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It had a been a week and I’d done a good job of adjusting to working at the shelter without giving away hotel money every night. Most of the volunteers were really nice people, but the best part of being here was Mary. Her little spirit had sucked me in and I looked forward to talking to the girl every day. But at this moment, talking was in surplus. Abby was going to yak me to death. She’d followed me from the main dining hall where I wiped down tables and into the living room where I was dusting and organizing magazines. She was expecting to get approved for social security and with two years of back pay, she planned to buy land and put a log cabin on it. A log cabin she would of course build herself. She was talking like she was living out some kind of Laura Ingalls Wilder fantasy or something.
I needed her noise out of my head. “Do you mind? I really would love to work alone without you following me around.”
Abby looked like I’d knocked the wind out of her. “Oh,” she began. “I thought you came here to get your mind off your troubles.”
I sighed. “But I still like peace and you know you’ve told me all this before.”
“I figured since you weren’t going to have a chance to talk to your friend, I would stand in for her today.”
Abby had my interest now. “What do you mean, I won’t have a chance to talk to her? Has she gone somewhere?”
“She left early this morning with the children, and she wasn’t taking them to school. They were dressed in their Sunday best. I heard her tell Ms. Colleen that they would need a special.”
I squinted. “What’s a special?”
Abby smirked. “Uh, huh, so now you want to hear what I got to say.”
“Are you going to tell me or not? It’s not like I can’t go ask someone. This gives you a chance to do your favorite thing...talk.” I placed a hand on my hip.
Abby smirked. “Uh huh, you got jokes.”
“I got the truth,” I said.
“Anyway, ain’t no point in you asking everybody else.” She paused again like she was holding on to information that was classified. “A special is what you arrange so you can get back in the building after lockdown. The doors are closed at nine p.m.”
I scrunched up my face. “Is that it? You made me beg for that?”
“You weren’t begging.” Abby rolled her neck.
I was curious. “Where could she go that would be all day like that?”
Abby shrugged. “She probably gone to see some family or something out of town.”
I frowned. “I don’t think she has any family. If she did, she and the kids wouldn’t be here.”
“Samaria, you’d be surprised at the reasons why people are here. Sometimes family ain’t the safest place to be.”
I nodded, thinking about my own experiences with my mother. A mother with three children would have to be careful of the wrong male relative. Heck, the wrong female. “But if she didn’t want to be with family before, why now?”
An earsplitting scream came from the back of the building. I dropped my towel and with Abigail on my heels, I ran toward it. There were two police officers and a woman I’d never seen before in the dining area. The woman was wrestling with one of the children and a police officer had the child’s brother in his arms. He was putting up a good fight.
I looked to Colleen for an explanation. I could tell she was upset, but she hid it in the tightly fisted towel in her hand.
Everyone in the room was frozen. It didn’t take me long to figure out that the woman was from child welfare and these children were being taken into custody.
I waited until the ordeal was over and the children were gone to move. I hadn’t seen anything like that in nearly fifteen years. I grew up seeing child welfare social workers come and go in the apartments in the housing projects where we lived. My own mother had managed to allude referral, but not our neighbors. I remember the way they took children away after drug raids or from drug addicted or overly stressed abusive mothers. I’d seen it all and heard the screaming children as they begged to stay in the only home they knew with the only family they knew, no matter how dysfunctional or disgusting. But I thought those days were over for me. I never anticipated seeing that look in a child’s eyes or the outstretched hand that reached for a mother or father or grandmother who could only reach back, but not take them in their arms.
“Where is their mother?” I asked as I realized these children had no one reaching out for them. I wasn’t talking to anyone in particular, but I was in the midst of volunteers.
It was Abby’s voice that replied. “They mama probably at work, but she’s not a resident, so she supposed to be here with the kids. She let them come on the bus and they unsupervised.”
“But she’ll be here soon.”
“Not soon enough.”
“But soon,” I said again. “Is there a reason to believe she won’t come for her kids?”
“This ain’t no daycare. Ms. Colleen is liable. The rules are only the residents can use the afterschool program. If you daily, you have to be here with your kids under sixteen at all times. They mama done did this a couple times before. She came in at eight o’clock last time.”
I glanced up at the clock on the wall and it was nearly six already.
“They mama needs childcare,” Abby said. “It’s gonna be hard to get them kids back.”
I hoped that wasn’t true, but I had no idea.
“Now you know why your friend is probably going to see family. There ain’t no newborns allowed in this place. When she has that baby, she can’t stay here no more.”
I cringed. “Are you serious? What’s she supposed to do? She’s a resident. This is where she lives.”
“No newborns here. It’s the rules. Babies cry too much and they get sick, so they only take children over two.”
“I don’t think she has much family, or so it seems she didn’t in high school,” I said. “Maybe her husband’s family?”
“Maybe, but if they wouldn’t take them in back when they son was killed, why now?” Abby asked.
I looked at Abby. I hated to admit it, but she was right and she knew her way around homelessness.
I finished up the nightly admissions. When the last of the beds was filled, I stood and nearly fell out. My head was swimming with the things I’d experienced today. I realized I hadn’t eaten since morning and that had only been toast and coffee. I was hungry. I needed to get out of here.
I let Colleen know I was leaving. Just as I exited the locker room I heard another wail, not unlike the one I heard from the kids that were taken earlier.
“No, you didn’t let them go. How could you?”
“You know the rules. I’ve let you get away with it too many times and every time I warn you, you just do it again.”
“I can’t help it if my boss makes me stay longer sometimes.”
“But you know you can’t send your kids home on the bus like that. I can’t let this entire place get investigated or shutdown. You know you need childcare.”
The woman screamed. “I can’t afford childcare. I only work part-time. I’ll never get me and my girls a place if I start paying childcare.”
“Well, now you don’t have to worry about it.” I could hear Colleen’s voice cracking with every word. “And I’m sorry, but we don’t have a bed tonight.”
The woman’s lip trembled. “I wouldn’t ask you for anything if you were the last person on earth, Colleen. You don’t have to worry about a bed for me. Ever!” She marched back out the door.
More emotional overload. How did Colleen do this job? She wasn’t a monster. She was a nice person, sensitive even, but today...today was a bad day.
Relieved I was leaving, I climbed into my car. This was a hard life. Really, really hard. Being poor was one thing, but being transient was even worse. I reached into my purse for the cigarettes I’d abandoned and my phone vibrated against my hand. It was Mekhi.
“Hey, baby. I’m on the way home. I was checking to see if you needed anything.”
I smiled inside. All I wanted was his arms right now. “A hot bath when I get there myself.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m leaving Samaritan.”
“Wow, it’s late.”
“Not really,” I said. “You’re early. I’ll stop for dinner and meet you at the house. It’s been a rough day.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“What about for you?”
“Good day for me. You tell me all about yours when you get home.”
My heart smiled. I ended the call and shoved the cigarettes back in the bag.
I entered the house and was struck by the smell of pine. I saw little green needles on the floor that led from the door to the great room. I followed the trail and as I thought, there it was. A real live, Godzilla-sized Christmas tree was parked next to the fireplace. Mekhi had already put it in a stand.
I found him upstairs in the master bath, lounging in a bubble bath. He didn’t take baths, so I knew he was waiting for me.
“I see you got your tree.” I put down the serving tray I was carrying. I’d picked up pizza.
“Nice, right?”
I smiled and nodded as I underdressed and slid in the tub with him. “I’m starving.” I dried off my hands and picked up a slice.
Mekhi’s eyes were full of mischief. “Me, too.”
“For food, Khi,” I laughed.
I handed him a slice. “Did Rufus help you get that monster tree in here?”
“What makes you think I didn’t do it myself?”
I peered at him. “The size for one. It’s like ten feet tall.”
Mekhi chuckled. “Actually, I had it delivered.”
“You’re kidding?”
“That’s what the rich do.” He shrugged.
“Well, you should have asked if they had decorating services.” I took a bite out of my slice.
Mekhi chuckled again. “They do, but I want to create a tradition of decorating with my family.”
“Family?” I raised an eyebrow and nearly choked on the food. “Your family is coming over?”
Mekhi shook his head. “You’re my family, Sammie. Right now, my family is you and I.”
Melia crossed my mind. We’d be three if she hadn’t passed away. I’d still be pregnant if I hadn’t been early. I wouldn’t have confessed. I might even still be on trial. I sighed heavily. So many different roads. Why was life so complicated? Why couldn’t it be like this bath and this pizza, easy and nice?
“Earth to my wife,” Mekhi said nudging me with his knee. Water and bubbles flowed in my direction. “Tell me what was so bad about your day.”
I let out a long sigh and recapped the events.
“Wow,” he said sticking the last of his slice in his mouth. “That is rough.”
“I felt so bad for those kids. They went from strangers to more strangers.”
“Reminds me of that time when they took the Smith kids. Remember, it was like ten of ‘em and child welfare came with three cop cars to help get everybody out of there.”
I nodded. I’d forgotten that. “They were all crying except the oldest.”
“Yeah,” Mekhi said, “But he ended up stabbing his foster father.”
“They said he was molesting him or trying too.”
Mekhi was thoughtful. “Taking kids from one bad situation and putting them in another is not protecting them. Seems they could screen the foster parents better.”
I reached behind me and pushed the button for the waterjets. “Seems they could. I think that someone has to care. You know, really care.”
“I think people care. There just isn’t enough money to go around. Too many kids in the system.”
“And too many homeless. This isn’t what God wanted.”
Mekhi turned up his lip like he considered what I said. “The Bible says the poor would always be with us.”
I smirked. “There you go quoting the Bible again.”
“I went to Sunday school. I told you. I know all those little Bible stories and parables, girl.” Mekhi raised my foot from the water and kissed it. His dark eyes said dinner was over.
I pulled my foot out of his hand and sloshed my way closer to him. When my face was inches away from his I asked, “Is that why you act like you walk on water?”
Mekhi put his hands around my waist and pulled me until our flesh was touching. Then he hit the button for the hot water. Heat began to flood the tub. “You know what I learned from that story about Peter?”
I tilted my head with interest.
“Never look at the wind.” He covered my lips with his.