Chapter 1

 

 

The drive out to Apache Junction took slightly more than twenty minutes on US 60 the first Saturday morning in December. What traffic there was seemed headed the opposite way, into the metro center where the shopping malls would be jammed.

“I’m glad you talked me into this,” Sandy Werner said, as the landscape opened up and paved parking lots gave way to dirt ones. “I need to do something more physical than sitting at my desk in the bank.”

“Not to mention it’s a great cause,” Mary Holbrook told her. “Trini says they’re hoping to get this new addition to the shelter opened before Christmas. I never realized, until I ended up at Heaven Sent, how many people are on the streets this time of year.”

Sandy nodded. It was true. Although she saw people in need of money, the bank branch she managed in Scottsdale didn’t exactly draw a poverty-stricken clientele. She’d been shocked, two years ago, when Mary had come in to withdraw her last few hundred dollars, admitting to the sudden downturn in her own financial life.

Now, Mary was a physical trainer and partner in a successful gym in Chandler. And since her experience with homelessness she’d given generously of her time and money to help—first by teaching self-defense techniques to the women residents, and now by spending her Saturdays to help build and enlarge the Apache Junction branch of the shelter at the eastern end of the sprawling Phoenix metropolis.

Mary pulled her little red Ford into a parking lot filled with vehicles, including a delivery truck from a local hardware store.

“Wow, good crowd already,” Sandy said as Mary maneuvered to a parking spot at the fringes of the lot.

“People in this city are used to getting up early for work, so what’s one more pre-dawn alarm setting?” Mary reached for her paper cup of coffee, checking that the top was securely in place.

Sandy stuffed her purse beneath the front seat and reached for the zip-up sweatshirt she’d brought. They locked the car and walked toward the building. A sign greeted all who came: HEAVEN SENT—A SAFE PLACE. Someone had strung Christmas lights around the edges of it, and a big red bow decorated the front door.

A woman with gray hair in a cute pixie cut stood out front, directing the volunteers. She sent a group around the left side of the building and then spotted Mary.

“Hey, you made it!” The woman pulled Mary into an embrace and held her, rocking gently side to side.

“Trini, this is my friend, Sandy Warner. She’s—”

“Sandy! I’ve heard lots about you. Welcome, welcome. Trini Newton.” She held out her hand.

“Thanks, Trini. Great to meet you. I hope I can actually be of help. Construction isn’t exactly on my list of skills.”

“If you can handle a paint roller, you are in the perfect place today,” Trini said with a warm grin that accentuated the lines around her eyes. Smiling had apparently been a lifelong habit.

Mary seemed surprised. “You’re already painting?”

“Hey, we don’t mess around. We’ve made a lot of progress since you were here last week.” Trini led them inside through the front door.

“I love the decorations,” Mary said. She pointed to a tall Christmas tree in the corner of the small lobby and strands of tinsel hanging from the reception desk.

“We’re trying to round up some more,” Trini said, leading them down a hallway toward the back of the building. “People bring stuff and we put it up wherever it fits, mainly here in the women-and-children area. These kids need something to brighten the holidays for them. The men’s area is across the hall.” She waved toward another closed door, farther along.

She opened the wide door in front of them and they stepped into a large room filled with cots. Curtains hung from the ceiling between the beds to create privacy. Some of the curtained ‘rooms’ held one bed, others had two or three.

“We try to give families a space to themselves so, for instance, a woman and her kids will have a cubicle. This is the purpose for the new addition. We’ll have it structured so husbands and wives with kids actually get a bit of space to themselves.”

“You’ve done a very nice job with it,” Sandy said.

Leaving the women’s area, Trini led them to the end of the long corridor. “Communal bathrooms and showers are here—ladies on the left, men on the right. And the kitchen and dining hall are back here. We provide a couple of computers where residents can get online to check job listings and housing opportunities.”

Mary noticed no one at the computers, but the dining tables were filled. Today’s breakfast seemed to be a choice of oatmeal or scrambled eggs, dished up by volunteers where a buffet of sorts was set up along the back wall. From her own experience she knew breakfast was meant to give a good start to the day. By lunch time residents were expected to be out looking for work, and dinner for those who chose to stay the night would be a soup or stew and bread. Nothing fancy, but it kept starvation away.

They trailed behind Trini as she bustled through the dining room and pushed a door open at the east end, revealing the newly constructed space, a room about the same size as the women’s quarters they’d just visited. The scents of unfinished drywall and newly laid vinyl tile greeted them. Stacks of paint cans and roller trays waited near an exterior exit door, and strips of wooden molding lay in a pile on the floor.

“Mary, I know you’re good with a nail gun,” Trini said. “All that trim needs to be put up around the door frames and baseboards.”

“I can handle that.”

“Bob Perkins over there will help with measuring and cutting, so you should be able to keep up a pace just by nailing.”

Mary ran a hand through her spiky reddish-blond hair and reached into her hip pocket for the pair of gloves she’d brought along. She headed toward the elderly man with the tape measure and they began to confer.

“Sandy, painting?”

“I love to paint.” She’d already been eyeing the cans and rollers. “And I wore my grubbies just for the occasion.”

“Go for it.” Trini flashed a quick smile before someone across the room called her away.

Apparently, the hardware store had provided everything. Sandy found painter’s tape and masking paper, which she quickly began to apply to the window frames.

“I love the way they designed this,” Mary said, walking by with an eight-foot strip of baseboard molding. “Looks like there will be a small window for each section, once they hang the privacy curtains. It’ll give nice light in the mornings.”

“Thanks for talking me into coming,” Sandy told her. “I’m glad to be part of the project.”

Conversation came to a halt once the bam-bam-bam of the nail gun began. Within half an hour Mary had framed the door into the main building and the two outside exits. Mr. Perkins helped by carrying lengths of trim to her and she quickly attached the baseboards around the perimeter of the room. Sandy had begun painting the ceiling, working her way with the roller to the wall sections Mary had finished. Two other women in paint-spattered overalls joined her, and by noon the entire room had one coat of cheery pale yellow.

“We can take a break while this dries,” Mary suggested as Sandy stood back, looking for spots she might have missed. “Trini says Gino’s Pizza just delivered a huge stack of boxes for us.”

“Good idea. A little lunch and I’ll have the energy to come back and apply the second coat.”

They washed their hands in the women’s bathroom and returned to the dining hall where most of the volunteers were taking advantage of the pizzas while they were still hot. Grabbing a couple slices of pepperoni, Sandy followed Mary to the last two seats at a table near the door.

“Ah … my shoulders are gonna be speaking to me by tomorrow,” Sandy said as she finished her first slice.

Mary looked as though no amount of physical labor daunted her, and no amount of pepperoni ever seemed to go to her waist. Not for the first time, Sandy thought about taking her friend up on the offer of a complimentary gym membership.

Mary was picking up her third slice when the door to the corridor opened and voices drifted through.

“You people are responsible for this,” a man’s voice shouted. “I follow the rules and I’m still robbed—that was my grandfather’s watch!”

“Micah, slow down.” Trini’s voice rose to get his attention. “Show me where you were.”

The rest of the conversation was lost as the speakers moved away and the door closed again.

Mary and Sandy exchanged a look. What was that all about?