Hope Springs - 05 - Wedding Cake (21 page)

W
hen Charlotte found out from Darlene that Christine, the newest resident, the pregnant one, had left some-time in the middle of the night, returning to her violent husband just released from jail, she sat down at her desk and cried. It wasn’t like her to take that kind of news so hard; after all, it happened a lot. But for some reason, this time, this girl and her unborn baby, walking back into such an explosive and violent situation, pushed her over the edge.

Charlotte wasn’t naïve. She knew she couldn’t save all the women. She knew some of the women, no, most of the women, couldn’t imag-ine their lives without the men who beat them. She knew that one in four women was a victim of domestic abuse, and most of those victims could never find a way to get out. And even when they did, even when they found St. Mary’s, found a support system, found other women who encouraged them, found out there was another way of
life, even then a lot of them ended right back in the hold of the very men who brutalized them.

“Did anybody try to stop her?” Charlotte asked, wiping her face.

Darlene shook her head. “We didn’t know until we heard the front door shut,” she replied. She stood at the office door.

“I thought she had made up her mind to leave him,” Charlotte said, pulling another tissue from the box. “I thought she was moving back to Albuquerque with her grandmother.”

“That’s what she told us too,” Darlene said. “I don’t know when she talked to him or how he found her, but somehow they must have communicated,” she added. She wrapped her arms around herself. “How did he get out of jail?” she asked.

“Somebody posted his bail a couple of days ago and she never did press charges,” Charlotte replied. “She lied to me about that. And lucky for him, he pays for a good lawyer.”

“Rich men,” Darlene noted. “They’re the worst ones. They always find a way out of everything. They always develop some defense, make up some excuse, or have some secret relationship with a judge. At least with the poor ones they have to cool off in a cell a few weeks before they get back to the streets.”

Charlotte was still visibly shaken. “I just don’t understand why she went back to him. He broke her nose. He whipped her with a belt.” She threw the used tissue away and pulled out another.

“It’s hard when you’re pregnant.” Darlene moved inside the office and sat down in the chair across from Charlotte. “It’s harder to leave,” she added.

Charlotte looked up. “Why would it be harder then? I don’t understand. Doesn’t a woman realize that when she’s pregnant that staying
in a violent situation is even more dangerous, and for a baby, a child, not just her?”

Darlene shrugged. “It just doesn’t work like that,” she replied. “A woman thinks being pregnant will make the difference. She thinks that if her man knows he has a baby, that she’s carrying his baby, that it will be the one thing that stops him from hitting her.”

“Christine is seven months pregnant. He whipped her like a dog. He made her get stitches. And she’s seven months pregnant!” Charlotte yelled. “Why would she think he’s going to stop when she’s eight months pregnant or when that baby is due?” She dropped her head in her hands. “Jesus, for the life of me, Darlene, this doesn’t make sense!”

Darlene didn’t respond. The two women sat in the office for a few minutes without further conversation. None of the other residents were around. Only Iris was still close, and she was in the back taking a shower. The house was quiet.

“He beat her when they were dating for three years and she mar-ried him anyway,” Charlotte said. “And now he beats her when she’s pregnant. You’re telling me that she really thinks having a baby will change him?”

“I’m telling you that it’s just hard, complicated. A woman like Christine, she’s locked up in her mind. It’s hard to do different after you’ve lived your whole life in that kind of thinking.” Darlene shook her head. “It’s hard to change when you only know one way. And she only knows one way. She only knows violence. Look, Christine at least now knows that you’re here, and that’s important. She knows there’s a place where she can get to.”

“And so does he.” Charlotte wiped her eyes again and then rubbed
her forehead with her fingers. “Carla said she saw the lights in the driveway at two this morning. That means somebody picked her up. That was probably him, don’t you think?”

Darlene glanced down at the floor. She knew how dangerous it was when the perpetrators knew the address of the shelter.

“St. Mary’s has been here too long. We need another place. We need a gate and security. We need another place,” Charlotte repeated, dropping back in her chair.

“He won’t remember where he picked her up.” Darlene tried to sound convincing. She knew, however, just like Charlotte, that these men, these violent spouses and boyfriends, would do anything, kill or hurt anybody, if they thought someone was hiding their women. When she had moved into the shelter months before there was a security guard, but due to budget cuts, they had to let him go. “He’s got what he wanted,” she added, trying to remain upbeat and positive. “He has no reason to come back.”

Charlotte closed her eyes and massaged her temples. “I need to call the police to let them know,” she said with a sigh. “There’s likely to be another 911 call from the home address in the next few weeks.”

She opened a drawer and pulled out a page of names and contacts. She picked up the phone and dialed a number. “I swear, doing this work really makes a woman want to stay single,” she said to Darlene as she waited for an answer on the other end of the line.

She made the report, explaining the details to the officer on duty. When she hung up the phone, Darlene was still sitting across from her and appeared as if she wanted to talk about something.

“So, tell me about your date with Officer Love.” She knew that Charlotte had gone out the previous night because Carla had announced
it to the women at dinner. Charlotte never told anyone when she had a date, but since Carla had moved into the shelter, the women always seemed to know.

“We had a fight,” Charlotte responded. Though she usually was not one to share details of her private life, she and Darlene had become friends over the months that Darlene had been a resident at St. Mary’s. Besides, after Christine had left in the middle of the night and after such a horrible night with Donovan, she needed to talk to someone.

“Oh,” Darlene said, sounding surprised. “About what?” she asked.

“My work, this place.” She rolled her eyes.

“Carla?” Darlene added.

Charlotte glanced up. She was glad to have Darlene as a friend, but she suddenly realized the implications of the conversation. She knew better than to talk about one resident at the shelter with another. She didn’t answer.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to say but it’s pretty obvious,” Darlene noted. “Carla and Donovan are way too chummy for exes.”

“You want a cup of coffee?” Charlotte asked, hoping for that line of questioning to end.

Darlene shook her head. “You tell him how you feel?” she asked, not following suit with Charlotte. “Is that why you fought?”

Charlotte got up from her seat and went over to the coffeepot on the small table in the corner of her office. She poured a cup and sat back down. “It’s really not a good thing for us to be discussing,” she pointed out.

“It’s all right, I’m not saying anything to anybody,” Darlene said. “Does he know how awkward this is for you?” she asked.

Charlotte hesitated before answering. She was tired. She had not slept much since the argument. “He feels responsible for her,” she finally replied.

“Of course he does,” Darlene noted. “He’s her first love, her ex-husband, a police officer, and a Navajo. That’s a lot of ties that bind,” she added.

Charlotte smiled. “All true.”

Darlene studied Charlotte. “That doesn’t mean he loves her or wants to be back with her.”

Charlotte shrugged, took a sip. “Honestly, I really shouldn’t be talking to you about this. It’s not professional for the executive director to be discussing one resident with another resident.”

“I’m no longer a resident, remember? Today’s my moving day,” Darlene noted.

Charlotte glanced up at Darlene and nodded. She had helped Darlene find an apartment in town. Darlene was enrolled in nursing classes at the community college and had been clean and sober for ten months. She had changed her last name and was starting her new life in a matter of hours. The two of them were planning to go shopping first thing that morning to purchase items for the new place. The shopping trip had been postponed, however, because of the early morning departure of the new resident. Charlotte cleared her throat. “And this should be a day of celebration, not a day of mourning or commiseration.”

“It’s a day,” Darlene responded. “And most days have celebrations and commiserations,” she added.

Charlotte smiled. “True,” she said.

“So, answer me, have you told Donovan how you feel?” Darlene asked again.

Charlotte looked at Darlene, trying to decide if she was going to talk about this with her or not. “He knows that I’m uncomfortable with the relationship,” she replied.

Darlene nodded. “And he just thinks you’re being jealous?” she asked.

“I don’t know exactly what he thinks,” Darlene answered. “I got a feeling that the two of them are up to something, but he won’t tell me what it is. He denies that there’s anything between them.”

“You mean like the two of them are planning some revenge?” Darlene asked.

Charlotte studied Darlene, trying to see if she had heard something.

“I’m just guessing,” Darlene explained. “Carla’s not mentioned anything to me,” she added, understanding what the look on Charlotte’s face meant.

“I don’t know. I’ve just got a funny feeling about things,” Charlotte said. “They just seem to have something important they talk about together, a lot.”

“And you asked him about it?” Darlene was curious.

“He said that they were just trying to figure out where she could go and what she can do to stay away from her husband.”

There was a pause.

“Carla has a place to go,” Darlene said.

Charlotte shook her head. “Her sister said no. Her mother doesn’t have room. We talked about that.”

Darlene waited. “That’s not true,” she said. “Her sister said yes.” She hesitated. “Carla said no,” she explained.

Charlotte looked surprised but then she shrugged. “It doesn’t matter,” she responded. “She gets to choose where she wants to go.
She leaves when she finds suitable housing, a safe and comfortable living situation,” she added.

“Her sister has a three-bedroom house in Farmington. She can get Carla a job at the restaurant she manages. She wants Carla to live with her because she needs help with the mortgage and her little boy.”

This was news Charlotte hadn’t heard. She had been told that Carla’s sister had a studio apartment and that they didn’t get along and that her sister was unemployed and a deadbeat. Carla had told her that she had no possible housing opportunities with any family members.

“She’s staying here because of Donovan,” Darlene explained.

Charlotte shook her head. “You shouldn’t be telling me this,” she said. “I shouldn’t be talking to you about this,” she added.

Darlene shrugged. “I just thought you should know. Carla talks way too much and she said that she didn’t want to leave Gallup just yet. She said she’s working things out with Donovan.”

“What does that mean?” Charlotte asked, now interested in what Darlene had to say.

Darlene shrugged. “I don’t know. It could be what you’re thinking, something about revenge.” She stopped. “Or it could be their relationship. I get the feeling she isn’t over her first husband.”

The two women looked at each other.

“Well, I can’t do anything about Carla and Donovan. They need to figure things out for themselves. If they want to get back together, then they will. If they’re planning some act of vengeance against her husband, I can’t stop that either. Nothing I can say will change things.” Charlotte drank her coffee and set her cup on the desk.

“You can tell Carla to go live with her sister,” Darlene said.

“Because I want her away from Donovan? Because I don’t trust
her alone with my boyfriend?” Charlotte asked. “I’m not that underhanded,” she said. “I just don’t work that way.”

Darlene stretched her legs in front of her and lifted her arms high above her head, clasped her fingers together, and then dropped them behind her head. “I’m just saying, Carla isn’t telling you the truth about her sister and that living arrangement. And she’s better now and her husband is locked up. If she was anybody else, wouldn’t you have urged her to move on?”

Charlotte thought about the question. She shook her head again. “I think I am not meant to be involved with Donovan, or with any other man, for that matter.” She stood up from her chair and sorted a few papers together, stuck them in a folder, and placed them in a box at the corner of the desk. “I know too much,” she added. “I’m not sure I can ever fully trust a man after all I’ve seen here.”

Darlene leaned forward in her chair. “That doesn’t sound like the optimistic, hopeful shelter executive director I know. Weren’t you the one who told me I could beat my addictions to drugs and to violent men? Weren’t you the woman who said I was the only one who could decide what I wanted with my life and then go and get it? And yes, if I remember correctly, weren’t you the one who said there is enough good love out there in the world that I didn’t ever have to settle for bad love or being alone again?”

Charlotte studied the woman sitting before her. She had, indeed, been the one to say all those things to the resident at the shelter. She had always been the one filled with hope for the women at St. Mary’s. She had always believed that life could be different for all of them if they really wanted to change. She looked away and put the contact list back in the drawer beside her.

“We are getting ready to get you on your way to a brand-new life. You have done amazing work, and things for you are going to be different.” She picked up her purse and grabbed her car keys. “But Darlene, I’ve learned that some things don’t change.” She walked around the desk. “Maybe I’m just not meant to be in love. Maybe I’m one of those women like Christine and I’m just stuck in my thinking. And right now I’m thinking it’s not so bad being alone.”