The Way Back Home

6:25pm. She would have to hurry.  Vanessa always hated when it was her turn to lock up the office at night because it forced her to rush and worry for the entire ride, wondering if she would make it in time. It wouldn't be so bad if she could just say for sure that every day she needed a certain amount of time, but with this crazy Atlanta traffic, she never knew if she needed to allow for twenty minutes of drive time, or fifty.

“I love it, but of course my husband will have to see it“ remarked the elderly woman as she finally rose from her seat and slowly started toward the front door of the subdivision Sales Office.

“Of course. “ Vanessa nodded as she held out her hand to lead the way, hoping all the while that the old bag would move just a little bit faster. "Call me when your husband has time and I’ll give him the full tour."

"Thank you so much Vanessa. Have a good night."

"Good night Mrs. Hamilton." Vanessa locked the door behind Mrs. Hamilton and watched politely thru the glass pane as she walked to her car. As soon as the old bat was safely inside her car, Vanessa went into action. She turned from the front door and literally ran towards the back one, flipping off the main light switch for the office as she passed it.  After closing and locking the back door behind her she turned and almost flew to her older model car parked in the back lot, jumped in, and much too quickly drove towards  the highway that would take her to downtown Atlanta, where she lived for now.

"Why they set this ridiculous rule about being in by 7pm is a mystery to me", she thought to herself.  She tried to drive quickly, but not so fast as to attract the attention of the Police. Miles later when she finally pulled off of the highway the clock said that she had five minutes left, and there was only one block left to go. She would make it.  The muscles in her chest that had tightened to the point where her breathing had become painful relaxed just a bit. There would be no sleeping in the car tonight.

She pulled up to the intercom system at the gate, and pushed the button which rang the security officer inside.

“Atlanta Union Mission” a female voice answered.

“It’s Vanessa Robinson, bed # 15”.

In lieu of a verbal acknowledgment of her statement, Vanessa heard the only response that she needed - the electronic buzz of the large black metal gate that secured the facility as it swung open to let her in. She drove thru the gate, parked, and sat for a minute before getting out to say a quick prayer of thanks.

“See you just made it. Again,” remarked Ms. Annie, the evening security guard with a slight grin on her face.

"Yeah, but I made it" Vanessa quipped. "Are there any bag dinners left?”

"No, sorry.”

"That’s alright", Vanessa replied.  She could’ve eaten something, but she could wait till breakfast.

She walked the long hallway down to Quad C, passing the open doors to Quads A & B along the way, the rooms for women with children. As she arrived at the entrance to Quad C, the dorm for single women, it struck her that the sounds coming from this room were always so different from that of the first two. There were no children here, but it was just as noisy because of at least 2 different radios playing different stations, several phone conversations, topped off by the some infomercial playing on the common room TV.

“Hey girl, I see you made it in on time.”

Even before she turned to see who was speaking, Vanessa recognized the deep, raspy voice of her bunk-mate Audrey. It was the voice of a woman in her mid-50’s who because of a hard life had smoked, and probably drank for many years.

“Yeah, traffic wasn’t too bad today.”'

Vanessa sat on her bottom bunk and tried to relax for a minute before changing out of her work clothes.  It always seemed to her right about now that the room was filled with too many bunk beds, or maybe they were just too close together. Whatever the reason, sitting on the bed and looking out at the rest of the room this way always made her feel just a ittle bit claustrophobic.

"They posted the new duty roster today - you have shower detail”, Audrey advised.

Shower detail. How she loathed touching the shower after someone else had used it, let alone 40 other women who mostly acted as if they didn’t know that you were supposed to take your empty shampoo bottles and shrunken old soap scraps with you when you left a public shower.

"Soon" She thought. Soon she would have enough saved to get a place of her own again. Vanessa laughed as she reminded herself of that scene from ‘Gone with the Wind’ where Scarlett O'Hara shakes her fists at the sky and swears “I’ll never be hungry again”, except in this case Vanessa was swearing “I’ll never be homeless again!"

"How did I ever end up in this situation?" Vanessa knew very well the series of events that had led her to this place, but just as quickly as she had raised the question in her head, she changed the subject to something more pleasant. She thought of tomorrow, when she would go back to work and show rich people around models of new homes. She would speak and act just like them, and one day, she would be one of them again. One day. But on this day, its lights out in Quad C at 9pm, and it was almost time to go clean the shower."Tomorrow" she thought. “In the words of Scarlett O’Hara, Tomorrow will be a better day."

Word count: 998