by Meg O'Brien
Abby took Alicia’s arm and led her over to the sofa, at the same time taking in the state of Jancy, who, she thought, must be fourteen by now. Named Jan Christine, and called Jan C. to rhyme with H.P., the spirited little girl had changed the spelling of her name to “Jancy” herself, at the age of eight.
Abby urged Alicia and her daughter to sit on the large, comfortable sofa that was at a right angle to the fireplace; she sat across from them in a stiff antique chair with a cane seat. Jancy flopped down at the far end of the sofa from her mother and took up a slouching position, her arms crossed in front of her chest in a defensive manner.
For a moment, Alicia simply looked at Abby, a question in her eyes: Will you help us? Can we trust you? Abby had seen it so many times. Just about every time, in fact, that women came to her, pleading that she help them escape whatever abuse they were running from.
Paseo, the underground railroad that she’d operated out of the Prayer House for two years, was a secret organization. Ordinarily, women were sent here through the local women’s shelters. No one came here without their visit having been set up by a trusted third party, and great care was taken to ensure that they weren’t followed here, and that no one could know where they went when they left.
Alicia, however, had simply shown up. Might she have led someone here who could cause trouble for the Prayer House?
Before Abby could begin to ask questions, Sister Benicia came in with a polished wooden tray. It held three cups, three bowls and a plate of her homemade brown bread. Beside it was a small dish piled high with butter, three butter knives and three spoons.
“I’ve brought everyone a bowl of soup and some nice hot cocoa,” she said softly to Abby, setting the tray on the coffee table between her and the women. Abby thanked her, and the shy nun tiptoed out with barely a whisper of her rosary beads.
Abby turned to Alicia and Jancy. “Please, help yourselves. A warm bowl of Binny’s soup usually helps me to relax.”
She picked up a cup and put it on the sturdy mission-style end table next to her chair, then slathered a piece of bread with the butter and took a bite, hoping to set them at ease. Alicia picked up her knife and buttered a piece of bread, handing it to Jancy, who shook her head and turned away. Alicia sighed and set the bread down.
“Abby,” she began, taking a napkin and twisting it nervously in her hands. “I meant it when I said I didn’t know where else to go. I had a little…problem…in Carmel, and I remembered that you were here in the Valley, and that the Prayer House was kind of hidden…” She paused. “Out of the way, I mean. I thought you might put us up for the night.”
As she talked, Alicia kept looking around. Once, when a cupboard door in the kitchen closed a bit loudly, she jumped.
Abby leaned forward and kept her voice low. “What happened? What’s going on?”
Alicia shook her head. “Please, just trust me. Jancy and I need a safe place to sleep tonight. If you help us, I swear I won’t bother you after that.”
“You’re not a bother,” Abby said. “But tell me this, at least. Is it about Gerry? Has he…” She looked at Jancy. “Has he done something?” It was the most obvious question to ask a mother on the run, and came out without her thinking about it.
Alicia looked blank for a moment, then her eyes widened. “Oh, God no! How could you ask that?”
“Well, we haven’t talked on the phone or seen each other in a long time. People change.”
Alicia’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry, Abby. It’s just that I’ve been so damned busy. But you’ve always been the kind of friend I felt I could turn to if I ever needed help. You’re the most solid and dependable person I know.”
Clearly, my friend doesn’t know me all that well anymore, Abby thought—at least, not the insecure me that had grown out of searching two years ago for my friend Marti’s killer.
But as for Alicia’s plight, Abby had learned through her work with Paseo to be cautious in these kinds of situations.
“I need to know what’s going on before I can decide whether I can help you, Allie. One thing I can’t do is put the nuns and other women living here in jeopardy.”
Alicia stood and walked back to the fire, although the reception room was quite warm now. She paused there a few moments. When she turned to Abby, the expression in her eyes was that of strain, fatigue and a touch of something else. Fear?
“I’m sorry, I didn’t think of it that way,” she said, her voice trembling. “I had no business coming here and bringing trouble into your home. I’ll leave, Abby. I’ll leave right now. I just…I mean, could you just…” She crouched down beside Abby and put a shaky hand on her arm. “Could you just keep Jancy a few days?”
Abby stole a glance at Jancy and saw that, though her chin was up and her lips drawn tight in a defiant expression, tears had spilled onto her cheeks. She wiped them away with the sleeve of her black jacket, the gesture of a five-year-old.
“Go ahead, leave,” she said sullenly to her mother. “You always do. And you know what? I don’t even care anymore.”
Alicia sighed. “Honey, I wouldn’t leave you if I didn’t have to. But you’ll be safer here with Abby—alone, I mean. Without me.”
“Oh, sure, that’s the point, isn’t it?” Jancy laughed shortly. “No, Mother, the real point is, if you foist me off on your friend here, you’ll be free as a bird. You won’t have me to bother with anymore.”
Alicia frowned and stood, folding her arms as she addressed her daughter. “I don’t know about free as a bird, young lady,” she said with an edge, “but I will have less worry if I know you’re safe.”
She sighed, and her voice shook. “Honey, I need to be on my own a few days. There are things I need to do. Please try to understand.”
The bowls of creamy soup had become cold and glutinous. Abby carried them over to a sideboard to remove herself a bit from the argument. She needed a few moments to figure out how to respond to all this. Two phrases rang in her ears “Go ahead, leave…you always do…” And, from Alicia, “I will have less worry if I know you’re safe.”
What on earth had been going on in this family since she’d seen them last?
“Allie,” she said, turning back, “if this isn’t about some problem with Gerry, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t rather have Jancy stay with him.”
“No,” Alicia answered quickly, shaking her head. “Trust me, that wouldn’t work right now.”
“The thing is, I just don’t think I can help you with this.”
“Abby, please! I—it’s just that he’s in New York, and he’s up to his ears in major business negotiations.”
“But surely he’d want to help.”
“Absolutely not!” Alicia said even more vehemently. “I want Gerry kept out of this as long as possible. Believe me, Abby, it’s for his own good.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Jancy said angrily, “why don’t I just stay at the house in Big Sur alone? I’m sixteen, after all. I’m not a kid.”
Alicia said, “Jancy,” reprovingly, while Abby just looked at the girl until her gaze fell away.
“Okay, I’m fourteen,” Jancy snapped. “But I’m more grown up than most kids my age. If you only knew…”
Alicia looked at her in desperation, as if to say, “See what I have to put up with?”
Jancy turned away, her angry gaze pretending to examine the air.
Abby studied the two of them and thought a minute, while Jancy fidgeted and Alicia looked over her shoulder, as if expecting someone to jump out from a corner at any moment.
Despite whatever other factors there might be, Abby’s strongest urge was to help. Alicia and Gerry had supported her when her job at the Los Angeles Times was on the line, years ago. Abby had written a story about a brilliant fifteen-year-old boy who, after having been orphaned at the age of five, had lived alone in an abandoned tenement building. The little boy had taken care of himself by stealing food off the streets and living with homeless adults who too
k care of him as best they could. Still, the situation he’d lived in was undeniably perilous.
The kid had talked to her only on the condition that she promise never to tell anyone who he was. Abby made the promise but vowed to do everything she could to help him after the story broke. She’d get a promotion and have plenty of money then, she reasoned, to do whatever was needed for him: high school, college…who knew what heights a kid that bright and self-sufficient might reach?
Abby shook her head now at the memory of those youthful fantasies. Instead of being promoted, she was fired for not giving up the boy’s name, and accused of making the story up. Stone-cold broke, she was on the verge of being homeless when Gerry, a young legal aid attorney at the time, represented her in court pro bono, while Allie took her into their house until her salary started coming in again. Abby won the case against wrongful firing, kept her job, and once the story hit the wires she won awards around the world. Not only was her career saved, but she was able to help the kid just as she’d hoped. He was now a resident MD at Swedish Hospital in Seattle.
None of that would have happened without Alicia and Gerry. She owed them a lot.
But her job now, first and foremost, was to protect Paseo. When Lydia Greyson, a good-hearted Carmel philanthropist, became ill and sold the Prayer House to her two years ago, she had trusted Abby to keep Paseo going. And Abby did, using the money that came out of her ill-fated marriage to Jeffrey, and the sale of the multimillion-dollar house on Ocean Drive. She had been still recovering from the monstrous act that killed her best friend, Marti Bright, though—and the attack that nearly killed her, as well. So at first, more or less sleepwalking through life, she just plowed money into Paseo, giving it little thought otherwise. It was her plan, indeed, to do that and no more.
It didn’t take long, however, to become emotionally involved. Some of the stories of abuse she heard—stories the women who came to the Prayer House for help had told her—were horrendous.
So, protecting Paseo was her first priority. And to take Alicia and Jancy in without knowing what kind of trouble they were in might risk the secrecy and safety of the other volunteers, and the moms and kids as well.
While she was considering all this, Allie picked up her purse and motioned to Jancy. “C’mon, honey, we have to go.”
“Al—”
“No, it’s all right, Abby, I never should have come here. I’m sorry.”
Her voice was shaking and her stride unbalanced, as if she were too tired to walk straight. She took Jancy’s arm, though, and pointed her in the direction of the door. Abby hesitated a few seconds more, but Allie’s condition and the sudden expression of fear on Jancy’s face was what settled it.
For some reason, the girl was afraid to leave here. But why?
Abby could still hear Lydia Greyson’s voice: People don’t listen to children. They pooh-pooh their fears, as if a child can’t possibly have all that much to worry about. Don’t do that, Abby. Don’t ever, ever do that. You don’t know how much harm you could be doing to that child.
“Allie,” she said quickly, “don’t go. Of course you can stay. For tonight, at least. All right? You can sleep here, both of you.”
Tears filled Alicia’s eyes. “Oh, Abby, thank you so much! I promise, you won’t regret—”
“Wait,” Abby said, interrupting. “Don’t make too much of this. You need to understand that I can’t keep Jancy here alone, as much as I’d like to help you with that. The fact that she’s a minor could be a problem. And since I don’t know what’s going on, I have no idea what might come up.”
“Tonight, though?” Alicia said with the first glimmer of hope in her voice. “You said, both of us? And no one will know?”
“Absolutely no one,” Abby said firmly. “I don’t know what you’re running from, Allie, but you’ll be safe here.”
And God help me if I do end up regretting this.
Allie let out a long breath, as if a huge burden had been lifted from her shoulders. Jancy didn’t say a word, but sat biting her black-painted fingernails to the quick. Abby noted that otherwise they looked freshly done, and now that the first moments were over, she also recognized Jancy’s black jeans jacket as being from a famous designer.
She looked at Alicia’s shoes and recognized them, too, as having cost somewhere in the neighborhood of seven hundred dollars. Back in the days of her marriage to Jeffrey, Abby had learned to have an eye for fashion like that. At least one thing seemed certain: Allie and Jancy wouldn’t suffer from a lack of funds, wherever they ended up.
There was a bellpull by the doorway into the reception room, a leftover from the days when the cloistered Carmelites lived there. Preserved for history’s sake, it also had a functional use. Within a minute or two of Abby’s gentle tug, Helen appeared from her room near the front door. Abby asked her to have someone take Alicia and Jancy to the second floor.
“There’s a room prepared?” Abby asked.
Helen shot her a look as if to say, “Isn’t there always?” To Alicia and Jancy, she said, “All right, then, come with me.”
But Helen was limping, and Abby didn’t want her to climb the stairs. “Sister Liddy is probably up already. Why don’t I ask her—”
“I’m not that useless yet,” Helen grumbled, lumbering to the door with a frown.
Abby knew when to fold ’em, so she contained her usual smile at Helen’s crustiness and turned to Alicia. “Okay, then. You and Jancy go with Sister Helen. She’ll take you to your room.”
Alicia hugged her. “How can I ever thank you enough?”
“A donation would be nice,” Abby said, with a laugh. “A big one, for the Women’s Center for Learning.”
“It’s a promise,” Alicia said, squeezing her hard.
Abby took her by the shoulders. “No, seriously, just take care of yourself and Jancy. Do you have a cell phone with you?”
She nodded.
“If you need anything in the night, then, don’t hesitate to call me.” Abby took a piece of notepaper and a pen from a desk and wrote her private cell phone number on it.
“I’ll only be a floor away,” she said. “Since the night’s almost over, you might as well sleep in. Call me when you’re up, and I’ll let Sister Benicia know. She’ll fix you something to eat.”
Allie nodded again and squeezed her hand. As she and Helen headed for the door, Abby touched Jancy’s arm and pulled her back a bit.
“Are you all right?” she asked in a low tone. “Is there anything special you want or need?”
Jancy gave a shrug, but tears filled her eyes again. Closer up, Abby could tell that what she had thought was heavy eye shadow was actually swollen lids that she’d apparently tried to cover up by reapplying her makeup several times. The shadow had creased and flaked, and some of it had fallen, leaving rivulets of black glitter on her cheeks.
Abby’s ability to spot troubled kids was usually right on target, and this one was shouting “trouble” all over the place.
But Jancy shoved her hands in her pockets, sniffled and shrugged. “What good would it do?” she said tiredly.
“Jancy,” Alicia said in a firm tone. She gestured for her daughter to catch up. “We’ve bothered Abby enough for tonight.”
“See what I mean?” Jancy murmured.
Abby followed Jancy and the two women into the hall. Instead of turning right toward her apartment, she paused and watched as they started up the curving mahogany stairs toward the second floor. Helen had to grasp the railings on both sides to pull herself up each stair, and Abby didn’t know whether to feel bad for her or angry with her. She could be so damned stubborn.
Standing there, she felt a sudden chill. While she was glad she’d let Allie and Jancy stay, she would have felt better if she’d known what was wrong. Something to do with Gerry, after all? Alicia clearly didn’t want him to know where they were or what had happened. For someone as afraid as she was, there had to be a good reason for keeping her husband out of it.
/> Add to that Jancy’s attitude. The child exuded anger and pain out of every pore, which could either be normal teenage acting out—or a sign of abuse. But Gerry? Was he really capable of that?
Abby didn’t know. She hated to think that way, but she hadn’t been around him recently enough to spot signs of abuse.
Her questions, or some of them, were answered moments later. Before Jancy, Helen and Alicia even made it to the landing between the first and second floor, there was a loud, abrupt banging on the front door.
All four women stopped moving and stared at one another.
“It’s them!” Alicia said in a low, frightened voice. She didn’t say who, and there was no time to ask questions. Abby raised a finger to her lips, while with her other hand she motioned for them to keep going. Alicia turned and ran farther up the stairs, with Helen doing her best to keep up. But Jancy still stood as if frozen, staring down at the carved double doors. They were old and thick, of Spanish design and meant to protect the early Carmelites from intruders. They couldn’t be broken down by anything less than a battering ram, but there were newer windows here on the first floor that were far more vulnerable.
Abby’s automatic reaction was to protect the woman and child under her care and ask questions later. Running as silently as possible up the stairs, she whispered to Helen to go back down and give them a minute or two before she opened the door. Grabbing Jancy’s arm, Abby pulled the girl after her. She followed numbly, as if in shock.
“It’s okay, you’ll be okay,” Abby whispered, but by the time they had reached the second floor and the Sacred Heart statue, Jancy was sobbing. Abby grabbed her arm and forced Jancy to face her.