The Greatest Gift

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.

The worker recognized panic when she saw it. She touched Mary’s arm gently. “Listen,” she said, “there was a bank vice president here a month ago. At Christmas, we had a whole family from the high bend,” she added, mentioning the most exclusive section of town. “They all looked as shell-shocked as you do right now. It’s the way the world is today. You can lose everything with a job. Nobody will look down on you here because you’re having a bit of bad luck.”

Mary bit her lower lip and tried to stem tears. “I’m just a little off balance right now,” she told the woman, forcing a smile. “It was so sudden. My husband and I just got divorced. I thought he might help us a little. He took away the only car I had and we were evicted from the house.”

The woman’s dark eyes were sympathetic. “Everybody here’s got a story, honey,” she said softly. “They’ll all break your heart. Come on. One thing at a time. One step at a time. You’ll get through it.”

Mary hesitated and grasped the other woman’s hand. “Thanks,” she said, trying to put everything she felt, especially the gratitude, into a single word.

The worker smiled again. “People give thanks for their blessings, and they don’t usually think about the one they take most for granted.”

“What?”

“A warm, dry, safe place to sleep at night.”

Mary blinked. “I see what you mean,” she said after a minute.

The woman nodded, leading her through the other victims of brutal homes, overindulgence, bad luck and health problems that had brought them all to this safe refuge.

John curled up next to Mary while she sat at the long table with Bob and Ann to talk.

“Why can’t we go back home and pack?” Ann asked, her blue eyes, so like her mother’s, wide with misery. “All my clothes are still there.”

“No, they aren’t,” Bob replied quietly, pushing his glasses up over his dark eyes. “Dad threw everything in the trash and called the men to pick it up before we were evicted. There’s nothing left.”

“Bob!” Mary groaned. She hadn’t wanted Ann to know what her ex had done in his last drunken rage.

Tears streamed down Ann’s face, but she brushed them away when she saw the misery on her mother’s face. She put her arms around Mary’s neck. “Don’t cry, Mama,” she said softly. “We’re going to be all right. We’ll get new clothes.”

“There’s no money,” Mary choked.

“I’ll get a job after school and help,” Bob said stoutly.

The courage of her children gave Mary strength. She wiped away the tears. “That’s so sweet! But you can’t work, honey, you’re too young,” Mary said, smiling at him. “You need to get an education. But thank you, Bob.”

“You can’t take care of all of us,” Bob said worriedly. “Maybe we could go in foster care like my friend Dan—”

“No,” Mary cut him off, hugging him to soften the harsh word. “Listen, we’re a family. We stick together, no matter what. We’ll manage. Hear me? We’ll manage. God won’t desert us, even if the whole world does.”

He looked up at her with renewed determination. “Right.”

“Yes, we’ll stick together,” Ann said. “I’m sorry I was selfish.” She looked around at the other occupants of the shelter. “Nobody else here is bawling, and a lot of them look worse off than us.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Mary confided, trying not to let them all see how frightened she really was.

She left them near Bev, who promised to keep an eye on them while she went to make phone calls.

Fourteen years ago, she’d had such wonderful visions of her future life. She wanted children so badly. She’d loved her husband dearly. And until he got mixed up with the crowd down at the local bar, he’d been a good man. But one of his new “friends” had introduced him first to hard liquor, and then to drugs. It was amazing how a kind, gentle man could become a raging wild animal who not only lashed out without mercy, but who didn’t even remember what he’d done the morning after he’d done it. Mary and the children all had scars, mental and physical, from their experiences.

Bob understood it best. He had a friend at middle school who used drugs. The boy could be a fine student one day, and setting fire to the school the next. He’d been in and out of the juvenile justice system for two years. His parents were both alcoholics. Bob knew too much about the effects of drugs to ever use them, he told his mother sadly, both at home and school. She hoped her other children would have the same stiff common sense later down the road.

First things first. She had a good job. She had clients who were good to her, often giving her bonuses and even clothing and other gifts for the children from their abundance. Now that they knew her situation, she knew this would increase. Nobody she worked for would let Mary and her children starve. The thought gave her hope and peace. A house was going to be impossible, because rents were high and she couldn’t afford them yet. But there were small, decent motels where she could get a good weekly rate. It would be crowded, but they could manage. She could borrow a car to take them to and from school from one of her employers, who had a garage full and had often done this for her when her own car at home was in the shop. Clothing she could get from the local Salvation Army, or from the thrift shops run by the women’s abuse shelter and the churches.