Chapter 7 #2
Soon, between the three of them, they had all of Pauline’s things back in the wheelbarrow. Warren helped her to her feet. “Where do you live?” he asked.
Pauline shook her head. “I … nowhere now,” she mumbled. “I used to live with my boy Edgar in Mountain View, but I can’t live there anymore.”
“Why not?” Warren asked gently.
Pauline bit her lip. “Is Brett still around?”
“No, he’s gone,” Dorothy said. “Come on, you can stay at the hotel with us. We’ll pay for your room.”
“Oh, I can’t impose like that,” Pauline whispered.
“It’s not an imposition,” Dorothy insisted.
“In fact, we would be honored if you would join us for an early lunch,” Warren said.
The joy that spread on Pauline’s haggard face was enough to make Dorothy choke up. When Warren gently helped the woman to her feet, Dorothy let a couple of tears slip and barely tried to hide it.
It took a while to get Pauline to the hotel.
She walked slowly. Dorothy noticed that her shoes had holes in the soles, her clothes were threadbare, and she looked as though she was just this side of Death’s door.
She also smelled like someone who was sleeping outside, possibly under a bush or in a pile of pine needles.
If they didn’t help, Pauline wouldn’t last the winter.
The first thing Dorothy did was get Pauline a room.
Then she had hot water brought in and helped her to wash.
Mountains of dirt and grime came off, making her look a lot younger than she had seemed originally.
Dorothy had thought she was at least fifty, but now, clean, with her dark hair combed and tied back in a braid, Pauline looked closer to thirty.
Nothing Dorothy owned would fit the skeletal Pauline, but there were a few items of clothing left in the lost-and-found that were smaller. Agnes brought them to the room, and together, they helped Pauline dress in them.
“Now you look much better,” Dorothy smiled. “How does it feel?”
“To be warm and clean?” Pauline asked. “Like heaven.” She smiled, some life finally returning to her eyes. “Thank you both so much.”
“I can help you to learn to get around the hotel,” Agnes offered. “My nan is blind, and we’ve been teaching her to get around on her own at home.”
“I think we need to get some food in her first,” Dorothy said.
“Cook has a hearty chicken soup on the boil,” Agnes suggested.
Dorothy took Pauline to the restaurant and found that Warren and Michael were there already, sitting with Mac. They smiled and stood up when they saw the ladies.
Looking far more like himself than before, Mac spoke first. “Pauline, it’s wonderful to meet you, I’m Mac, the owner of the hotel.”
“I know that name,” Pauline said shyly. “I’ve heard it a lot.”
“Well, a lot of people know me,” Mac said. “Sit, sit.” He guided Pauline into her seat.
Dorothy took a seat beside Warren, and they all settled down and ordered their meals.
“I didn’t think we would see you today,” Dorothy commented to Mac.
He shook his head. “I’m sorry about yesterday, Dot. It was a crazy day, which we can talk about later. I would like to hear what happened just now, though. Pauline, how did you come to be in such a state?”
“Oh, well, it’s not a very interesting story,” Pauline mumbled over a mouthful of two rolls she’d tried to cram into her mouth simultaneously.
“I live in … I lived in Mountain View. I’m a potter.
I make plates and vases, bowls, mugs. My husband walked out when I was pregnant with my son, Edgar. He just left one day…”
The story unfolded, and Dorothy found her heart aching for this poor woman. Not only had her husband walked out, but her only son had eventually fallen in with a bad crowd. Brett’s crowd, as it turned out.
“He was sixteen,” Pauline said. “He came home on his birthday and said that he couldn’t run with Brett anymore.
He realized his mistake and he wanted to come home.
Of course, I was over the moon. I was so happy.
Then Brett Moon came to our house. He threatened us and said that once someone was in his gang, they could never leave.
I stood up for Edgar and said he wouldn’t go back.
” Pauline twisted her napkin so fiercely that Dorothy figured the piece of fabric would be permanently creased.
“Brett lures them in while they’re so young, thirteen or so.
He promises them all kinds of things and the boys believe him.
They worship the ground that cockroach walks on. ”
“What happened next?” Michael asked.
“Well, that’s when Brett got angry.” Pauline’s eyes welled with tears.
“He sh—he sh—he …” Her voice snapped in half, but she managed to pull herself together.
“He shot Edgar right there in my house in front of me. I said I would call the sheriff. So, Brett took a burning branch from the fire and hit me in the face with it. I think he thought I would die from the wound, but all it did was almost blind me. I thought he would shoot me, but it seems he enjoys torture more than killing. He keeps me alive so he can chase me from place to place … show the boys what happens to their mothers if they betray him.” Finally, she dropped the napkin and stared blankly at her now-empty plate.
“This is terrible,” Mac said urgently. “I can’t believe that Sheriff Rafferty hasn’t done anything about it.”
“He and Brett have some sort of deal,” Pauline muttered, to which Michael and Warren exchanged knowing looks. “He doesn’t arrest Brett, and Brett doesn’t kill anyone in town where it’s a problem for him.”
“Brett Moon doesn’t seem like a local,” Mac said. “I don’t know the name.”
“You don’t know everyone, do you?” Michael asked with a chuckle.
Mac bristled. “I know most of the folks in this area. Pine Hill and Mountain View have been my stomping grounds for a long time. I hate to think of a criminal moving in here.”
“Exactly how we feel about Unity,” Michael said, not even attempting to conceal the blatant hint.
Mac held his gaze for a moment and then nodded. “I understand. But you can see that my house is hardly in order.”
“I can’t help that, but my house might be burning down as we speak,” Michael said pointedly.
“We will talk, Michael,” Mac said tiredly. “But let’s first see what I can do for Pauline. You’ve given her a room?”
“Yes, it’s lovely,” Pauline said, wiping the tears from her face. “Far more than I deserve.”
“While we walk the earth, God doesn’t give us what we most deserve,” Warren said quietly. “If He did, we’d all be in poor shape. Instead, He gives us what we most need.”
It crossed Dorothy’s mind that she thought Warren deserved a great deal of good, even if God did hold everyone else to a higher standard than humans.
“I think I will have a talk with Sheriff Rafferty after lunch,” Mac muttered. “Now let’s have some dessert and clarify a few details.”