The car lights passing by the side road kept Mary Crandall
awake. She glanced into the backseat where her son, Bob, and
her daughter, Ann, were finally asleep. Sandwiched between
them, the toddler, John, was sound asleep in his little car
seat. Mary pushed back a strand of dark hair and glanced
worriedly out the window. She'd never in her life slept in a
car. But she and her children had just been evicted from
their rental home, by a worried young policewoman with a
legal eviction notice. She hadn't wanted to enforce the
order but had no choice since Mary hadn't paid the rent in
full. The rent had gone up and Mary could no longer afford
the monthly payments.
It was Mary who'd comforted
her, assuring her that she and the children would manage
somehow. The order hadn't mentioned the automobile, although
Mary was sure that it would be taken, too. The thing was, it
hadn't been taken today. By tomorrow, perhaps, the shock
would wear off and she could function again. She was
resourceful, and not afraid of hard work. She'd
manage.
The fear of the unknown was the worst. But
she knew that she and the children would be all right. They
had to be! If only she didn't have to take the risk of
having them in a parked car with her in the middle of the
night. Like any big city, Phoenix was dangerous at
night.
She didn't dare go to sleep. The car doors
didn't even lock.…
Just as she was worrying about
that, car lights suddenly flashed in the rearview mirror.
Blue lights. She groaned. It was a police car. Now they were
in for it. What did they do to a woman for sleeping in a car
with her kids? Was it against the law?
Mary had a sad
picture of herself in mind as the police car stopped. She
hadn't combed her dark, thick hair all day. There were
circles under her big, light blue eyes. Her slender figure
was all too thin and her jeans and cotton shirt were
hopelessly wrinkled. She wasn't going to make a good
impression.
She rolled the window down as a uniformed
officer walked up to the driver's window with a pad in one
hand, and the other hand on the butt of his service
revolver. Mary swallowed. Hard.
The officer leaned
down. He was clean-shaven, neat in appearance. "May I see
your license and registration, please?" he asked
politely.
With a pained sigh, she produced them from
her tattered purse and handed them to him. "I guess you're
going to arrest us," she said miserably as she turned on the
inside lights.
He directed his gaze to the backseat,
where Bob, Ann and John were still asleep, then looked back
at Mary. He glanced at her license and registration and
passed them back to her. "You can't sleep in a car," he
said.
She smiled sadly. "Then it's on the ground, I'm
afraid. We were just evicted from our home." Without knowing
why, she added, "The divorce was final today and he left us
high and dry. To add insult to injury, he wants the car for
himself, but he can't find it tonight."
His face
didn't betray anything, but she sensed anger in him. "I
won't ask why the children have to be punished along with
you," he replied. "I've been at this job for twenty years.
There isn't much I haven't seen."
"I imagine so.
Well, do we go in handcuffs…?"
"Don't be absurd.
There's a shelter near here, a very well-run one. I know the
lady who manages it. She'll give you a place to sleep and
help you find the right resources to solve your
situation."
Tears sprung to her light eyes. She
couldn't believe he was willing to help them!
"Now,
don't cry," he ground out. "If you cry, I'll cry, and just
imagine how it will look to my superiors if it gets around?
They'll call me a sissy!"
That amused her. She
laughed, lighting up her thin face.
"That's better,"
he said, liking the way she looked when she smiled. "Okay.
You follow me, and we'll get you situated."
"Yes,
sir."
"Hey, I'm not that old," he murmured dryly.
"Come on. Drive safely. I'll go slow."
She gave him a
grateful smile. "Thanks. I mean it. I was scared to death to
stay here, but I had no place I could go except to a friend,
and she lives just two doors down from my
ex-husband.…"
"No need even to explain. Let's
go."
He led her through downtown Phoenix to an old
warehouse that had been converted into a homeless
shelter.
She parked the car in the large parking lot
and picked up the baby carrier, motioning to Bob and Ann to
get out, too.
"Dad will probably have the police
looking for the car by now," Bob said sadly.
"It
doesn't matter," Mary said. "We'll manage,
honey."
The police officer was out of his own car,
having given his location on the radio. He joined them at
the entrance to the shelter, grimacing.
"I just got a
call about the car…" he began.
"I told you Dad would
be looking for it," Bob said on a sigh.
"It's all
right," Mary told him. She forced a smile. "I can borrow one
from one of the ladies I work for. She's offered
before."
"She must have a big heart," the policeman
mused.
She smiled. "She has that. I keep house for
several rich ladies. She's very kind."
The policeman
held the door open for them as they filed reluctantly into
the entrance. As she passed, she noticed that his name tag
read Matt Clark. Odd, she thought, they had the same
initials, and then she chided herself for thinking such a
stupid thing when she was at the end of her
rope.
Many people were sitting around talking. Some
were sleeping on cots, even on the floor, in the huge space.
There were old tables and chairs that didn't match. There
was a long table with a coffee urn and bags of paper plates
and cups, where meals were apparently served. It was meant
for a largely transient clientele. But the place felt
welcoming, just the same. The big clock on the wall read
10:00 p.m. It wasn't nearly as late as she'd
thought.
"Is Bev around?" the policeman asked a woman
nearby.
"Yes. She's working in the office. I'll get
her," she added, smiling warmly at Mary.
"She's nice
people," the policeman said with a smile. "It's going to be
all right."
A couple of minutes later, a tall,
dignified woman in her forties came out of the office. She
recognized the police officer and grinned. "Hi, Matt! What
brings you here at this hour?"
"I brought you some
more clients," he said easily. "They don't have anyplace to
go tonight. Got room?"
"Always,"the woman said,
turning to smile at Mary and her kids. She was tall and her
dark hair was sprinkled with gray. She was wearing jeans and
a red sweater, and she looked honest and kind. "I'm Bev
Tanner," she said, holding out her hand to shake Mary's. "I
manage the homeless shelter."
"I'm Mary Crandall,"
she replied, noting the compassionate police officer's
intent scrutiny. "These are my children. Bob's the oldest,
he's in junior high, Ann is in her last year of grammar
school, and John's just eighteen months."
"I'm very
happy to have you here," Bev said. "And you're welcome to
stay as long as you need to."
Mary's lips pressed
together hard as she struggled not to cry. The events of the
day were beginning to catch up with her.
"What you
need is a good night's sleep," Bev said at once. "Come with
me and I'll get you settled."
Mary turned to Officer
Clark. "Thanks a million," she managed to say, trying to
smile.
He shrugged. "All in a night's work." He
hesitated. "Maybe I'll see you around."
She did
smile, then. "Maybe you will."
Phoenix was an
enormous city. It wasn't likely. But they continued smiling
at each other as he waved to Bev and went out the
door.
An hour later, Mary and the children were
comfortably situated with borrowed blankets. She realized
belatedly that she hadn't thought to take one single piece
of clothing or even her spare cosmetics from the house.
There had hardly been time to absorb the shock and surprise
of being evicted.
Mary looked around, dazed. The
homeless shelter was just a little frightening. She'd never
been inside one before. Like many people, she'd passed them
in her travels around Phoenix, but never paid them much
attention. The people who frequented them had been only
shadows to her, illusions she remembered from occasional
stories on television around the holiday season. Helping the
homeless was always a good story, during that season when
people tried to behave better. Contributions were asked and
acknowledged from sympathetic contributors. Then, like the
tinsel and holly and wreaths, the homeless were put aside
until the next holiday season.
But Mary was unable to
put it aside. She had just sustained a shock as her divorce
became final. She and her three children were suddenly
without a home, without clothes, furniture, anything except
a small amount of money tucked away in Mary's tattered
purse.
She was sure that when they woke up in the
morning, the car would be gone, too. The policeman, Matt
Clark, had already mentioned that there was a lookout for
the car. She hoped she wouldn't be accused of stealing it.
She'd made all the payments, but it was in her ex-husband's
name, like all their assets and everything else. That hadn't
been wise. However, she'd never expected to find herself in
such a situation.
She'd told Bev that they were only
going to be here for one night. She had a little money in
her purse, enough to pay rent at a cheap motel for a week.
Somehow she'd manage after that. She just wasn't sure how.
She hardly slept. Early the next morning, she went to the
serving table to pour herself a cup of coffee. The manager,
Bev, was doing the same.
"It's okay," the manager
told her gently. "There are a lot of nice people who ended
up here. We've got a mother and child who came just two days
before you did," she indicated a dark young woman with a
nursing baby and a terrified look. "Her name's Meg. Her
husband ran off with her best friend and took all their
money. And that sweet old man over there—" she nodded toward
a ragged old fellow "—had his house sold out from under him
by a nephew he trusted. The boy cashed in everything and
took off. Mr. Harlowe was left all on his own with nothing
but the clothes on his back."
"No matter how bad off
people are, there's always someone worse, isn't there?" Mary
asked quietly.
"Always. But you see miracles here,
every day. And you're welcome to stay as long as you need
to."
Mary swallowed hard. "Thanks," she said huskily.
"We'll find a place tomorrow. I may not have much money or
property, but I've got plenty of friends."
Bev
smiled. "I'd say you know what's most important in life."
She followed Mary's quick glance toward her
children.
With the morning came hope. They'd had
breakfast and Mary was working on her second cup of coffee,
trying to decide how to proceed. Mary watched her brood
mingling with other children at a long table against the
wall, sharing their school paper and pencils, because they'd
had the foresight to grab their backpacks on the way out,
smiling happily. She never ceased to be amazed at the ease
with which they accepted the most extreme situations. Their
father's addiction had terrorized them all from time to
time, but they were still able to smile and take it in
stride, even that last night when their very lives had been
in danger.
One of the policemen who came to help them
the last time there had been an incident at home, an older
man with kind eyes, had taken them aside and tried to
explain that the violence they saw was the drugs, not the
man they'd once known. But that didn't help a lot. There had
been too many episodes, too much tragedy. Mary's dreams of
marriage and motherhood had turned to
nightmares.
"You're Mary, right?" one of the shelter
workers asked with a smile.
"Uh, yes," Mary said
uneasily, pushing back her dark hair, uncomfortably aware
that it needed washing. There hadn't been time in the rush
to get out of the house.
"Those your kids?" the woman
added, nodding toward the table.
"All three," Mary
agreed, watching with pride as Bob held the toddler on his
lap while he explained basic math to a younger
boy.
"Your son already has a way with kids, doesn't
he?" the worker asked. "I'll bet he's a smart
boy."
"He is," Mary agreed, noting that Bob's glasses
had the nosepiece taped again, and they would need
replacing. She grimaced, thinking of the cost. She wouldn't
be able to afford even the most basic things now, like
dentist visits and glasses. She didn't even have health
insurance because her husband had dropped Mary and the kids
from his policy once the divorce was final. She'd have to
try to get into a group policy, but it would be hard,
because she was a freelance housekeeper who worked for
several clients.
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