by Nan Dixon
Thinking of the five women she’d had dinner with in the cafeteria and then wandered to the lounge with—women who all had rooms in cabins on the premises—Julie shook her head.
All of them mourned for the lives they’d lost. For the dreams they’d lost. For the sense of security that had been taken from them. They yearned for real homes. Yearned to be in control of their lives again. And they lived in fear, too.
Julie wasn’t afraid of being attacked again. She had a lovely home that she cherished, a bed of her own that she’d be returning to that night.
“As a staff member, volunteer or not, you are one of us, Julie. And you will be for as long as you choose to share yourself with us. And also as a friend. You’re both things to us.”
Okay, good. No problems. She wanted to breathe easier.
But didn’t.
“I’ve come to suspect that you’re here for a third purpose, too.”
No. No, she wasn’t.
“You’re aware that most state facilities have time limits on the number of weeks a woman can remain in a shelter like ours, right?”
She knew. The Lemonade Stand, as a private facility, didn’t have to adhere to those mandates. They had their own mandates, loosely based on state laws, but they didn’t send away women who were doing everything required of them, who were participating fully in their own recovery, who were making progress but just weren’t ready to leave yet.
“Do you know why the state sets those time limits?”
“Because of the money.” Obviously. “And we mostly adhere to them because we don’t want our residents to start feeling powerless, to lose their sense of self-reliance by relying on us too much.”
“And because if they depend on the Stand to fill an emotional void, a void left by abuse, then they lose their ability to fill that void themselves.”
“You’re telling me not to get too attached to the residents. Not to become personal friends with them because they’re going to move on.” She was well aware of that. And didn’t let herself get too close—even while they were intimately in each other’s personal space as they opened up and shared their most vulnerable secrets.
“I’m telling you that I’m worried you’re using us to fill a void in your life.”
The words had come, in spite of Julie’s attempts to forestall them.
This was what she’d been afraid to hear.
Copyright © 2017 by Tara Taylor Quinn
ISBN-13: 9781488017193
Undercover with the Heiress
Copyright © 2017 by Nan Dixon
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