15

 

After my conversation with the Ship-Systems girl, I decided I needed to talk to Lilah. I dialed her number, got her voicemail, and left a message for her to call me. I felt guilty bugging her with clinic business on the heels of Dakota’s disappearance, but things were getting weird.

I thought about what Tom said; that he believed that Antonio was involved. It seemed too far-fetched to me that a street thug would be involved in shipping manifests and what-not. My heart raced as I thought of Antonio. I didn’t know what to do. Brooding, I drove to the shelter.

I got to Haven Home at nine, just after their breakfast hour. Pulling into the parking lot, I stared at the gray building. Pitted stucco and worn wood spoke of its age. Built in the seventies, it used to be a vocational school. The city rezoned it, and a non-profit organization turned it into a shelter for abused women and children. I stepped inside hoping I could help them more than I seemed to be able to do for myself. Exhausted and worried about the weird happenings at the clinic, I didn’t feel I had the strength to deal with the broken families inside as well.

The shelter’s lobby was cozy. Made to resemble a living room, two large multi-colored couches lined the walls, each with several heart-shaped pillows. Around me, children drew in coloring books while seated near the coffee table and floor by the reception area. Water color paintings by the residents flapped against the warm hued walls when the door swung closed. Down the hall, a trio of girls played with a doll house. The smell of macaroni and cheese wafted in from the back room.

“Ruby-D!” a little boy shouted and wrapped his arms around my legs.

“Hey, Taylor,” I gushed. “How is your owie?”

He frowned a little and hid his arm behind his back. “No owie.”

His mother walked up to us, purple blotches still lining her eyes from a broken nose. “He’s been asking for you, Dr. McKinney.”

I rubbed her shoulder, smiling. “How are you two doing, Patsy?”

“I think he’s doing well,” Patsy said quietly. “He says it’s itchy, though.”

“That sounds right,” I said and looked over her face and arms.

My heart fell. She’d been hurt so terribly for so long, that she didn’t even bother to cover up the bruises anymore. It wasn’t until her husband broke her son’s arm that she found the enormous courage it took to leave.

Teresa, the shelter’s director, poked her head out from her office. She seemed surprised to see me.

“Dr. McKinney,” she breathed, with her thick Spanish accent. “I heard about the clinic. I thought for sure you wouldn’t be here tonight.”

I tilted my head to the side and faked a frown. “It’s going to take more than a couple of punks with some paint to scare me off,” I teased.

“Well, I’m so glad to see you,” she said and smiled.

She nodded to an adjoining room. I slipped a lollipop out of my pocket, gave it to Taylor, and excused myself from Patsy before following after Teresa. Peeking inside, I gasped. Patients filled every chair and cushion inside the make-shift waiting room. My clinic walk-ins found me.

I checked my watch and turned to Teresa. “OK, let me get set up in the other room and then you can send them in by urgency.” Teresa reached out and squeezed my arm.

“This is really great of you, Ruby. I don’t know where you get the energy.”

I forced a smile.

“Aw…you know, who else is gonna do it?”

She looked at me for a few seconds, concern flitting across her face, and then patted my arm again. She smiled warmly. “Let’s get started.”

I saw each incoming woman, and kids, if she had any. Twice, I found lice and malnutrition in children and had to report it to Teresa. She had a relationship with the social workers that helped the women get on their feet and out of the shelter.

My patients distracted me, and I forgot all about the phone call this morning. Every kid, every woman, represented a tragic story. They came to me in the worst time of their lives. I owed it to them to be focused.

I did a wound check on a teenage boy named Kale who’d gotten into a fight with his father over the last cigarette in the house. His father got the smoke, Kale got the broken hand. Worried, I got the feeling I was losing him to the streets. A few of his new friends loitered just outside the shelter, smoking and joking with foul language. I tried to get him to stay for a meal, but he said he had ‘stuff’ to do. I slipped my card in his jacket pocket. I could only hope he’d call if he needed help.

By one in the afternoon, I’d seen all of my regular visitors. With the lunch hour well under way, the front of the shelter was empty. Yawning, I started to pack up my bag when Teresa poked her head in the exam room door.

She looked worried. “Dr. McKinney, I have a situation here. I was wondering if you could help me.”

She let me into the small room the shelter used as a first aid area. It had a couple of showers, some changing tables, and a small cot.

“This is Downey,” Teresa said. “She just showed up a half-hour ago.”

A young girl, about fifteen, sat on the cot. Her dirty brown hair and faint smattering of freckles made her look like a raggedy doll. I knelt down in front of her and smiled. Downey’s clothes, caked with dirt and grime, smelled like she’d been eating from dumpsters. Bruises and scrapes marred her thin mocha arms and she jerked a little when I reached for her. She was shell-shocked.

“Hey there, I’m Dr. McKinney.” I said softly.

I watched her reaction. It was slow and lethargic. She was probably on something. Her eyes swam for a moment then found my face. She blinked without expression.

“Hi,” she whispered finally.

I looked behind her at Teresa who shook her head with sadness. My heart ripped open every time I saw a child so damaged by life, especially young girls. The street used them up and left them wrecked after only a few months. Downey looked like she’d been through the worst of it. Dirt and bruises marred her mocha skin. Deep brown eyes, bloodshot, looked back at me. She looked Hispanic.

“Downey, can I ask you a few questions? Just so I can help you better?”

She didn’t answer, but I saw a slight nod.

“How long have you been on the streets, Honey? Did you run away?”

“I…left after Christmas.”

I frowned. That was two months ago. “OK, that’s good. Now, did you run away? Is there a report on you, do you think?”

Downey pursed her lips and looked down at her hands. She shook her head slowly. Wet drops landed on her ripped fingernails.

“No, no one wants me back home.”

The lump in my throat ached, but I smiled and tried to push back the sorrow that welled in my chest for her. She didn’t need pity. She needed someone to treat her with care.

“OK, uhm, can you tell me why you left?” I asked.

Downey’s gaze shot to mine and struck me as old eyes, sorrowful eyes.

“I left because I didn’t like my step-dad,” she said, suddenly angry. “I left because he did like me.”

I nodded and leaned back on the balls of my feet. It made me sick that this was not rare. It made me want to rage and cry and hold her. I wanted to tell her that she was beautiful and precious, that she was not supposed to be treated like that. But one look at her wary, hurt expression, and I knew that Downey didn’t like to be touched. Not by anyone. I knew that look.

“OK, Downey,” I said and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of her. “I can see that you just want to crash for a while, and that’s OK. But I don’t think you are eighteen yet, and that means I need to find you a more permanent place to stay, a safe place. I also need to do an exam. You look pretty banged up. I want to be sure nothing is broken.”

“This place is safe,” Downey said quietly. “My friends said it was safe, and that if I got hurt...they said to find Ruby-D, so I did. Besides, I’m eighteen.”

I looked at her and then at Teresa. There was no way this girl was eighteen. Still, I couldn’t prove it. Downey probably wasn’t even her real name. It sounded like a street name. I thought for a few moments, weighing the risk of pressing her against the possibility that she might run away. She needed help. She looked like she hadn’t eaten, and her cracked lips suggested dehydration.

“I think she looks eighteen,” Teresa said finally. She shrugged. “I mean, what do we know, right?”

I sighed and then nodded. Downey relaxed a bit. I had her take a shower and then did an exam. She had a sprained ankle and some very bad bruising on her back and legs. Downey remained silent throughout the exam. She let herself be moved but was otherwise lethargic. Her eyes stared vacantly at the empty wall across the room. Downey knew how to go away in her mind. That was a bad sign. I finished taping up some sprained fingers. She also needed stitches to close up a wound on her shoulder.

I tried to chat pleasantly with her, telling her about movies I’d seen and places I wanted to visit. Downey remained silent, unblinking, and unresponsive. When I was done, I tilted her head to face me and smiled. “You’ll heal, Downey. All of you, but you have to stay off the street. Let Teresa help you. You deserve to be safe.”

She nodded, and her gaze slipped away from mine again.

“Can I go?”

“Yeah, Honey, just go down the hall and we’ll get you set up for some dinner,” Teresa urged.

She gathered up her stuff and shuffled out of the room on bare feet without another word.

I sighed and yanked angrily on the paper liner from the exam table, tearing it up the middle. I balled it in my hands and shoved it in the trashcan, swallowing hard against the lump in my throat. The urge to pray for help was so overwhelming, I bit my lip.

I don’t think I can keep this up. I can’t take seeing so much pain.

I shook my head. Who did I think I was talking to? I’d walked away from that way of thinking a long time ago. Still, the heaviness in my chest pulled back.

Teresa poked her head in the room. “When Downey came in earlier she wouldn’t talk, wouldn’t let anyone touch her. She just handed me a card from your clinic and wouldn’t move.”

I nodded. That happened a lot. Kids came into the ER with broken bones or drug overdoses, and the nurses handed them cards for the clinic on the way out. I probably saw less than ten percent of the kids in trouble out there on the streets, but at least some of them found their way to me.

“She’s pretty broken right now. I hope she stays awhile.”

“You’re amazing with these street kids, Ruby. They rarely trust anyone. You have a gift.”

“A gift…” I repeated softly, heart heavy.

Was it, really? Every interaction seemed to break me down further, lately. I gave these kids all I had and felt close to running on empty. All of this coupled with the problems at the clinic made me so tired.

Teresa looked at me and folded her arms across her chest. A psychologist by trade, she often turned her discerning gaze on the staff. Burn-out was a huge problem in the social services arena. Truth was, I didn’t know what I was doing anymore, let alone how I could keep it up.

“Are you going to be OK? You look like you’ve not slept well. That and all that’s happened with your clinic must be really weighing on you,” she said.

I looked at her askance.

“Uh, I didn’t sign up for any sessions,” I teased her.

She caught my gaze. Teresa never let me sidestep things with a joke.

“Then will you let me pray with you?” She asked.

I looked at her, and my lip trembled. “I don’t…I don’t really do that.”

She smiled warmly. “You don’t need to do anything, Honey. Just let me talk a little.”

I hesitated for a second, and then nodded. What could it hurt, really?

Teresa was just being nice.

She closed the door, took my hands in hers, and whispered a prayer. Lovely and heartfelt, she lifted up Downey and the clinic. She prayed for me to have strength and protection in this dangerous place.

Unable to stop the tears from falling this time; I told myself that I was just tired. But deep down I knew I was in trouble. I felt my hope slipping away; it had been for some time, now.

I listened to this sweet woman’s whispered plea for courage to trust God in the face of all of this sorrow and wondered if it would do any good. You can turn your back on something for only so long before your chance is gone, right?

I had no idea that Teresa’s prayers were covering me, preparing me for what was to come. I didn’t realize that I’d just been armed for battle.