Martha was an unlikely saint. With 28 years working janitorial at the BellMawr Psychiatric Hospital, she had hardly spoken three words to a single soul on the staff. She quietly pushed her cart through the halls with cleaning supplies and sheets, wiping and mopping, changing and dusting.

For the last 15 years Martha had volunteered to work the night shift. Starting at 5 pm and lasting until 1 in the morning, it was quiet almost half the shift after the residents went to bed.

But one thing never stopped after lights out. There was always work to be done. Martha had been taught by her mother to be clean and she knew just how to find dirt and get rid of it.

Every afternoon for 15 years, she rode the bus to BellMawr, picked up her keys and her cart, changed into a work smock, and went quietly about returning cleanliness and order to her assigned world. Most recently that meant 1South and 2South.

85 residents lived on the two floors and Martha knew every one of them by name. Jimmy had been at BellMawr as long as she had. He never talked. Just walked around all day and half the night. Never bothered anybody. Just walked.

And Dara. She was a real interesting lady. Silver hair, always pushing it back on both sides with both hands like she was trying to get more streamlined to go through life. Unlike Jimmy, she would talk a mile a minute about anything you wanted to talk about. It just wouldn't make much sense.

There were other ones that looked at you out of the side of their eyes or looked down at the floor or looked anxiously at you like you might rescue them.

But none of them compared to Jesus. Martha found out his real name was Jesus Hernando Fernandez. He was different. Martha had heard people call him differently, something like "Hey Zeus," but she couldn't pronounce his name in Spanish so she just called him Jesus.

Jesus was a real character. He would sit for hours and talk about heaven to anyone who would listen. He said he had been there. In fact, some of the staff thought he might have claimed to be the real Jesus at one point, which is probably what got him here in the first place.

He could really get into it, too. He'd talk about golden streets and white robes and beautiful music and wonderful smells and lovely flowers and on and on. Martha kind of liked Jesus because he really had a nice smile and seemed quite gentle, but he could get on her nerves too, with his constant fantasies about someplace she couldn't even imagine.

Most of the time, she chose not to pay attention to the residents as she went about her work. It was too easy to get distracted and the dirt was always waiting.

Besides, after 28 years she could almost repeat most of the stories she heard residents telling, she’d heard 'em so often.

There was one story that stuck with her, though.

Martha worked every Christmas eve and Christmas day. She really didn't like being alone on those days because she had no family or friends to be with on days when it seemed everyone was with someone. Martha had been alone since she was 16 when her mother died. Her father had died much earlier and Martha had no brothers or sisters or other family that she knew of. After her mother had passed on, Martha found a job, got a small apartment and got by as best she could. Holidays weren't anything special. Just another day of work.

It was Christmas eve about 10 pm one year when she was working on 2South, Jesus Hernando Fernandez was waiting for her as she rounded the corner onto his hallway.

"Hey, did you hear about the Christmas party in heaven?" he inquired.

"No, Jesus, are all the angels drinking it up again?" she laughed. "I bet they're having another kegger, huh?"

"Don't say that, Lady," said Jesus. "It's true, they're planning a party. I heard about it and they're getting the decorations out and everything. There's a choir practicing and some lights going up and all kinds of food being made. But I'm not supposed to tell anyone. It's a secret," he whispered.

"Well, don't worry about me," said Martha, as she deftly swept a big collection of lint into her dustpan. "I can't go to no party anyway. At least not until they stop making dirt. But you can go."

"That's right, Lady. I'm supposed to go. They been telling me that I can go to this here party. But I don't know what to wear. I never been to a party in heaven before."

"What? I thought you spent all that time there. You been telling me about everything else there. How come you've never been to a party there before?" said Martha, trying to humor Jesus.

"No, I never been there, Lady. I just seen it. I see it all the time. I see all the stuff there just like it's a TV show."

"Well, you just keep watching, but I'd turn it off if they start showing too many commercials. Me, when I go to heaven, I'm not using Tide, just to spite 'em.

"So, when's the party?"

Jesus looked at her funny and said, "It's tonight."

Martha thought about that for awhile as she finished cleaning the rest of 2South. It was a long shift and she was tired as midnight rolled around. Another hour and she'd be leaving for the night, changing clothes, putting up her cart and keys and catching the bus back to her little apartment on the other side of the river. By the time she got home it would be close to 2 in the morning.

Martha liked the late night. There weren't hardly any people about and it was real quiet. Nobody was bugging anybody else much. They were all asleep. And especially, no one was bugging Martha at that hour. She'd had her fill of people bugging her.

She'd tried to be kind to people as best she could. She talked to most of the residents who talked and those who didn't she'd pat on the back or maybe sneak a small treat in for them. It wasn't like she was Mother Theresa or anything. She just felt better trying to touch everyone some way she could. Besides, these people never tried to hurt her the way other people on the outside had.

About half past midnight Martha went into the day room to straighten up the cushions on the couches. Big Frank, the janitor who ran the floor buffer every night, had already finished and the floor reflected brightly except for the circles where Frank's buffer picked up dirt. Always an eye for something out of place, Martha noticed that one of the table lamps was sitting funny on the reading table. As she got closer she could see that it had been turned sideways and the cord out of the back looked odd, like someone had yanked it hard and almost pulled it out.

As she reached to move the lamp back it seemed to jump into her hand as raw electricity surged from the frayed wire through the lamp base into Martha's body. For a long minute her body spasmed as muscles contracted and every part of her body seemed like it was trying to fly a different way all at once. Just when Martha started to slip into unconsciousness she felt a heavy bump on her back and then she drifted off.

It was a dream. She was in heaven. There was music and people in white robes and decorations and lights. It looked just like Jesus had described. It was beautiful and Martha couldn't believe that it was just like he had said. Within a few minutes, she shook her head to clear her eyes because there was Jesus Hernando Fernandez standing in front of her. Wearing a white robe. He looked really happy. And he started to talk to her.

"Martha. Thank you for being my friend and not making fun of my stories. I was where I was for a purpose and you always treated me with respect. It is because of you that I am able to be here."

"What do you mean? I don't understand. Wait," she said as she woke up with a splitting headache to see Big Frank and Mary, the night nurse, standing over her staring into her face.

Big Frank was the first to speak. "Are you okay, Martha? Boy, that must have been a nasty jolt. You're lucky you're alive."

Martha turned her head and tried to clear the fog away. "Where's Jesus?" was all she could say.

Frank looked at her and shook his head, "I'm afraid Jesus didn't make it, Martha. When he knocked you away from that lamp he landed right on it. By the time we cut power to it we couldn't revive him."

Many years would pass before Martha could even bear to talk to anyone about what happened that Christmas eve shift. She worked the evening shift on Christmas every year, but she refused to work ever again on Christmas eve.

Finally, one year in mid-December, a new floor supervisor called Martha into her office.

"Martha, we appreciate you for always being willing to work on Christmas. But I know you don't have any family. You're always talking about how you just sit alone in your apartment every night. People tell me you used to work on Christmas eve, too. If you worked Christmas eve you would at least be around other people. And you know we need you. It's hard to get other people to work on holidays."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Torrelli, I just can't. You see, for the last several years every Christmas eve I have a Christmas party for Jesus," she replied. "I know he's at a party in heaven and so I put a string of lights up in my apartment and put some music on the tape machine and have a slice of cake and think about him and his party. When I close my eyes I can see the people in their white robes, walking on the golden streets. I can look at all the beautiful lights and smell the most wonderful fragrances. It's like I'm there. Someday, I'll be there for the big party myself."

The supervisor just shook her head and accepted Martha's excuse without pushing further. It's funny, she thought as Martha left her office, sometimes these people have worked around the residents so long that they start to sound like them.