by Robb, J. D.
But now that she was dating . . .
She was presenting herself for inspection by her small band of fans when a loud pounding on the door startled them all. Because no one she knew would sound so angry and menacing, she motioned Aldene and the children into the bedroom. She took baby steps to the door and peered out the hole. Someone had put their hand over it. Fear roiled inside her.
She was stealthily sliding the chain onto the door when the knock came again and made it rattle—no more stalling. She cracked the door and looked out.
“Ugh. What do you want?” Paul Morgan and another officer she didn’t recognize stood in the hallway looking very official—as alarming as it was aggravating.
“Open up. It’s business.”
“What kind of business?”
“You want to open the door?”
“You want to tell me why?”
He produced a long white envelope. “This is a summons to appear in court.” Clearly he would have preferred to serve it to more of her face but he smirked anyway. “Time and date are on the notice. The complaint is fraudulent checks.”
“What?” She closed the door to free the chain and meet him head-on. She snatched the packet out of his hand and started to open it. “You can’t just pull this stuff out of your hat, Morgan. I haven’t had a checking account in years.”
“Like I care? Fact is, someone else filed the complaint. I’m just delivering the good news.”
She didn’t recognize the name of the plaintiff but the check had been written to one of her favorite wholesale food dealers two years earlier for over two hundred dollars. Obviously, they’d been shut out when she closed her account . . . and she had less money now than ever before to pay them.
“And you just had to deliver it on Christmas Eve,” she said, looking into his pitiless scowl. The other officer looked uncomfortable, like he might have put it off for another thirty-six hours.
“My gift to you.”
“Why? Why are you like this? Why do you hate me so much?”
His eyes narrowed. “Because you think you’re so good. You think you’re so much better than everyone else because you’re so-oo good.” He swung his arm wide. “Out there every night feeding the hungry and clothing the poor like some self-appointed saint. Breaking laws because you think you have a higher purpose, because you think you’re doing something better, more important than obeying a law. I’ve known people like you my whole life. Arrogant do-gooders who sit in the dirt for a couple seconds and then imagine they know all about being dirty.”
She opened her mouth to object but he wouldn’t give her the space.
“I know you: Always looking down your nose at people while you’re handing them a stale sandwich—pretending you’re some kind of martyr driving around in a crap car, living in a dump . . .” He nodded to the summons in her hand. “Blowing all your money, going to jail . . . making believe you’re one of them. And for what? So everyone’ll think you’re this outstanding citizen. So someone’ll give you a plaque for your service in twenty-five years? So you can delude yourself into thinking you’re actually making a difference?” He bent slightly to get in her face. “You’re dreamin’, honey. Wake up. Nobody’s watching. Nobody cares. And nothing ever changes.”
He made to leave, but before Natalie could find her tongue, he turned back and tossed a small red box of stick matches at her. “You’re going to need those.” He turned his back and started walking away. “Don’t say I never gave you anything.”
Stunned, she watched him walk down the hall to the elevator. His partner looked back once, confused but not apologetic, and chose not to disturb the thick quiet that settled in the hall. The ping of the elevator doors opening brought her mind back like the bell at the end of a brutal round for a prizefighter—and everything he’d said came crashing in, blow after blow.
He was wrong. She knew he was wrong. He had to be wrong. That wasn’t who she was, but he’d shaken her underpinnings.
Arrogant, self-appointed saint? If that’s how he saw her, who else . . . A martyr in a crap car? Making believe she was one of them? Is that what she was? Was that her motivation, to impress other people? Was she deluded?
She startled when a gentle hand touched her arm from behind. She turned her head to look into Aldene’s dark eyes, soft and understanding. The woman smiled.
“I heard. I listened. What he said, that is not you. And I feel that it is not you he is angry at—only what you do and only because he does not understand your goodness, or how it came to be in you.” She turned Natalie to face her more directly. “I know proud men, my friend. Pride is good when it is earned. But there are times when it is possible to be too proud. Then it becomes a sickness. It is hurtful . . . and dangerous. To others, yes, but most to themselves. It chews on them.” She looked back down the hall and then back at Natalie. “That one has seen the love in your heart before, I think, in someone else—and he was too proud to let it in. Too proud to let it touch his heart.”
Natalie made a conscious effort to choose to believe her. She was no saint—and she knew she wasn’t arrogant or deluded or out to impress anyone. The pleasure she derived from aiding those in dire straights was always riddled with the frustration of not being able to do more. So if feeling satisfaction in the help she could give was a sin, then she was guilty. Moreover, she didn’t have to make believe that she knew what it was to live on the streets—she’d been there.
Maybe Paul Morgan had, too.
She did drive a crap car though . . .
And she was crap with money—she looked down at the proof in her hand and sighed. Glancing up again, she caught the concern in Aldene’s eyes and smiled. And the children—standing at the bedroom door, the excitement and anticipation just below the ever-constant worry—brought a grin to her face.
“Well, what are you all waiting for?” She jammed the matches in her coat pocket and tossed the summons into her basket of bills and lapsed insurance policies. It was Christmas Eve and good things were coming, she could feel it. “Let’s go! Aren’t you excited to see where you’ll be staying? Here, Arturo, I can take some of that. Did you let your uncle Luis know where you’re going? Good boy. You’re a lot of help to your mom, you know that? I’m happy that you’ll be there for her—and that I can count on you to call me if you need anything.” Her nod was encouragement for him to nod that he promised he would. “Diena, got your cobija? Don’t want to leave that behind.”
FINE, FAIR IS FAIR. NOW THAT IT HAD BEEN POINTED OUT as a glaring reality, she would admit it: She broke a lot of laws.
She had only to take a quick look at Arturo in the seat beside her and glance in the rearview mirror at the woman, baby, and two small girls behind her, riding along through the night in her uninsured car, with no car seats for the younger children and no real visibility out the back window due to the overstuffing of clothes-filled boxes, to see it as an undeniable fact.
Beaumont was an hour and ten minutes away if they took the time to cross town and take the ramp to the highway—ten minutes less if they took the old country road . . . in spite of the slower speed.
But add the violations, the curvy country road, the manner in which the gas gauge was bobbing between low and empty, and the fact that it had begun to snow rather heavily, and Natalie found herself wishing she’d planned the trip differently. Planned for it, actually. This was just the sort of impulsive recklessness Miles objected to—and rightly so, she thought, checking once again on her passengers.
So when the sign and gate to Hope House came into view, the rapid drain of nervous anxiety added to the breadth of her smile and the bone-deep gladness she felt.
“I am so grateful.” Aldene’s voice cracked as she turned to face Natalie and the evening counselor standing just inside the door of the unit that consisted of two small furnished bedrooms, kitchenette, bath, and a small living area with a couch, a chair, and a table to outfit it. While the children ran from room to room repeatedly, Aldene walked half its leng
th, forgoing the bedrooms, as if she was in a church—touching the chair and the top of the small, old Formica table like they had come from a queen’s attic. “I know no words big enough.” She blinked through the pools of tears in her eyes. “Or strong enough to tell you . . . I am grateful.” She reiterated for the counselor, and to Natalie she added, “You are a good and true friend. I will not forget what you have done.”
When her first tear slipped, Natalie closed the short distance between them to embrace her. Not for the first time, she felt Aldene’s strength and courage, and her determination to make a better, safer life for her children.
This was the difference they all made together.
STILL HIGH ON KID KISSES, WITH HER MIND TIGHTLY wrapped around the idea that, yes, Santa could find you wherever you went to sleep, Natalie set out to collect her next Christmas miracle—Miles.
Having telephoned the Posers and having left a voice mail for Miles from work, she knew they wouldn’t worry that she was a bit late. By her calculations she was still going to be there before Charlie Barton—who looked so Santalike in real life he was a shoo-in every year—finished passing out gifts.
She left Beaumont behind. The heater in the car was cranked up to high and the wipers were working furiously to keep the melting snowflakes off her windshield. The noise was an odd accompaniment to her hummed rendition of “Away in a Manger”—the radio having been broken for years.
It had been a long time since her Christmas Eve had held so much hope and soul-stirring joy.
And her mind was full of it when she crossed an icy patch on the road. The tail end of her car slid to the right and she was suddenly traveling the road sideways, the nose of her car too far into the wrong lane. Reflex had her crying out and whipping the steering wheel frantically to the right, overcompensating and swinging the rear radically to the left. She caught glimpses of snow-laden trees as she banked a hard left and then quickly straight on the road to regain an unsteady control of the car. She slowed to a mere crawl—heart racing.
Blowing out a slow, deep breath, she used her teeth to pull off her gloves for better traction on the wheel. And then, flexing the tremors from her fingers one hand at a time, she ever so gradually increased her speed, her senses hyper-alert and focused on the road.
No more humming—head in the car, not in the clouds.
And so it was that she offered extra prayers of thanks when she spotted blinking red lights through the heavy snow a few minutes later. Another car pulled far onto the shoulder. Another victim of the treacherous road conditions, she suspected.
It took only seconds for the hesitation she felt to shock and astound her. She couldn’t see the face of her watch by the dash lights but she knew if she stopped to help she’d be even later than she’d planned; later than a girl ought to be on a first date. . . .
But her date was with Miles—the Miles who knew that if she said she’d be somewhere, she would be. The Miles who knew that if she was too late, she’d have a darn good reason for it and forgive her. The same Miles who wouldn’t dream of passing by the stranded car without helping.
She pulled off the road but not into the crusty leftovers of previously plowed snow where she might get stuck. She simply didn’t have the time for that.
“Huh,” she said when she discovered her own emergency lights still worked.
A two-inch layer of snow covered the compact sedan and there were no fumes coming from the tail pipe. No gas was the first thing she thought, and she could certainly identify with the frustration of that. There but for the grace of God . . .
There were two people that she could see inside the car—looking back at her and moving around. For a handful of reasons she was loath to get out of the car in her black pumps if she didn’t have to, and decided she’d wait to roll the window down until they approached her.
She didn’t have to wait long before both doors opened and a couple who appeared to be in their late teens or early twenties got out. The young man waited and spoke a couple times to the girl, who tumbled from the rider’s side and floundered through the old and new snow to the front of the car where he joined her and helped her the rest of the way before the two of them started back toward Natalie’s car.
Stepping fully into the beam of her headlights, they covered their eyes with their arms. She cut them to parking strength so they could still see where they were going and rolled down her window.
“Hello,” she shouted out through the snow and the wind and the night. “Are you stuck or out of gas?”
“It’s out of gas,” the young man said when they reached the front bumper. The girl stayed there and he approached Natalie’s open window. Gripping the frame of the door with both hands, he added, “It’s a good thing you came along. We haven’t seen another car out here for almost an hour.”
“This wretched weather and Christmas Eve are two very good reasons to stay home and off the roads tonight.”
“Actually, I can think of one more,” he said, suddenly yanking open her unlocked door and reaching inside for her.
She screamed—in surprise, then fear—and struggled against his attempts to pull her from the car. It was only seconds before he thought of the seat belt and realized she wasn’t going to be helpful in releasing it.
He didn’t think twice. He drew his arm back as he grabbed the front of her coat and brought his fist down squarely on the left side of her face.
There was a sound . . . but if it was bone cracking, brain bouncing, mind splintering, or her cry of pain, she couldn’t tell. Her next vague recollection was of hitting the ground sideways, snow scratching at her face. A leg and a boot pushed the lower half of her body out, away from the car, and she rolled onto her abdomen—pulling arms and legs and head inward, into a protective ball.
The sound of ice-crunching steps mixed with the thundering of her heart and the wind tunnel noise of her rapid breathing. The girl spoke like Charlie Brown’s teacher from the other side of the car; the young man’s voice was more distinct.
“Can’t promise I won’t hit you if you don’t move out of the way,” he said, illustrating this by swinging the car door against her hip as she twisted away. From inside the car, with the heater cranked up to high and the wipers working furiously, he added, “That’s it, give us some space. You’re a real Good Samaritan, you know that?” He laughed. “Santa Claus is gonna leave you something real special under the tree this year.”
The timing of the engine changed when it was put in gear and her instincts went into overdrive. In an awkward sprawling crawl she relocated to the middle of the road, shivering, shaken to her core, and crying. There was a twinge of awareness that he was pulling away slowly—whether to avoid hitting her or spinning the wheels on ice she would never know—but desperation compelled her to make at least one appeal to his humanity before it was too late.
She opened her mouth, took a deep breath, and then suddenly it was . . . too late.
They were gone. The taillights of her car vanished almost instantly. Every red blink from the other car was immediately swallowed up by the night and barely holding the blinding darkness at bay. Snowflakes mingled with hot tears as she slowly pushed herself up on one arm.
“Please. Don’t do this,” she called after them in a whisper. She held her breath, listening with all her might, trusting beyond reason that they’d have a change of heart, that a rescue was nearby, that all was not lost—but she didn’t hold on long.
Somewhere between the terror of being killed for her car and the horror of freezing to death, there was a moment of feeling completely stupid and foolish and . . . and betrayed. This was exactly the sort of thing Miles worried about and warned her of frequently. She knew better than to leave her doors unlocked and to roll her window all the way down—and she knew even those safety measures were still over the line of caution and common sense for a woman, alone, at night.
Right. Caution and common sense, she thought, plucking those three words from all those pouring into her
pounding head and uselessly seeping away. She started a dizzy struggle to get to her feet. Oh yes, rational intuition—like the hesitation she felt about stopping; the instinct she overrode because . . . well, because . . . well, belaboring stupid and foolish wasn’t going to keep her warm, she decided.
Staggering toward the emergency lights, the car gave her something to lean on, and even though it was as hard and cold as the road, she felt better on her feet, throbbing face notwithstanding. Looking around, she strained her eyes to see a light in a window, a streetlight, a headlight coming down the road . . . any light at all.
Red snow flurrying through the glow of the taillights held her foggy attention for a second or two, then she felt her way along the side of the car for the handle.
Had it been hours since the young man flipped the door closed or was it hard to open because everything was freezing rapidly?
The odor inside was familiar—stale cigarette smoke, dry sweat, and decayed food—and she took heart. Out of the whipping wind was better than in it, she decided, striving to hold on to her glass-half-full persuasion.
It lasted precisely five seconds. They’d taken her purse, too.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Shivering, creating friction between her coat sleeves and her arms, and stomping her feet to make sure she still had feeling in them, she tried to make out the contents of her new shelter.
Visibility was poor to none . . . and intermittent. She used her hands to search what she could reach around her, stretching her field wider and wider with each sweep. Cans, small loose papers, thin cardboard, a trash bag—her fingers brushed cloth and she grabbed up a sweater from the passenger’s side floor. She swung her arm broadly across the backseat, feeling nothing, but that’s when she remembered her gift from Paul Morgan.