“I'm going to have to look at this place,” Marquez growled at her, and she shrugged.
“I figured you'd say that. Want to make an appointment?” she asked hopefully. But he wasn't inclined to be that accommodating.
“I'll just drop by.”
“Great. Just do me a favor,” she looked at him unhappily, “don't tell them who you are.”
“What am I supposed to say?”
“I don't care. Tell them you're selling me a car. Tell them anything. But don't tell them I'm on probation.”
“You'd better behave yourself, Grace,” he looked pointedly at her, and his meaning was not lost on her, “or I might have to.” And as she looked at him, for reasons she couldn't quite sort out, the ugly little man reminded her of Brenda in prison. He had her legs tied. And this time there was no Luana to save her.
Chapter 7
The group at the apartment got along splendidly. They never fought over bills, everyone paid their share of the rent, they were each nice to the other girls. They bought each other small gifts, and were generous with groceries. It was really the perfect arrangement. And Grace had never been happier in her life. Every day she wondered if it was real, or if she was dreaming.
The girls even tried to fix her up with their friends, but she drew the line at that. Groceries were one thing, but gifts of men were of no interest. She had no desire to go out with anyone, or complicate her life. At twenty, she was perfectly content to stay home and read a book, or watch TV at night. Every little freedom she had was a gift to her, and she wanted nothing more from life. Certainly not romance. Just the thought of it terrified her. She had no desire to go out with anyone, possibly ever.
Her roommates teased her about it at first, and then eventually, they decided she had a secret life. Two of them were sure she was seeing a married man, particularly when she started going out regularly, three times a week, on Monday and Thursday nights, and all day Sunday. During the week she would leave direcdy from work, and change there, and more often than not, she was home after midnight.
She had thought of telling them the truth, but eventually the fantasy that she was seeing someone worked a lot better for her. It made them leave her alone and stop trying to fix her up with their friends. In fact, in terms of how she wanted to live, it was perfect.
And the truth was that her three-times-a-week trysts were the heart and soul of her existence. Once she'd gotten settled in the town house with the girls, she had started looking for a place to work three times a week. Not for pay, but to give back some of what she had gotten out of life. She felt too fortunate not to do something to help others. It was something she had always promised herself, as she lay on her bunk at night, chatting with Sally, or while she worked out with Luana.
It had taken her a month to find the right place to volunteer. There had been no one she could ask, but she had read a number of articles, and there had been a special on TV about St. Mary's. It was a crisis center for women and children in an old brownstone, and when she'd first gone there, she was shocked at the condition it was in. Paint was chipping off the walls, there were bare bulbs hanging from sockets. There were kids shouting and running around everywhere, and dozens of women. Most of them looked poor, some were pregnant, all were desperate. And the one thing they had in common was that they had all been abused, some to within an inch of their lives. Many of them were scarred, some no longer functioned normally, or had been in institutions.
The place was run by Dr. Paul Weinberg, a young psychologist who reminded her of David Glass, and after the first time she'd been there, Grace found herself aching for Molly. She would have loved to talk to her, and tell her all about it. It had been a deeply moving experience just being there. The place was mostly staffed by volunteers, and there was only a handful of paid employees, most of them doing internships for psych degrees, some of them registered nurses. The women and children living in the crisis center needed medical care, psychological help, they needed a place to live, they needed clothes, they needed tender loving care, they needed a hand to get out of the abyss they were in. Even for Grace, going to St. Mary's every week was like a light shining in the darkness. It was a place where souls were restored, and people were made whole again, as whole as they ever would be.
Just helping them helped her. It made her whole life worth something just to go there. She had volunteered for three shifts a week of seven hours each, which was a tremendous commitment. But it was a place where Grace felt at peace herself, and where she could bring peace to others. The women there had experienced many of the same things she had, and so had the children. There were pregnant fourteen-year-olds who had been raped by their fathers or brothers or uncles, seven-year-olds with glazed eyes, and women who didn't believe they would ever be free again. They were the victims of violence, and most of the time of abusive husbands. Many of them had been abused as children, too, and they were continuing to perpetuate the cycle for their own children, but they had no idea how to break it. That was what the loving staff at St. Mary's tried to teach them.
Grace was tireless when she was at St. Mary's. She worked with the women sometimes, and most of all, she loved the children. She'd gather them close to her, hold them on her lap, and tell them stories she made up, or read to them by the hour. She took them to clinics at night, to see the doctor for injuries they'd had, or just to get exams or shots. It gave her life so much more meaning. And at times it hurt too. It hurt terribly, because it was all so familiar.
“It breaks your heart, doesn't it?” one of the nurses commented a week before Christmas. Grace had been putting a two-year-old to bed. She had been brain-damaged by her father, who was in jail now. It was odd to think that he was in jail, and her father, who had done things that were almost as bad, had died a hero.
“Yes, it does. They all do. But they're lucky.” Grace smiled at her. She knew this story well. Too well. “They're here. They could still be out there getting battered. At least, for now, it's over.” The real heartbreak was that some of them went back. Some of the women just couldn't stay away from the men who beat them, and when they went back, they took the children with them. Some were hurt, some were killed, some never recovered in ways that couldn't be seen. But some got it, some learned, some moved on to new lives and came to understand how to be healthy. Grace spent hours talking to them, about the options they had, the freedom that was theirs, just for the taking. They were all so frightened, so blinded by their own pain, so disoriented by everything they'd been through. It made her think of the condition she had been in herself nearly three years before, when she'd been in jail and Molly tried to reach her. In a way, Grace was doing this for her, to give back some of the love that Molly had shared with her.
“How's it going?” Paul Weinberg, their chief psychologist, and the head of the program, stopped to chat with her late one night. He had been working shoulder to shoulder with the volunteers and employees, doing intakes. Most of them came in at night. They came in hurt, they came in frightened, they came in injured in body and mind, and they needed everything the team had to give them.
“Not bad.” Grace smiled at him. She didn't know him well, but she liked what she'd seen. And she respected the fact that he worked hard. They had sent two women to the hospital that night, and he had driven them there himself, while she cared for the children. Each of them had had four kids, and they were all in bed now. “It's a busy night.”
“It always is right before Christmas. Everyone goes nuts over the holidays. If they're going to beat their kids and wives, this is the time to do it.”