A Knock On The Door Opened Hearts

Helen McDonald was driving down the street fiddling with her car radio one morning last summer when something made her look up.

There on the small residential street in Rancho Cordova, maybe three car lengths ahead, was a child toddling out into the street. The child paused, smiled, then continued out into her lane.

McDonald, a 76-year-old former nurse, wasn’t driving fast, so she didn’t have to slam on the brakes. But she did have this sudden awful feeling that if there was a car behind her - all this happened in a millisecond and she hadn’t looked in the rear-view mirror yet - maybe the car would screech around her and maybe the child would continue along its course and … well … how awful.

McDonald quickly stopped her car, left it in the middle of the street and scooped up the child. The little girl - diaper, sandals, no shirt - eyed McDonald startled, looked toward an apartment building, then checked out McDonald again.

“It was the darnedest thing,” McDonald said. “She didn’t seem afraid and she wasn’t happy. There was no emotion at all.”

McDonald glanced around for the mother or father who should have been running after the little escapee, but there were no adults in sight. The lone occupant of this, a deserted street on the hot summer morn, was a child standing on a square of burnt-up lawn watching McDonald intently.

The 6-year-old pointed to the baby and said something indecipherable. McDonald figured he was the toddler’s brother and asked that he take her to his house. He ran down a driveway and through a maze of apartment buildings and disappeared inside a door. McDonald knocked and the same child answered.

“Get your mother,” McDonald said.

He disappeared. The toddler in her arms was perfectly still. A thin blond girl-woman appeared at the door, saw the toddler in McDonald’s arms and a little “oh!” escaped from her mouth.

With an edge in her voice, McDonald told the young mother that she’d found the child in the street. The woman reached for the child, saying that she thought a 7-year-old neighbor was watching the kids outside. McDonald said that a child of that age lacked the wisdom and responsibility to watch younger kids. The young woman began to cry.

Thus the friendship of Helen McDonald and Theresa Benning was born.

“When she started to cry, she said something about how her boyfriend had left and how she was trying, but it was really hard,” McDonald explained. “I think I said something about CPS (Child Protective Services) and I also said she should turn to relatives - her mom, maybe - if things were so bad.

“She said she had no one, though I didn’t believe her, of course. But as it turned out, she didn’t; she really didn’t. She got pregnant at 16 and her stepfather turned her out. Her mother was dead.”

Theresa Benning, 23, said she was at her wits’ end when McDonald came along. She wasn’t making it on welfare, and she was tired, scared and alone.

“I thought about her all that night and I knew that it was my responsibility to call CPS,” McDonald said. “But then I thought, ‘What are they going to do? The woman wasn’t beating her kids.’ I doubted they’d get much help.”

Widowed, her children and grandchildren grown, McDonald decided she probably had more free time than a social worker to help Benning and the children. Two days later, she returned to the apartment, this time armed with canned goods, fresh fruit and diapers. After that, she sort of wiggled her way into Benning’s life. Within two months, she and two women friends were sponsoring Benning at night school, watching the kids and having a ball.

The friendship and guidance beat any government program, Benning said.

“I was kind of suspicious at first, but she’s turned out to be like a mother to me,” she said. “No one ever taught me any of this stuff, but it’s kind of basic once you have someone showing you the way. I didn’t even know how to play with my kids. I owe her everything. My kids owe her everything.”

McDonald waves the accolades away with a sweep of her hand. She is busy just now, playing the card game “War” with the 6-year-old.

“You’re history, buster,” McDonald declares. She plays a six. He turns over a king. He wins. We all win.

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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Diana Griego Erwin McClatchy News Service