LITMIR.BIZ

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police car continued on down Galilee Avenue. For a moment, Gabriel looked surprised, then he chuckled and sent up a silent “Thank you.” The cruiser was just on routine patrol.

      “Hey there,” the guard said, sheathing his own billy club as he approached. “You really a preacher or you here about the job? We could use a man like you on board. That was smooth.” He stuck out his hand. “Solomon’s the name. Edgar Solomon.”

      “Nice to meet you,” Gabriel said. “And, yes, I’m really a pastor.”

      “Too bad,” Solomon said. Then he flushed. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

      Gabriel laughed. “I know.”

      The two headed for the door.

      “All clear, Christine,” Solomon told the receptionist. “I’ll tell Ace to keep watch on the back perimeter just in case. And I’ll leave a note for Lambert and the night shift.”

      “Thanks, Solomon. Reverend Dawson, Ms. Carter is waiting for you in her office. Right this way, please.”

      Gabriel shook the guard’s hand and then followed Christine.

      “I’m sorry you had to get in the middle of that,” she said a little later as she poured him a cup of coffee. She refilled her own mug and placed the carafe back on the burner.

      “Does that happen all the time?”

      She shrugged. “It’s not unheard of. We’ve seen Janie before, though. She and her man get into it and she runs down here.”

      “Can’t you help her?”

      Susan sighed, shaking her head. “It’s the drugs. She’s a crack addict. I’ve talked to her several times. She’s even spent a few nights at our emergency shelter.”

      Gabriel looked confused. “I thought this was the shelter.”

      Susan motioned for him to sit. “The shelter next door is primarily a long-term transitional facility. Women and children stay there up to nine months, until they can get their lives back in balance. We have emergency houses, but we keep those locations secret.

      “People know we’re here,” she said. “Word has gotten out that you have to be drug-free to stay here. For some, that’s a really big problem. Janie refuses to go to a rehab center. We can’t treat addictions at Galilee.”

      “So what will happen to her now?”

      Susan sighed again. “She’ll go home. They’ll get high and they’ll forget for a while why they were angry at each other.”

      Settling in his seat, Gabriel balanced the coffee mug on the chair arm.

      “What happens to the women who stay next door? After they leave?” he clarified.

      Susan smiled. “That’s what I wanted to see you about, Reverend Dawson.”

      He took a sip of the coffee, held the mug up in silent salute and smiled. “I thought you were going to call me Gabriel.”

      Flustered at both the smile that sent her insides tumbling and at the way her normally open office suddenly seemed crowded, filled with nothing but Gabriel’s presence, Susan smiled back over the edge of her cup.

      “That’s right,” she said. “Gabriel.”

      Gabriel couldn’t truthfully say what he’d expected to see at the Galilee Women’s Shelter. He’d had some vague notion of the place being sterile, unwelcoming, much like an unemployment or public assistance office. What he saw surprised him.

      Plenty of lush green plants and framed children’s artwork decorated the walls and halls. Susan explained that the shelter’s business and intake divisions, as well as staff offices, were here. Next door consisted of the living areas and lounge and kitchen spaces of the transitional housing for women and children.

      That’s where Gabriel got the biggest surprise of the morning.

      As Susan gave him the grand tour, Gabriel found himself struck by two things: the identical quilt in the lounge of the actual shelter, and the number of women he recognized as he walked with Susan through the first-floor common area of the facility. A couple of them called him by name.

      “Hi, Reverend Dawson. Did you come to check up on us?” a woman asked.

      Before he embarrassed himself by admitting he didn’t know her name, she supplied it.

      “Mary Hill,” she said. “I’ve been to a couple of services at Good Shepherd.”

      Gabriel nodded, remembering now. “And how are your daughters?”

      “Just fine, Reverend. They’re just fine now that we’re here.”

      He shook her hand. “I hope to see you on Sunday.”

      “You will. Church is one thing we try not to miss. Other than Galilee, it’s the only good thing in our lives these days.”

      At her words, Gabriel felt a need to pause, to provide her with encouragement. “Do you mind if we pray?”

      The woman shook her head. She motioned for another woman to join them. “This is Nancy,” she said. “She just got here. She’s going to come with me on Sunday.”

      Gabriel prayed with the two women, thanking God for getting them to a safe harbor, a place of refuge. He prayed for infinite mercy and sustained grace. When he finished, he warmly shook each woman’s hand, offering a “God bless you.”

      Susan didn’t say anything about the impromptu prayer meeting as they moved on.

      “Upstairs are the bedrooms. We can accommodate up to a dozen women for six to nine months each. There’s space for another six, but only for short-term stays, no more than eight weeks.”

      “This place is huge,” he said as he passed by yet another woman who looked vaguely familiar to him. “What was this building before you moved in?”

      “A drug-infested eyesore,” Susan said. “But if you mean originally, it was a mansion, a single-family home that belonged to a prominent businessman. He’d had a falling-out with his family and left no heirs. Over time, the property changed hands, the neighborhood changed characteristics, and before long, this grand old house became nothing more than another blight on the block.

      “When the Galilee Foundation purchased it from the city, it was with the provision that we assume all debt and residential responsibilities.”

      “Residential? I thought you said it was abandoned.”

      “Abandoned by its owners. But not by the homeless and the drug-addicted, not to mention truants, who’d claimed it as their own. There was a lot of tiptoeing around issues back then.”

      “Have you always worked with the shelter?”

      She gave him an odd little look, something that in such a fleeting moment gave him no time to dissect.

      “You could say that,” she said.

      Gabriel sensed there was more to the story, but Susan didn’t elaborate as they paused in the lounge, at yet another wall quilt.

      “This work is spectacular,” he said, taking a step closer to inspect the stitching.

      “You know something about quilting?”

      He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Enough to know when I’m looking at fine craftsmanship.”

      Susan smiled but didn’t say anything.

      “I wonder if this artist takes commissions,” Gabriel mused. “It would be nice to have a wall art quilt hanging in the vestibule or maybe in the fellowship hall.”

      “That could probably be arranged,” Susan said.

      Something in her tone, a dry note, made him look at her. “What?”

      “Nothing,”

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