Hope Springs - 05 - Wedding Cake (7 page)

“Well, let’s try and get this bed made, and, Iris, the nurse is coming to have a look at our newest guest, so you may need to let them have the room until after dinner. And then she may need a little time alone.” Charlotte glanced at her watch. She was trying to remember what else she needed to do before Carla’s arrival.

“We’ll take care of it, Sister Charlotte. You go do your executive
director work. We’ll make the bed and clean up a little in that room.” Darlene winked and nodded.

Most of the women called Charlotte “Sister Charlotte” because the majority of them had never met a woman minister, and it was just easier to identify her as a nun. Charlotte never corrected them because she actually enjoyed being called “Sister.” It made her feel connected to the women as more than just an executive director or social worker. It made her feel like family.

“Thanks, Darlene,” Charlotte responded. She turned and walked back to her office. She wanted to make sure that Maria had gotten hold of the nurse and that she was going to be able to stop by.

Maria met her in the doorway to the office. “Laurie said she can be here in an hour,” she reported.

“Great,” Charlotte said. She moved over to her desk and sat down.

“Did he tell you who she was?” Maria asked.

Charlotte nodded. She knew that Maria was asking about Donovan and referring to the relationship between him and the victim, not just the woman’s name. “He told me she was his ex-wife,” she replied.

“Is he in any danger?” Maria asked.

Charlotte looked up at the volunteer. She hadn’t even considered that. Surely, she thought, the abuser knew his wife’s ex-husband. He probably even had guessed that he would be the person she ran to. What if he went looking for Donovan before the police could pick him up? she wondered. “I don’t know,” she answered. “He was sending another officer to make the arrest.”

Maria paused. “He’s bringing her here then?” she asked.

Charlotte nodded.

“You need me to do anything else before they come?” she asked.

Charlotte considered the question. “We’ll probably need some medical supplies. Can you get the first aid kit from the storage room? The big one,” she added, “the one with the large bandages. And we should probably get towels and some of the old sheets to put over the bed linens.”

“We don’t know what kind of injuries she has?” Maria asked.

Charlotte shook her head. “Donovan just said that she was pretty messed up and that she should go to the hospital.”

Maria considered this information. “I’ll get the Ace bandages from the laundry room.” She had just washed a large stack of them earlier in the day. The shelter went through lots of Ace bandages. There were always sprains and broken bones healing at St. Mary’s. “How about dinner for the others?” she asked.

“It’s Iris’s turn to cook and the groceries were picked up yesterday, so she’ll take care of that after she and Darlene have cleaned up,” Charlotte replied. “Oh, I knew I needed to be somewhere.” She shook her head, recalling a previously arranged engagement.

“What?” Maria asked.

“I need to get Martha and Denise from the bus depot.” She remembered that two of the residents were waiting to be picked up after their day of work, and then she was supposed to pick up Martha’s two children from a day care center not too far away from the depot. She glanced at her watch. She had been planning to pick them up, get the children, and then stop by a local parish to get supplies they had collected during the holidays. She had been trying to get there to pick the supplies up for weeks and just hadn’t found the opportunity. She had forgotten until just at that moment that she had made arrangements to pick things up that evening.

Maria seemed to read Charlotte’s mind. “I can get Gilbert to go to
that church,” she noted. “He knows exactly where it is and he has a truck,” she volunteered. “And I’ll go get the girls.” Charlotte smiled. “You are the best!”

“Can I wait at least to see how you look at each other when he gets here with his ex-wife?” Maria asked.

Charlotte laughed. “No, because Martha and Denise will freeze out there waiting for you if you do.”

Maria nodded. “Yes, it’s true. It is cold out there. I will leave now to collect them.”

Charlotte was actually glad that Maria wasn’t going to be around when Donovan showed up. She knew it was going to be awkward. Here was
her
date bringing
his ex-wife
to the battered women’s shelter where
she
worked. She wasn’t sure what to expect, but she would rather face it alone than have her friend watching his every move and then making judgments about what she thought she was seeing.

“This may be a sign,” Maria said as she gathered her coat and gloves and looked around for the keys to the van.

“What kind of sign?” Charlotte asked, seeing the keys on the edge of her desk. She picked them up and was getting ready to toss them to Maria.

“The kind that says,
Peligro! Ese hombre no es para ti!
”

Charlotte shook her head and pitched the keys to Maria. She was able to translate this because she had heard it from her friend a hundred times. It was the same thing Maria told every woman to say to herself once she was discharged from St. Mary’s and was thinking about dating again too soon. She had told Lois this only a few days earlier.

“Danger ahead! That man is not for you!”

C
harlotte was in the kitchen, helping Iris toss a salad, when Donovan arrived with Carla. She saw the headlights of the patrol car as they pulled into the driveway. She put down the knife she was using to slice tomatoes and wiped her hands on the front of her pants. “Can you finish fixing supper?” she asked Iris.

“Of course,” Iris replied. “You go on and conduct your business, Sister Charlotte.”

Charlotte smiled. “Maria will be back soon with Martha and Denise and the children. So you all go ahead and eat. Don’t wait for us. I sort of doubt our new resident will be dining with us anyway.”

Iris glanced toward the clock. It was just before six. “Yes, Sister,” she responded, and then went back to her food preparation.

Charlotte took in a deep breath. Receiving new clients was always hard for her. The endless line of abused and broken women, the scared and brutalized children clutching the backs of their mother’s legs, the
fear and the unnecessary shame, it was all so overwhelming to the executive director. The arrivals were always the hardest part.

Charlotte had been a parish minister before taking this job, and she had seen some heartbreaking things in that position. She had sat at deathbeds and been in emergency waiting rooms to hear of horrible wrecks and unsuspected illnesses. She had visited prisons and been in homes where sorrow was a regular guest. She had dealt with anger and sadness and grief as heavy as clouds. She had fought battles and lost wars and been so dog-tired that she would sometimes stand in the pulpit without a word of comfort or kindness. But nothing in that line of work ever prepared her for the depth of the pain and agony and the level of desperation she experienced at St. Mary’s.

Every woman was unique. Every woman had a story that was unique. And yet the fundamentals were always the same. The woman had left an abusive relationship. She had nothing but what she was wearing or what she could carry. She had no idea of what she was going to do beyond run for her safety and get out of her relationship. After that was when the women and their stories diverged. After those basic facts, the women and how they handled their situations were as different and as unpredictable as storms in winter.

Some of the women made it, finding new housing, finding new employment, being able to make a real break from their abusers and their abusive lives. They were the success stories. They were the ones Charlotte spoke of when she gave her report at the board of directors’ meetings. They were the ones she recited to herself over and over, and especially when she found herself feeling defeated and despairing. The success stories were what kept her going, and kept her at St. Mary’s.

Many of the women, on the other hand, didn’t make it. A lot of
the women went back to their former lives, simply unable to imagine any other way of life for themselves. They went back into the arms of their tormentors and back into a violent cycle that eventually, one way or another, killed them. That aspect of her work, that choice of destruction that was often taken, that decision to go back to a violent way of life, those stories, those and the children, were the hardest parts of the job.

No matter how long she worked at St. Mary’s, the way the children cowered and played in silence, the way they flinched if someone came too close, the tiny ways violence broke them, that was something Charlotte could never get used to. She looked for signs of hope, possibilities for change, but no matter how she learned to deal with domestic abuse, she could never find a way to be resigned to what happened to the children.

She slid her shoulder-length hair behind her ears and stopped in the hallway bathroom to take a quick look in the mirror before moving to the front door. Usually not a woman who cared too much about her appearance, since meeting Donovan she found herself applying a little more makeup in the mornings and taking a bit more interest in the clothes she decided to wear. This whole new way of being, of thinking about how she looked, was foreign to her, but so were the feelings she had for the Gallup police officer.

She was in the hallway just as the doorbell rang, and she opened the door and stood just inside the landing. Donovan was in front and a woman, one she couldn’t yet see, stood behind him in the shadows.

“Hey,” Donovan said as he dipped his head at Charlotte. He was wearing his uniform, minus the hat, which was securely placed beneath his left arm, which was at his side, while the other rested across his chest.

Charlotte had never seen him in his uniform. When they first met, when her car had a flat tire and he stopped to help, he was off duty and was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. When they went out for the one date they shared, he was in his civilian clothes as well. She was surprised at how authoritative he looked standing in front of her in the standard Gallup police uniform.

“Hello,” she responded, and stepped aside so that the two of them could walk in.

Donovan moved inside and the woman followed him. Charlotte could not get a very good look at her even in the light because she kept her shoulders hunched over and her head to the ground. Once she was in, Charlotte closed the door behind them, and they stood in the landing for a few awkward moments.

“Carla, this is Charlotte. This is the woman I’ve told you about, and this is St. Mary’s.” He spoke softly.

“Hello, Carla,” Charlotte chimed in. “It’s nice to meet you,” she added, holding out her hand to shake.

Carla reached her hand out, and immediately Charlotte noticed the large bruises around her wrist. She had seen marks like that before. It usually meant the perpetrator had held the woman down. It usually was a sign that a rape had occurred. It appeared as if her thumb, swollen and blue, was broken. Charlotte shook the extended hand carefully. The woman didn’t speak but she did look up, and Charlotte tried not to react to the terrible markings on her face.

Both of her eyes were swollen shut. Her bottom lip was split and had been bleeding. Her nose had been smashed. Everything on her face was cut or bruised, and it was easy to see why Donovan had said that she needed to be at a hospital.

“Oh my.” Charlotte sighed, trying not to react too strongly. She shook her head. “You’re going to need a couple of stitches on that lip,” she noted. “Are you in a lot of pain?” she asked.

Carla shook her head slightly. It was obvious that more than a slight movement hurt a great deal.

“Laurie, our nurse on staff, will be here soon and she’ll take a good look at you, and we’ll do what we can for your injuries here. But you may need an X-ray of your nose and cheeks.” Charlotte had gotten very good at her initial assessments of battered women. She had learned who needed medical attention and even what tests would be appropriate.

Carla shook her head again and dropped her face.

“Her husband works at the hospital,” Donovan said. “She won’t go because she’s afraid he’ll find out where she is.”

Charlotte nodded. “We can take her down to Grants to the clinic there or even to Albuquerque, if we need to.” She had run into this problem before and taken women to hospitals or medical facilities out of town. Often the abuser knew the damage he had done, and if the victim wouldn’t press charges or if the police couldn’t find him, the hospital in Gallup was not a safe option.

Carla shook her head again. “Nothing’s broken,” she said. “Except maybe a couple of ribs, and there really isn’t anything they do for those anyway,” she added.

“Carla is a nurse tech,” Donovan explained.

Charlotte smiled. “Okay,” she responded. “No hospitals or urgent care facilities. But you will let Laurie, our nurse, take a look, won’t you?”

Carla nodded and lowered her head again.

“What would you like to do right now?” Charlotte asked. “Would you like to wash up a bit or lie down? Or if you’re hungry, we can fix you a plate for supper.”

There was a pause. Carla seemed to be trying to figure out what she wanted most at that moment. Charlotte waited for her to respond.

“I think I’d like to take a shower,” she answered. “Yes, I’d just like to take a shower,” she convinced herself.

Charlotte nodded. “It’s helpful, Carla, if we take some pictures of your injuries. I know it’s a terrible thing to do, but we’ve found that having these photographs when you first come in, as evidence of the crime, it’s just helpful.” She tried to make the request as easy and kind as she could. She hated this part of the intake procedure, but she had found over the years that by the time court cases rolled around, judges and lawyers had a difficult time believing the extent of injuries without photographic evidence.