by Lynne Hinton
She had arranged for a five-course dinner at a semi-upscale restaurant. A local church had paid for it, and all the women had gotten dressed up. None of them had ever eaten at such a nice place, and Charlotte had loved how much the women seemed to enjoy themselves. After dinner, they went back to the shelter, had desserts, and opened presents, which Charlotte had arranged with another charity organization.
The women had all received gift cards, new coats, some pieces of jewelry, and perfume. And the children, Loretta’s three, had all gotten toys and clothes and picture books. Charlotte had worked very diligently to make sure the women were well cared for during the holidays, and it had been a successful endeavor.
She had worked as the executive director of the shelter long enough to know that holidays were difficult for her clients. Most of them didn’t have family they could visit and were sad about having to live in a women’s shelter. Some of them even commented that they missed their abusers. She knew of some women who even went back into their violent situations just because the holidays were so lonesome for them.
Every year since she had taken the job in Gallup, she tried to make Christmas special and meaningful for the women. She knew that it couldn’t take away the difficult circumstances the women were facing, but at least she could give them a little joy, a tiny bit of delight.
Rachel seemed to be the most surprised by the dinner and the presents given at the party. Charlotte noticed that the young woman struggled through the dinner, appearing as if she was uncomfortable eating in such a fancy place. The other women seemed to notice it too, and they all tried to make her feel more at home. Then when they all went back to the shelter and received their gifts, Rachel had not opened any of hers with the rest of the group. She had taken them all back to her room.
Charlotte didn’t know when she opened them, but she knew that Rachel was wearing the new coat, and she thought she could smell perfume on the young woman. She hadn’t said anything to Rachel when she left the party without opening her gifts. No one had. All the women knew that sometimes for a victim of violence, goodness can feel overwhelming. They had simply left her alone.
“Why did you come out here from North Carolina?” Rachel asked.
The radio was tuned to a station that was playing Christmas music. Charlotte liked the songs but she turned the radio down a bit since her passenger seemed interested in having a conversation.
“I don’t know really,” Charlotte replied. “I read a book about the Southwest. It had a lot of pictures in it of the landscapes and the different pueblos and the sky, and it explained a lot about the history of the place. I had dreams about living in the desert. I just knew I wanted to live out here even before I ever saw it.”
“That’s weird,” Rachel responded.
“I guess so.”
“You still feel that way about it?”
Charlotte nodded. “More so. It’s exactly what I thought it would be, only it’s more. It’s like home, only it’s brand-new.” She smiled thinking about her move to the Southwest, how odd it felt to leave North Carolina, how right it felt to be where she was.
“Do you like New Mexico?” Charlotte asked.
Rachel shook her head. “Not really.”
“Where would you like to live then?” she asked.
“I guess Texas,” the young woman replied. “That’s the only place I know real good.”
“And what do you like about Texas?” Charlotte asked.
Rachel considered the question. Charlotte could tell that the teenager had never thought about her home state.
She shrugged. “I guess it’s home. I know where everything is here, what people think about, what’s important to them. I could never seem to feel that way in New Mexico.”
“Did you like growing up here?” Charlotte asked. She was hoping that Rachel might open up a bit with her since she had not shared anything about her life since moving into the shelter.
Rachel nodded. She glanced out the window.
They had taken the turn off the interstate and were heading south from Amarillo down to Childress. There were miles and miles of empty fields. They passed a few barns, a few houses situated far off the road. There were some oil pumps and a few head of cattle. They passed hardly any other cars on the road. It was quite a desolate place.
“It was hard, I mean. We were pretty poor. Grandma just got a welfare check and Uncle Nestor helped us as much as he could but we just never had much. Sometimes I felt bad about that. But mostly I didn’t care.”
Charlotte glanced over at her passenger. She seemed so old and yet she was still so young. Charlotte wondered if there was violence in her childhood too. She knew there were often patterns repeated in the lives of victims of domestic violence. She wondered if Rachel had ever talked about it.
“So, what about Childress do you miss?” Charlotte asked.
Rachel smiled. She had thought about that. She had thought about that a lot. “There’s a way that the wind sounds in west Texas. I’ve never heard it anywhere else. It’s like a woman’s voice.” She fidgeted with her seat belt. “My sister was always afraid of it; she thought it was a ghost or something. But I always liked it. Made me think of my mamma and her singing to me.”
Charlotte wanted to ask more about the young woman’s mother but she decided just to let her talk. She knew that Rachel was considering the prospect of seeing a counselor, and Charlotte was glad that Rachel was thinking about getting professional help. She decided to let her passenger talk as much or as little as she wanted. She would not push the conversation to such a deep level.
“Tell me what you used to do for Christmas.” Charlotte thought that was an innocent direction in which to steer their talk.
“They were kind of fun,” she replied.
“Yeah?” Charlotte asked, waiting for more.
“Yeah. My sister and me would start early on Christmas Eve and we would go to all of the churches in town. Grandma never really liked what we did but she didn’t make us stop.” Rachel smiled as she remembered.
“They always give out bags of candy and fruit at the local Methodist church. And the Baptist church gave out bags of groceries. The AME Zion church made homemade pies and cookies, and then we would go to the fancy church downtown for a wrapped present. It would usually be some doll or maybe a book. But it was nice.”
Charlotte nodded. She had never thought about families going from church to church to gather up holiday supplies. Once she heard the idea, however, it made sense. In a way, that was sort of what she did as an executive director of a women’s shelter. She would go through the yellow pages, getting phone numbers of local churches, and then call and ask for specific donations.
“It sounds like you were pretty resourceful as a child,” Charlotte noted.
“Oh yeah, my sister and me learned how to work the holidays.”
The two women were silent for a while as they drove along the highway.
“What about you?” Rachel asked. “What did you do for Christmas? Did you have a big family gathering and lots of presents?”
Charlotte began to think about her childhood holidays. She thought about her sister and how long it had been since she considered what it had been like growing up in her mother’s house. Even though she had been the one to start the conversation, she hadn’t thought that it would involve her own secrets.
“Well, if my mother was on the wagon, we could have a pretty good time,” she explained. “She’d cook and we’d have a nice dinner like normal families. We’d go to church on Christmas Eve and usually we’d get a present or two from Santa Claus.”
Rachel nodded. She was watching Charlotte closely. “And if she fell off of the wagon?” she asked.
“Then you just never knew what Christmas was going to be like.” Charlotte held the steering wheel with her right hand and then dropped her elbow against the car door and leaned into her left hand. These were the memories she hadn’t considered in a long time. These were the memories she tried to forg
et.
“I guess everybody’s recovering from one thing or another, huh?” Rachel asked.
And Charlotte glanced over at her passenger, who was looking at her as if she had made a new friend.
Chocolate Cookie Cake Sheet
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup water
2 tablespoons cocoa
½ cup oil
1 stick margarine
2 eggs, beaten
½ cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
In a large bowl, sift together flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda. In saucepan, combine and boil water, cocoa, oil, and margarine. Pour into dry ingredients. Add eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla. Pour into ungreased 15 x 10 x 1–inch pan and bake at 350 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes.
ICING
1 stick margarine
2 tablespoons cocoa
1/3 cup milk
1 box powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup pecans (optional)
Combine margarine, cocoa, and milk in saucepan. Heat until margarine melts, then add powdered sugar, vanilla, and nuts. Pour over hot cake.
Chapter Seventeen
Is this the place?” Charlotte was getting out of her car. They had parked in front of the small RV park that was the designated spot to meet up with the women from Hope Springs. The sun was dropping and it had turned colder.
“This is it,” Rachel replied. She seemed a bit excited, and even though she still shifted carefully and slowly because of her recent injuries, Charlotte hadn’t seen her move as quickly as she did as she emerged from the passenger side.
Charlotte noticed how much more energetic she seemed, and she stood watching the young woman.
“What?” Rachel asked, uncomfortable with the sudden attention.
“Why don’t you go in and see if your friend is still around?” Charlotte asked.
Rachel started biting her lip and turned away. She glanced toward the RV office and small general store that was only a few hundred yards away.
“Well, it can’t hurt just to go in and ask about the guy,” Charlotte said. She could tell that Rachel was very curious about her old boyfriend.
“I don’t know,” she said, still biting her lip. She pushed her hair behind her ears and shifted her weight from side to side. She flinched when she leaned on the right side. She was still badly bruised from the broken bones she had suffered.
“Well, it can’t hurt to go in and ask,” Charlotte repeated. “That’s what you’re doing here, right?”
The young woman didn’t answer.
“Oh for heaven’s sake,” Charlotte said. “Do you want me to go in there and ask?”
“No,” Rachel answered quickly. “I can do it myself.”
Charlotte waited. “Well,” she said.
“I’m going,” Rachel responded. And she headed toward the office.
Charlotte watched the young woman as she slowly moved away from the car and to the office door. She turned back to look at Charlotte, who waved her inside. Rachel wasn’t looking when someone inside pulled open the door. Charlotte watched as Rachel almost fell. She started to move to the office to help but then she saw the young woman quickly recover and stand back up. Charlotte stayed at the car.
The sky was growing darker and the clouds were thickening. The temperature had kept dropping all afternoon ever since they left Amarillo. She knew that the storm that had caused Jessie and the others to leave a day early was now predicted to come across Texas sometime that night. She worried that it would include ice and that it could keep them from being able to visit the locations that Margaret was eager to visit or that it might prevent them from returning to their homes.
She decided, however, not to worry about it. She knew there was nothing she could do about the weather anyway. She had passed several hotels in Childress, which was just fifteen miles up the road, so she figured they’d be fine even if they had to spend their Christmas in a highway motel. She knew that she would be with women she loved, and as long as Louise and Beatrice were along, she would find something to laugh about.
As she stood looking at the sky, she glanced up the highway and noticed a van coming very fast in her direction. It sped right past her, and when Charlotte saw the sign on the side, “Family Funeral Home, Hope Springs, North Carolina,” she blinked and rubbed her eyes. By the time she had taken in the information she had just encountered, the van had sped up to the next driveway, squealed the wheels, turned around, and was heading back in her direction.
When the van pulled into the RV park parking lot, Charlotte was shaking her head in disbelief. She knew that the women were traveling in a van but she had no idea that they were driving a vehicle from the funeral home. Since she knew about Dick’s employment, she realized Beatrice was behind the selection. She looked more closely through the windshield as they pulled in beside her and saw that it was Bea driving.
“Nice wheels,” was all she could think of to say once the vehicle had parked and the women began piling out of the van.
“You know, actually it rides real smooth when me and Jessie are driving,” Louise responded. She was used to the idea of the funeral van by the time they had gotten to Texas but she still thought Beatrice was a bad driver. “How are you, Preacher?” she asked with a big smile spreading across her face.
Charlotte smiled and gave Louise a big hug. “I’m great,” she replied.
Beatrice and Jessie then got out of the van and delivered their greetings as well. It was a sweet reunion for them all.
“You look skinny,” Beatrice said, sizing up the young woman. Beatrice was wearing a Santa hat. She had bought it back in Arkansas and had been wearing it for most of the trip. “You need something to eat,” she added.
Charlotte laughed. “I’m sure you’ll figure out a way to fix me up before you leave,” she said.
“Turn around and let me get a good look at you.” Jessie had her hands up in the air. Charlotte ran over and gave her friend a huge embrace. She whispered in her ear, “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Help me! Jessie, somebody, get me out!”
All the women turned to look at the rear of the van. The side door was slid open but no one could see Margaret. Jessie walked to the rear of the van and opened the back doors. Margaret was lying on the backseat. There was a bungee cord wrapped around the end of the seat.
“Why is she strapped in?” Charlotte asked.
“She kept sliding off,” Beatrice replied. “So we put the cord over her legs.” She walked over to where Jessie was standing, holding open the door. “It’s nice, isn’t it?” She was quite proud of the vehicle and all its roominess. “You can take out the seats too. Plus look at all of this space for our bags.” She opened the door wider to show Charlotte.
“Yes, Bea, it’s real nice, but I think Margaret wants to get up.”
“Oh, right.” Beatrice turned around and unhooked the bungee cord. “Do you want me to move all of the pillows?” she asked.
There were lots of pillows and blankets on the floor in front of the rear seat. Apparently, Charlotte thought, these were put in place in case Margaret did fall forward.
Margaret was huffing. “No, I can get out with them still there.” And she rolled over, pushing herself out of the seat. She crawled out the side door. “Whew, I can see why only dead people ride back there,” she said.
Beatrice was about to contradict her but then Margaret glanced over and saw Charlotte. “My Lord,” was all she said.
Charlotte smiled and ran over to hug her friend. The two stood in an embrace for a long time. Charlotte was trying not to cry, but she was so full of emotion that she couldn’t help herself. She could feel how thin Margaret had gotten. She could sense her weakness.
“Okay, there, that’s enough,” Margaret said as she pulled herself away from the young woman. “I’m glad to see you too,” she added.
>
Charlotte quickly wiped her eyes and stood away from Margaret.
“So, what is this place?” Louise asked, glancing around.
There were only a couple of motor homes parked in the RV spaces. The general store was the main part of an old mill and included a small sunroom on one side of the building that seemed to house a Jacuzzi as well as the restrooms. The women could see a pool just behind the office.
“It was the only landmark Rachel could remember in the town,” Charlotte replied. She wondered if the young woman had found her old boyfriend since she was taking such a long time inside.
“That the young girl you brought with you?” Beatrice asked.
Charlotte nodded. “She’s from Childress, so I asked her if she wanted to ride along.” She looked over at Margaret again. She was so glad to see her friend. “It was nice to have some company for the trip.”
Margaret smiled and nodded.
“What’s the weather report?” Jessie wanted to know.
“The storm is supposed to be on its way. It will probably bring some ice and snow with it, but hopefully it isn’t supposed to last too long and it’s supposed to move north instead of east or west; so that’s good for our travels back home.”
Jessie nodded.
“You see any places to stay up the road?” Louise asked. She had made all the hotel reservations up until this part of the trip. She was counting on Charlotte to find them rooms now that they were in Texas.
“There are a few hotels in Childress. We shouldn’t have any problem finding a place.”
It was then that Rachel came out of the office. She was moving slowly and the women watched as she approached.
“She’s a little bitty thing, isn’t she?” Beatrice asked. “I know that child needs some good cooking.”
“Rachel, these are my friends from North Carolina,” Charlotte began the introductions. “This is Jessie, Beatrice, Louise, and this is Margaret,” she said as she pointed to each woman.