The storm came on strong and then it left as quickly as it had arrived. They walked into downtown with steam rising off the sidewalks and streets. Shop owners set plants and sidewalk signs upright and at a café customers sat around tables eating toast and drinking coffee. Church bells rang from somewhere. Deep and resounding chimes that caused the child to look up into the sky. Maben switched the bag from shoulder to shoulder, both sides tired now. Curious eyes followed them. These wet and worn people. A big one and a little one. The blisters on Maben’s heels burning and bleeding. At the end of Main Street they ran into the railroad tracks and she was right. Broad Street ran with the tracks. Maben set the bag on the sidewalk and bent over with her hands on her knees and the child patted her on the back and said it’s okay Momma. Maben forced a smile at her and raised up and looked one way and then the other. No sign of Christian Ministries Family Shelter and she had forgotten the number. Only remembered Broad Street. There was nothing to do but keep walking. A police car eased up behind them and from the rolled-down window the officer asked if they needed anything and Maben said no. But then she asked about the shelter.
“Other way,” he said. “Hop in and I’ll take you down there.”
“That’s okay,” Maben said. “We’re wet.”
“Don’t matter.”
“We’re okay.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“All right,” he said and he drove to the end of the block and turned right.
They retraced their steps back three blocks to where they started and crossed the street. Several more blocks and they moved out of downtown and walked past hundred-year-old houses. Some with boards across the windows and sagging porches and some rejuvenated with paint and new roofs and flower beds. Up ahead at a depot an engine pushed a railcar into another railcar and there was the sound of clashing steel and after that Annalee walked with her eyes on the train cars and she was still watching them when her mother said this is it.
It looked like it might have once been a church or a schoolhouse. It was brick and rectangular and behind the front desk was a row of partitions that stretched to the back of the building and between the partitions were cots and small dressers and nightstands. The woman at the front desk wore her gray hair pinned on top of her head and she was small but sure when she looked at Maben and Annalee and asked them what they needed.
“We need a place to stay,” Maben said and she dropped the garbage bag on the floor next to the girl. The woman came from around the counter and bent down to the child and asked her if she wanted something to drink. Annalee nodded and the woman called out and a teenage girl appeared from an office to the right.
“Bring us some water. Towels, too,” the woman said and the teenage girl went back into the office and returned with two bottles. The first thing both Maben and Annalee did was to press the cold bottles to their foreheads. The grayhaired woman pointed them to chairs lining the wall and the three of them sat down. Maben rubbed the towel over her head and then did the same for Annalee.
The woman said that her name was Brenda and then she began asking questions that Maben answered. Hardly any answers the truth. Annalee drank in silence, finishing her bottle before her mother. When Brenda seemed satisfied that the woman and child legitimately needed the place she explained that they had room but that it was only temporary. She didn’t explain what that meant. Today is Friday and we’ll start your clock. There is a small kitchen but if you mess it up you clean it up. We got the basics, so don’t go looking for a menu. No men allowed into the building at any time. If that rule gets broke you’ll be asked to leave immediately. We can put two cots in the same room so that you and the child won’t be separated. There are showers and towels and soap. Washer and dryer. I’m here all day and somebody else comes in at night and the door locks at eight o’clock and you gotta have a password to be let back in. And if you want to work there’s a café downtown that will let you wash dishes and work in the kitchen.
Then she asked what was in the bag.
“Everything,” Maben said.
The garbage bag had punctured and torn and clothes pushed out of the holes.
“Let me get you something else,” Brenda said.
“No,” she said and she pulled it toward her. “This is fine. Can you show us our spot?”