Stacy's Chance

Stacy put her hand on her belly, rubbing the little girl inside back into calm. Her upset had upset the baby and that was the last thing she needed right now. Looking out over the yard at everything she owned she spotted Derek’s favorite stuffed dog flopped on the sofa, and the water works started again. Poor little guy. Derek doesn’t understand what is going on. Hell, she barely understands what is happening to them right now. She did what she was supposed to do, finally. You would think it would make things easier, but putting Gary in jail for beating her up last night had caused an avalanche of problems.
The biggest immediate problem was now they had no place to go. The police officer last night had promised Gary would be in jail for at least 72 hours because of the weekend. She had been counting on that time to find a place to go. But at seven o’clock this morning she had been awoken to the BAM! BAM! BAM! of the landlord at the front door. He said that he couldn’t have any trouble at his house and she had until noon to get her stuff out of the house. She tried to reason with him. After all, this wasn’t the first, not even the fifteenth time the police had been to the house because Gary was in one of his moods. This was just the first time she agreed to press charges. The landlord had the nerve to tell her that is exactly why she had to go. He didn’t want Gary showing up and wrecking the house since he was likely to be super pissed. So now, their belongings were strewn across the lawn. She had no family to call. She didn’t even have any friends. Gary had made sure of that. She knew there was a shelter in the area, but not where, and what about their things? It was all she had in the world.
Knowing she would have to forget about the stuff, Stacy took her cell phone out of her back pocket and dialed information. She got the number to the local abused women’s shelter. After she hung up, she sat there holding her phone for a long minute. Maybe she should drop the charges and just make up with Gary. He was good most of the time. It was just when she did something wrong that he got mad. “Wait a minute!” she thought. That was the kind of thinking that had her in this mess, had kept her in it for the past six years. Enough was enough. She opened her phone and dialed.
The phone was answered by a pleasant sounding lady. “Hello, thank you for calling Sanctuary. My name is Karen. How may I help you?”
“Um...I have a huge problem. I don’t know that I should have called, but I didn’t know what else to do. I doubt you can help, but I didn’t know who else to call.” Stacy stammered.
“Why don’t we start with your name,” Karen prodded.
“My name is Stacy,” Stacy answered.
“Okay Stacy, nice to meet you. Why don’t you tell me what this problem is so I can see how I can help,” Karen said.
“Well, last night my boyfriend, Gary, and I got into another huge fight. He started hitting me. I can take it, but when he started threatening my son, Derek, I called the police. I have called the police several times, but this time I pressed charges and they took him to jail. I don’t know what I’m going to do when he gets out. And to top that off, my landlord heard about the whole mess and came and kicked me out first thing this morning. Now Derek and I are sitting in our front yard – well, it used to be ours – with all of the stuff we own. I don’t have any family and Gary never allowed me to have any friends. I don’t even have a car. There is no one that I can call for help. I remember seeing your advertisement at the laundry mat and thought maybe you could at least help with a place for me and Derek to stay. I know I’m going to lose all of my stuff, but that’s okay. I just can’t take any more of Gary and his hurting me over little things. I’m tired of walking on egg shells any time he is home. I just can’t take it anymore,” Stacy was sobbing by the time she took a breath.
“That’s quite the story. I see why you called. It’s not unusual to hear stories like yours though, Stacy. Hold on a sec and let me ask someone a question. Please stay on the line. Okay? I’ll be right back.”
Karen turned to her co-worker Pam, who had been listening to the conversation.
“She sounded desperate. I think she is serious this time. I think we should help.” Karen said. “What do you think?”
“I think so, too,” Pam agreed. “It does sound like she is fed up and ready for a change for the better.”
Karen got back on the line with Stacy. “Okay, hon. Here’s what we are going to do. Give me your address. We’ll not only send someone to come get you and Derek, we’ll send a truck for your things. We have an arrangement with the local storage facility so that you can pay what you can afford until you get back on your feet. How does that sound?” Karen asked. “Don’t worry, sweetie. You are making the right decision for you and Derek. You’ll see that soon, I promise.
After giving Karen her address and phone number, Stacy hung up the phone feeling better than she had in a long, long time. She had told her story to another person and that person hadn’t turned away from her or blamed her for the situation. In fact, that person had just given them a place to live while they got on their feet, a place Gary wouldn’t be able to find. She walked up to Derek and gave him a great big hug.
“There are some people coming to help us move our stuff, honey. They should be here in a few minutes. Most of it has to go into storage, but you can pick one thing to take with you. What do you want to bring?” Stacy asked the little boy, knowing what he would say.
Derek immediately ran to the stuffed dog on the sofa and grabbed it. “I want to take Bo Bo!” he whooped.
Smiling, Stacy turned and began to pack their clothing and personal items that they were allowed to take to the shelter. What a great day this had turned out to be!
About the time Stacy had everything sorted, a rusty old Chevy pickup pulled up to the curb. It had “Sanctuary” stenciled on the side, so Stacy knew it was okay. A big, husky woman got out of the passenger seat and a tall, thin man got out of the driver’s seat.
“Hi. You must be Stacy. I’m Pam. I work with Karen at Sanctuary. This is Tommy. We are here to help anyway you need us,” the lady said.
Stacy pointed to the small pile of suitcases and Bo Bo and asked, “These are what I figured we would take. That’s not too much, is it?”
“No, that should be fine. You and Derek will have a room to yourselves with two twin beds and a large dresser. You’ll have plenty of room. In fact, do you have any personal items, mementos of any kind that you’d like to bring? How about personal papers? You’ll probably need those. We have a legal aid lawyer that comes in once a week to help the ladies with any legal issues that they may have. Separate maintenance agreements, temporary custody orders, that kind of thing. It’s all free. So grab those,” Pam advised.
While Pam and Stacy were talking, Tommy had already begun loading the furniture. It was just two beds, a dresser and a sofa – they didn’t have much. Stacy was always ashamed of that before, but now saw it as a blessing. She got busy digging through boxes until she found the one with all of the legal paperwork in it, things like birth certificates, her old divorce papers, the lease agreement (which she thought the landlord had just violated), and the like. She handed it to Tommy. She dug through a couple more boxes until she found what she was looking for. Pictures of Derek growing up and the photo album that she had managed to maintain despite her situation.
Once everything was piled on the truck, Stacy took one more look at the house. She handed Bo Bo to Derek and they climbed in the back seat of the truck. They were off to a new phase in their lives. She was terrified and excited.
When they pulled up to Sanctuary, Stacy was kind of shocked. It actually looked like an abandoned office building with a fenced in yard. She could hear children playing in the back, however, a reassuring sound.
“After I drop you ladies off here, I’ll take your stuff over to the storage facility if that’s okay, Stacy. Just write down your full name and phone number here. I’ll put it in your name. The owner is a friend of ours,” Tommy said.
“Sure, Tommy. That would be amazing. You have been so kind to us. Thank you,” Stacy said with tears in her eyes. She had a feeling she would be crying a lot more before the day was out. She couldn’t believe how kind everyone had been so far. She was waiting for the other shoe to drop. No one she had ever known had been this kind to her without an ulterior motive, it seems.
Pam led Stacy and Derek into Sanctuary after keying in a code at the front door.
“You’ll get your code in a day or two after you’ve finished orientation,” Pam told her. “We just have to make sure that you are sincere. We can’t have codes just floating around. Otherwise our tenants wouldn’t be safe. I’ll take you to Karen, our facilitator.”
Rounding a few corners, going further into the building, they finally came to a door with Karen’s name on it. Pam knocked.
“Come in, come in!” Karen said cheerfully. Once they were in the office Karen continued, “You must be Stacy. Poor thing. You’ve had a rough twenty four hours, huh, hon? Pam, can you take Derek out to play with the other kids? They just went out for recess. That’s okay with you, right, Stacy?”
“Derek, how does playing outside with the other kids sound?” Stacy asked the little boy.
“It will be fun. I promise.” Lord knows, he had had too little fun in these past months, Stacy thought.
“Sure. That’s okay. Can I swing on the swing?” he asked as Pam led him down the hall.
“Okay. Now we just have some formalities to get out of the way. Paperwork, that kind of thing. Just fill these out the best you can. If you don’t have an answer, just leave it blank. I’ll be back in a minute. Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“I would love some, thank you. And thank you…for all of this. I don’t know what I would have done without your help,” Stacy said, again beginning to cry. She sniffed, grabbed a tissue off the desk, and pulled herself together.
“Okay,” Karen said. “I’ll be right back.”
Once the paperwork was complete, Karen asked Stacy to follow her. They passed many closed doors with numbers on them and a few with names on them. Stacy assumed those were staff doors and the numbered doors were for residents. They stopped in front of number twenty four, Stacy’s lucky number. Karen inserted a key into the door lock and opened the door. Stacy and Derek’s stuff was already inside! Wow, these people were great, Stacy thought. Karen turned to her and handed her the key. A little shocked, Stacy took it.
“We believe that, in order to begin getting control over your own life you need to have control over your own sleeping area, especially since most of our ladies come from situations like yours where the man controlled everything. Lunch is in about twenty minutes. Why don’t you get cleaned up and head to the dining room. There’s a map right outside your door and all through the hallways. It’s easy to find. See you there.” Karen closed the door as she left.
Stacy was finally left alone with her thoughts. This seemed like a great place and they had already been so good to her and Derek. What she had heard about them had always been good, too. She was starting to think that maybe she had made a couple of good decisions on her own. She had forgotten what it felt like to decide something for herself. She quickly changed into something a little nicer and headed out to find the dining room feeling much better about herself and her situation.
After lunch Karen introduced Stacy to the other staff members and residents. She also gave her the rundown of the program. There would be self-esteem classes, Al-Anon meetings, medical care for pregnant moms, and one on one counseling. When she was ready, they offered employment assistance that generally got the resident a job as Sanctuary worked with several local businesses. She also learned a bit more about the legal assistance she would have available for things like restraining orders.
Later that evening, Stacy took a sleepy Derek back to the room after his bath. Putting a hand on her belly and feeling more relaxed than she had in she didn’t know how long, she grabbed her things to take a shower herself. She had now had a full day with no Gary. It felt great. No yelling, no cussing, no ordering her and Derek around. She had to admit that she missed him some. But this lack of tension was amazing. She was so happy she had taken that chance and called. She locked the door behind her and headed to one of Sanctuary’s many bathrooms humming a tune. She knew she had made the right decision for her, Derek, and her new baby.