“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, t
earing 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.
16
I walked to the car still baffled by what happened in the shelter. It seemed like everywhere I turned lately, people were trying to pray over me. Lilah, Renee, and now Teresa; I wondered if I looked like a kitten in a rainstorm or something. I smiled, remembering Tom called me that once.
My phone chirped and I dug it out of my purse. I didn’t recognize the number, but flipped it open, and got into the SUV.
“Hello?”
“Ruby?” Lilah’s voice answered. “Ruby, are you OK?”
She sounded really worried. I stopped trying to get the key in the ignition. “Hey, Lilah, yeah I’m fine. I was concerned about you, though. Where’ve you been?”
“Ruby, listen to me,” Lilah breathed. “We’ve been hiding out, me and Brooklyn.”
Alarm crackled down my spine. My arm hair stood on end. “What do you mean, hiding out?”
“We got home after Dakota, and there was a note on my apartment door. It said to back off.”
Fear vaulted into my chest and I scanned the surrounding parking lot, nervous. “Back off of what?”
“I’m not sure, Ruby, but I think it has something to do with the clinic.”
I rubbed a hand on my forehead, sweating. “OK, well. Did you tell the lead detective?”
“No!” Lilah hissed. “Brooklyn said that would make things worse.”
I scrunched my nose. Brooklyn was a felon. Of course he’d think that. “Lilah, you need to tell the cops that somebody threatened you.”
“No, Ruby. I’m staying where I’m at. I just wanted to tell you because I know you’ve been calling and didn’t want you to worry.”
“Lilah, where are you? Maybe I can come and—”
“No, Ruby,” she interrupted me. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Guarded and harsh, she didn’t sound like the Lilah I knew. I heard cars in the background and wondered where she was.
“Are you just going to stay away?” I asked incredulous. “What about the investigation into Dakota’s disappearance?”
“Can you find out how it’s going for me?” Her voice broke.
“Sure, should I call you after I go and talk to Detective Riley?”
“No, Ruby. I want you to back off of whatever you’re doing and go someplace safe.”
“For how long, Lilah?” Angry and scared, my voice hitched up. “I can’t just leave all the patients hanging.”
“Please, Ruby,” Lilah breathed. “Brooklyn heard some things on the street—”
Something covered the phone on her end and I heard a muffled argument before she came back on.
“What’s going on?” I asked, barely able to breathe.
“I have to go,” she said hurriedly. “Be safe. I’ll call you later.”
“Lilah?” I tried, but she was gone.
I stared at the phone, dread quivering in my stomach. I dialed Ben’s number.
“Ruby.” His voice was relieved, but sounded scratchy. “Didn’t expect a call from you for a while. I wanted to call, you know, apologize, but I thought you needed time to get over being mad at me.”
It took a moment to understand the weird vibe I got from his voice. “Oh, yeah.”
“I was out of line, Ruby.”
“Ben, that’s OK. You walked in on a weird situation, and Tom didn’t really help matters with his teasing.”
“Well, yeah.”
Not wanting to waste any more time, I got right to the reason I’d called. “Listen, I got a strange call from Lilah and wanted to talk to you about it.”
“Is she OK?”
I hesitated, now unsure if I should heed Brooklyn’s street sense. “Uh, well, I don’t think so. She said she got a threatening letter. She and Brooklyn are hiding out.”
“What? Where are they?”
“I don’t know, actually. She just told me to get out of town and that she is laying low.”
“Did she describe the threat?” Ben’s voice shifted into his cop mode.
“She said it was a note that just said to back off. She didn’t know what it meant.”
“Do you know what it means?”
I thought about the Ship-Systems phone call and Antonio’s threat to put a bullet in my head, but decided I needed to talk to Tom first.
“Not concretely,” I answered Ben.
“Well, where are you right now?”
“I’m at the shelter, but I’m leaving. I have to stop by the hospital to check on some patients, but then I’m heading home.”
“To the clinic,” Ben clarified.
“Yeah.” I nodded even though he couldn’t see me. Why did I feel like such a failure; like I was just as lost and without a home as my patients?
“OK, Ruby,” Ben answered. “I’m going to talk to my cousin, Detective Riley, and then I’ll come and see you at your…at the clinic.”
“Thanks, Ben.”
I ended the call and looked out my windshield at the shelter.
Chewing on my inner cheek, I wondered where Tom was right now. I wished I could talk to him. Images of him dancing with the blonde at Flow flashed across my eyes. Did he go to her after he left me this morning? Feeling alone and vulnerable, I leaned on the steering wheel and tried to calm myself down.
Where are you, Tom?
A rap on my side window made me scream.
Tom, his expression concerned, peered in through the tinted glass.
“What are you doing sneaking around like that?” I shouted. My heart flared painfully.
Tom pointed to the door lock. “Are you going to let me in?”
Hand shaking, I flipped the lock button up. He ran around the front of the SUV and got into the passenger seat. Looking at me, he leaned forward and took my hand. “Why so jumpy?”
“What are you, a stalker, now?” Trying to catch my breath, I forced a nervous laugh.
“I, well kind of, yeah,” he admitted. “This morning you said you were working here today and I thought I’d come and see if you’d cooled off.”
“Oh, yes. I-I’m cooled off now.” I wiped my forehead and took in a shaky breath.
“Ruby, look at me.”
I did.
“What happened?” Tom’s eyes searched mine, his brows furrowing.
I told him about Lilah’s phone call. His face remained expressionless. I didn’t know if it made me feel better, or worse. I went on to recount my conversation with Ship-Systems and what I’d learned. When I was finished, he leaned back in the seat and let out a slow breath.
I watched him, impatience surging. “What?”
Tom reached out, took my hand in his and kissed my palm. He used to do that when I was nervous. His lips on my skin sent a ripple through me despite the circumstances.
“Lilah’s right. You should take off,” he said finally.
Pulling my hand away, I rubbed my eyes with both palms. “I can’t do that. I have patients…I’m trying to get back on track with the Sports Medicine Wing…I can’t leave them.”
“Ruby, this is going to come down around your ears any second. I don’t know how to keep you safe if you stay.”
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