The Night Visitors(69)
I squeeze her hand and her eyes flutter open. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I should have come sooner. I should have listened better. I should have—”
Doreen waves a limp hand in the air, and I know what she would say if she could. We always tell our volunteers not to beat themselves up over what they could have done differently on a call. Learn from your mistakes. Move on.
“Okay,” I tell Doreen as she’s taken from me. “I’ll do better next time. Just give me that next time.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Alice
AT FIRST I think they’ve all forgotten me. A social worker comes and takes Oren, and I’m put in an ugly room with uncomfortable plastic chairs, dreary paint, and a stale odor of burned coffee and sweat. I feel like I’ve spent my whole life in rooms like this one, waiting for one hearing or another, waiting to find out where I’ll be moved next, like I’m a piece on a playing board. Not even an interesting piece, like the hat or dog in Monopoly, but one of those broken chips you use when the original pieces get lost. I’m not one of the original pieces that come with the game.
Then a young Latina woman comes in and brings a whole different climate with her. The click of her heels on the linoleum seems to wake up the room and her smart red suit overcomes the dreary paint job. She takes my hand in both of hers and tells me her name is Anita Esteban and that Mattie’s told her all about me and she’s going to take care of everything.
“Where’s Oren?” I ask.
“Child Welfare is placing him in a temporary residence.” Her phone buzzes and she holds one finger up, looks down at the screen, then smiles. “Okay, this is good news, just give me a second.” She goes out again, talking fast into her phone, leaving me with the dreary paint and stale air, and I feel deflated. Oren’s already been swept up by the system. I’m not his mother. I have no claim on him. I’ve got a record. We’re just two pieces caught in the cogs of a machine, being moved farther and farther apart—
But then Anita Esteban comes back in smiling. “Good news. Oren’s been placed at Horizon House, which is an at-risk youth center run at St. Alban’s—”
“The convent?” I say sharply. “He won’t like that. He was scared by that building.”
“Hmm,” Anita says. “It can look a little daunting from the outside, but it’s a good place. The best part is that in the other wing of the building they run a women’s shelter, and I got you in there. That is, if you want it. You could see Oren—”
“Yes,” I say, “that’s perfect. But what about Mattie?”
“She had to run out because of an emergency with her friend, but she sent me to take care of you.” Anita smiles at me. “Don’t worry. Mattie saved my life. That’s what she does. There are hundreds of people in this county who owe their lives to her. We’re all going to help her and you and the boy. Okay?” She takes both my hands and looks into my eyes. “The first thing I’m going to do is get you in a better room. This place stinks. You okay with that?”
I nod because my throat is closed up and I’m afraid I’ll start bawling if I speak. I feel like I’ve just gotten a Get Out of Jail Free card and landed on the big ladder that takes you to the top in Chutes and Ladders. I feel like I’m part of the game.
IN THE DAYS that follow, Mattie marshals an army of lawyers and social workers on Oren’s and my behalf. She does all this even though her friend Doreen is in the hospital recovering from a failed suicide attempt. She does all this even though her own case is looking difficult. No one seems to mind that it’s the week before Christmas or that everyone is still digging out from the blizzard. Whoever Mattie calls shows up to help. A man from DSS visits to help me fill out paperwork for Section 8 housing. Alana, the volunteer I was so mean to, brings a basketful of clothes for me. An old woman from Saugerties shows up to alter them for me. While she sews she tells me her story.
“My husband was mean as dirt and hit me and our kids regularly. I blamed it on the work he did—he was a guard at a juvenile detention center—and I blamed it on myself for not knowing how to stop him. Then he got fired because he raped a girl at the facility where he worked. I was grateful when he went to prison—and I was grateful when he killed himself two years in. But then I found out that we wouldn’t get his pension. I’d like to say things got better, but the next ten years were a struggle. I drank. I hit my kids. I would have lost them, but this social worker showed up at my hearing and recommended me for a counseling group at Sanctuary. I thought I’d just go along with it to get my kids back . . . but then I started hearing the stories of other women who’d been through the things I’d been through and worse. I told the group one day that my dream was to open a quilt shop. The next day I found all these sewing supplies on my doorstep and Mattie Lane called to say that the Rotary Club was going to give me a business loan to open a quilt shop. It changed my life. It wasn’t just the handout that did it, it was . . .” Her voice falters.
“Someone believing in you,” I said.
“Yes,” she agreed. Then she put down her needle and thread and leaned forward. “You’re not on your own here, Alice. There are people here who believe in you.”
Only after she left did I put it all together. A guard who raped a teenager at a juvenile detention center. Mattie. Mattie had found the wife of her rapist and had helped her put her life back together.