can’t believe it’s you,” and shook his head in shock. “After all this time…”

“You remember me?”

Pete asked with a soft laugh, “Remember you?” “How could I forget? You’re the woman who saved my family.”

They were sitting at a small table in the airport coffee shop with each other. Peter insisted on getting Alice a coffee, which made them late for the boarding gate. Arnold sat awkwardly and stared at his empty soda.

To his confused kid, Peter said, “It was five years ago.” “You were just 10 then… too young to understand what was happening.”

Her hands got warmer around the cup. “I didn’t do anything special, really.”

Peter leaned forward and said, “Don’t be modest.” “Arnold, you need to hear this story.”

As Peter’s mind went back in time, he looked away with his eyes.

***

It was five years ago…

Peter’s tired face was cast in harsh shadows by the fluorescent lights in the airport’s employee dressing room. He was completely worn out after fourteen hours in the cockpit. He fumbled with his black backpack bag and looked inside it a third time to make sure the envelope was still there.

$4,800 in cash. It was his pay for the whole month.

Yesterday, the bank called to give another warning about the late mortgage payment. They were almost broke because his wife had a lot of medical bills and Arnold’s school fees were due. If they didn’t make the payment by Monday, the bank said it would freeze their funds.

The only choice left was cash.

“You look like hell, Pete,” said another pilot as he slung his bag over his shoulder.

He responded with a weak smile, “I feel the same way.” “Long week.”

“Get some rest. See you on Tuesday.”

Peter said yes, then zipped up his bag and went to the bathroom. Before he drove home, he had to splash his face with cold water.

There was no one in the airport bathroom. He put his bag on the table next to the sink, turned on the cold water, and leaned over the sink. The cool water on his face made him feel better for a short time. After washing his hands, he took his jacket off the hook and left.

It was hard to focus on the radio and lighting on the way home. As he pulled into his driveway, the thought hit him like a ton of bricks.

His bag had all of their money for the month in it… Leaving.

He could feel his hands getting cold on the driving wheel. His heart was beating fast as he quickly checked the back seat and the passenger seat.

Nothing.

He whispered, “No, no, no,” and tried to start the car again, but his hands were shaking.

He had the worst twenty minutes of his life on the way back to the airport. Every red light was a pain. And every slow car in front of him was an insult to him. He ran into the employee parking lot very quickly. Even though it was cool outside, his shirt was wet with sweat.

He ran through the airport, not caring that people and security guards were staring at him. He threw open the bathroom door and looked around every corner and under every stall.

The bag wasn’t there.

His legs were almost giving out. Thirty months behind on the loan. His son’s school said they might not let him stay if he doesn’t pay. His wife’s medicine is almost gone. It was all too much.

He leaned against the wall and tried to calm down by focusing on his breathing and clearing his mind. Find and Lost. Keep safe. It’s possible that someone turned it in.

He almost ran into a cleaning cart as he walked back into the hallway.

A soft voice said, “Excuse me.”

Peter didn’t pay much attention to the woman in the blue outfit. When he heard her again, he was already moving toward the guard office.

“Sir? Are you Peter? The pilot?”

He turned around, half-angry at the wait. “Yes?”

The woman looked at his face. “Yes, I thought so. Sometimes I clean your flights.” She took a black messenger bag out of her cart. “Is this yours? I found it in the men’s room about an hour ago.”

It looked like time had stopped. He looked at the bag and was afraid to hope.

“You… found my bag?”

“Yes. I was about to take it to Lost and Found.”

As he took it, his hands shook, and he checked inside right away. The envelope with the cash inside was still there, unchanged.

His knees gave out from happiness. He yelled, “You have no idea what you just did!” “This is… this is everything we have right now.”

That woman, whose name tag said “Alice,” gave a soft smile. “I’m glad I found you then.”

Peter asked, “Please,” and he reached for his wallet. “Let me give you something.”

Alice gave a hard shake of her head. She turned back to her cart and said, “Don’t do that. It wasn’t my money to take. Just be safe getting home.” “You look tired.”

Peter just stood there with the bag close to his chest and watched Alice push her cart down the hall.

“Thank you,” he said to her. “I won’t forget this.”

She waved a little and didn’t look back.

***

Peter blinked and came back to the present. After the strong memory, the coffee shop was too bright.

“When you had that emergency appendectomy the following week,” he said, looking at Arnold, “it was Alice’s honesty that meant we could pay for it without losing our home.”

Alice politely shook her head no. “Anyone would have done the same.”

“No. Not everyone would have. That money could have solved someone else’s problems just as easily.”

Arnold looked at Alice with wide eyes for the first time. “You… you saved my life?”

“I just returned what wasn’t mine.”

“After that day, I looked for you every time I was at the airport,” he said. “But you weren’t there anymore. I even went to the address in your employee file, but the neighbors said you’d moved away.”

“My sister got sick,” Alice said. “I took a few years off to help care for her in Ohio. Just came back to work last year.”

Arnold’s face turned very pale as he listened to the story. His voice broke, and he couldn’t finish the statement. “All this time, I never knew. And I just…”

She looked at him and said, “We all make mistakes.” “It’s what we do next that matters.”

Arnold said, “No,” and his voice cracked. “You did so much more than just return a bag. You saved our family when you didn’t even know us.”

The announcement for their flight to board rang out through the airport, but Peter didn’t move.

Arnold said, “Dad, we need to go,” but he really didn’t want to.

“We’ll catch the next one,” Peter said as he looked at his watch. “Some things are more important than schedules.”

Arnold sat quietly and thought, looking at Alice every once in a while. He didn’t know it, but the woman he so lightly put down had saved his life. He couldn’t look her in the eyes, and he felt like he had swallowed rocks in his stomach.

“I’m sorry,” was all he could say, earnest but not quite right. “What I said to you… it was cruel and stupid. I had no right.”

Alice put her hand on his across the table and rubbed it. “We all have bad days, dear.”

Arnold declared, “That’s no excuse,” as tears threatened to form at the edges of his eyes. “You didn’t deserve any of that.”

“No, she didn’t,” Peter agreed. “And there’s something else you should know about Alice.”

Alice looked at Peter with doubt.

“After I left flying, I started my business with a promise to myself,” Peter said. “I promised that if I ever succeeded, I’d find a way to repay the kindness that saved us when we needed it most.”

He took out his phone, tapped it a few times, and then turned it around to face Alice. “I’ve been setting aside money for years, hoping I’d find you again. For a proper thank you.”

Her eyes got bigger as she looked at the TV. “What is this?”

“A trip to Europe. For you and your family. All expenses paid, whenever you’re ready. Paris, Rome, Barcelona… all the places you mentioned you dreamed of visiting someday.”

“You remembered that?” Alice asked in a whisper, her tears now running freely. “From those brief conversations when you’d pass by while I was cleaning?”

“Of course I did. You saved my family when you could have easily walked away. Some debts can never be repaid, but I’d like to try.”

Alice put her hand over her mouth because she was so upset.

Arnold saw his father not as a great businessman or a naggarboss parent, but as a person who was honest and grateful.

“Dad, can I add something too? From my savings?”

Peter was shocked and impressed by his kid when he looked at him. “I think that would be wonderful.”

Even though their flight had been over for a long time, they stayed at the table, three people linked by an honest act from years ago.

She said, “I should go back to work.”

“Take the rest of the day off,” Peter told her. “I’d like to speak with your supervisor anyway… and tell them what an extraordinary employee they have.”

Arnold had been quiet for a while as he thought about what he had heard. At last, he turned to look at Alice.

He asked out of the blue, “Could you teach me something?”

Her head was tilted. “Teach you what, dear?”

“How to see people. Really see them, like my dad did with you. Like you did when you returned that bag without a second thought. I want to learn how to be that kind of a person.”

Alice smiled, and the smile spread across her whole face. “That’s not something that needs teaching, young man. It’s already inside you. You just have to choose it every day.”

He saw his son nod seriously and knew that what he was seeing was a turning point and a lesson that was worth more than any amount of money.

“The richest people I know,” Alice said, looking at dad and son, “have never been the ones with the biggest houses or the nicest cars. They’re the ones who understand that what we do for others is what makes life worth living.”

Arnold showed Alice respect by putting out his hand, which would not have seemed possible an hour earlier. “Thank you… for everything.”

They finally got up to leave, and Peter knew they had missed their flight. But they had found something much more valuable: a guide that pointed straight north for his son’s character.

To give my son a good life, I clean floors, but one party invite showed me how other people see us. I knew it was time to speak up when he came home crying.

This work is based on real people and events, but it has been made up for artistic reasons. To protect privacy and make the story better, names, characters, and circumstances have been changed. Any similarity to real people, living or dead, or real events is completely accidental and not on purpose by the author.

The author and publisher don’t promise that the events or people are true to life, and they’re not responsible for any wrong ideas that come up. This story is given “as is,” and any ideas shown are the characters’ alone and do not represent those of the author or publisher.