Hope Springs - 05 - Wedding Cake by Lynne Hinton

in about an hour.”
    “We’ll be ready,” Charlotte noted, and then asked, “What’s her name?”
    “Carla Fairhope,” he replied.
    Charlotte waited for a second, thinking that the name sounded vaguely familiar.
    “Carla Sanchez Fairhope,” he added, and Charlotte sat up in her chair.
    There was a pause in the conversation.
    “It’s my ex-wife.”
    Charlotte was at a loss for words. She looked up and saw Maria was standing in the doorway. She wasn’t sure how much the other woman had heard.
    “I’ll explain when I get there,” he said, his voice softer than before.
    “Okay,” she said. “I’ll see you soon.”
    “Thanks,” Donovan said, and hung up the phone.
    “Señor ten piedad!”
Maria was making the sign of the cross. She put down her hands and waited for instructions.
    “We have another resident coming. Donovan—” She stopped. “Officer Sanchez,” Charlotte said, opting for a more professional tone, “will be bringing her in about an hour. He said that she was in pretty bad shape but that she won’t go to the hospital. So call Laurie and ask if she can come over to check her out.”
    Maria nodded and turned around to go and make the call to one of the nurses who volunteered her services to the shelter.
    “Wait, Maria, there’s something else.” Charlotte stopped her.
    Maria turned back to face Charlotte. She waited for the additional instructions. She wondered if there were children coming as well and whether they had room for a family.
    “It’s somebody you know,” Charlotte said.
    Maria crossed herself again and braced herself for the news.
    “It’s Carla Fairhope,” she announced. “Carla Sanchez Fairhope.”
    Maria shook her head as if she was unsure of the name, and then she immediately recognized it.
    “Is this going to be okay for you?” Charlotte asked. She knew that Maria knew the family but she wasn’t really sure how close they were.
    Maria was still surprised by the news. She shook her head. “I don’t know the Fairhopes,” she said. “I know Isabella and Daniel. I don’t know Daniel’s family.”
    Charlotte nodded. She thought she remembered the line of familymembers that Maria had mentioned a week or so earlier but she wasn’t sure. She also understood that Maria knew a number of the clients who came to St. Mary’s, so that really wasn’t the main issue. She was concerned mostly because they both now understood that this was Charlotte’s new boyfriend’s ex-wife.
    Charlotte never worried about the issue of confidentiality with her number one volunteer. Maria had never divulged names of clients or ever spoken to anyone about who was staying at St. Mary’s. She understood that not only were the identities of the residents not to be shared, but neither was the location of the shelter. Maria never even told anybody that she volunteered there. So Charlotte wasn’t concerned about Maria telling anyone that Carla Fairhope was checking in, but she did think that Maria needed to know who was coming and to decide whether she wanted to be there when Carla arrived.
    “I have no business in your relationships. A woman has been beaten, and she needs shelter and care and protection. That is all I intend to provide her when she comes.” Maria appeared very serious.
    Charlotte nodded in return and Maria left to make the necessary calls. Charlotte made her way to the bedrooms in the back of the house. Two of the residents were busy cleaning.
    “We have somebody else joining us,” Charlotte reported.
    The two women turned to Charlotte.
    Iris, an older woman, still recovering from the bruises she received two weeks earlier from her grandson, shook her head. “Jesus Almighty, how many of us are there out there?” she asked.
    “More than you’ll ever hear about,” Darlene replied. She was younger than Iris, about forty, and had just escaped from her secondabusive marriage. She had been at the shelter for six months and was still trying to find a new place to