“Everything is rotten,” she said. “All of it, just plain rotten.”
“I know. But we’ll take care of things. Trust me on that. Hey, rotten is my stock-in-trade. I get a paycheck because of rotten. It gives me motivation.”
She fell silent. She didn’t move either, just let him pull her close and hold her. She felt the core of steadiness in him, felt how solid he was, physically, and his heart, that was solid, too. She knew he was a rock, that once this man gave his word, you could bet the bank on it.
She thought of Father Michael Joseph, his face identical to Dane’s, but he was dead now. She knew Dane was alone with that and she knew he was battling each hour, each day, just to get through. Here she was leaning on him, and he was comforting her. Who did he lean on?
“I’m all right,” she said, slowly pulling away from him. She looked at him then and lightly laid her palm against his cheek. “You are an estimable man, Dane. I am so very sorry about your brother.”
He closed down, and his face went blank, because he had to hold himself together.
“I would appreciate it,” she said, standing, straightening the sweater he’d picked out for her the previous Friday, a lovely V-necked sweater, deep red, that she was wearing over a white blouse, “if you wouldn’t try to find out who I was speaking to.”
She saw in his eyes that he wasn’t going to ask the front desk. At least he was still willing to give her some leeway. He said, “I will find out sooner or later, Nick.”
“Later,” she said.
He said nothing to that, just shrugged back at her. “Are you ready? We’re all meeting for dinner to exchange information.”
“I’m ready,” she said, and picked up the wool coat he’d bought her. He’d done too much for her, far too much, and he was offering to do more. It was hard to bear. She ran her hands over the soft wool. It felt wonderful. She kept stroking it even as she said over her shoulder, “I was always scared. I’d lie in one of the small cots on the second floor of the shelter, the allotted one blanket pulled to my ears, and I’d listen to people moving about downstairs. Sometimes there’d be yelling, fighting, screaming, and always, I huddled down and was afraid because violence seemed to be part of the despair, and the two always went together. Sometimes they’d bring their fights upstairs and they’d throw stuff or hit each other until some of the shelter staff managed to get things back under control.
“There were drug users, alcoholics, people who were mentally ill, people just ground down by circumstance, all mixed together. There was so much despair, it was pervasive, but the thing was—everyone wanted to survive.”
“And then there was you.”
“Yes, but I suppose you could say I was one of those who’d been ground down by circumstance.”
She stopped, looked down at her left hand, still stroking her wool coat. “The alcoholics and the addicts—they were self-destructive. It’s not that I didn’t feel sorry for them, but they were different from the other homeless people because they’d brought their misery on themselves. And they never seemed to blame themselves for what they’d become. It was the strangest thing. One of the shelter counselors said it was because if they ever had to face what they really were in the mirror, they wouldn’t be able to bear it. Everyone there had so little. But they were the ones responsible for what had become of them, responsible for where they were. And because they wouldn’t face the truth, there was no hope for them.
“The mentally ill people—they were the worst off. I truly can’t understand how we as a society allow people who are so ill they can’t even remember to take their medications or even know that they need medication, to just roam the streets. They suffer the most because they’re the most helpless.”
Dane said, “I remember when one of the New York mayors wanted to get the sick people off the streets and into safe houses, but the ACLU went nuts.”
Nick said, “I remember. The ACLU cleaned up this poor woman, dressed her like a normal person, fed her meds so she could pass muster, and they won. Except that poor woman lost. Within days she was back on the street, off her meds, cursing and spitting at people, vulnerable and helpless. I wonder if any of the lawyers at the ACLU lost a bit of sleep over that.”
“Who are you, Nick?”
She grew very still, didn’t move, just stood there when he opened the door to the Grand Am. She said, “My name is Nick, short for Nicola. I don’t want to tell you my real last name. All right?”