Who Do I Lean On? by Neta Jackson

my son Paul, don’t you? He’s here with me today.”
    â€œSure! Hi, Paul. Nice to have a man about the place.” The pretty olive-skinned girl winked at Paul beneath her sleek black bangs, then grabbed the phone as it rang.
    Huh . I pulled open the double doors into the multipurpose room. She doesn’t have to worry about some ol’ fly making a nest in that straight silky hair . A distinct advantage of Asian parentage.
    The multipurpose room was abuzz, not untypical for Monday morning. “Sarge,” the shelter’s no-nonsense night manager, was still on site, arguing with Wanda, a rather verbose Jamaican woman—one of the few who managed to stand up to Sarge’s Italian toughness. Someone was sleeping on one of the couches with a jacket over her head, couldn’t tell who. A couple of unfamiliar faces glanced our way as we came in and looked away, just sitting, not doing anything. Must have come in over the weekend. Sheila, a heavy-chested black woman who usually kept to herself, was vacuuming the various rugs that carpeted the room in a patchwork, one of the many chores residents did daily. I still didn’t know her very well, even though I’d been a resident here myself for several weeks this summer. I really should— “Paul!” A childish voice greeted us from across the large open room. Sammy came running. “I didn’t know you was gonna come with your mom today. You wanna play with me an’ Keisha? We just started Monopoly, but it’s funner with more.”
    Paul shrugged. “I guess. Okay, Mom?”
    â€œSure. I’ll be downstairs in my office if you need me.” Perfect . Keisha was ten, the oldest of the few children currently at the shelter—well, not counting sixteen-year-old Sabrina, who qualified as a “child” because she was here with her mother. Keisha’s grandmother, Celia, a vacant-eyed woman in her fifties, seemed to be her guardian, though I didn’t know their story. Thank goodness Paul didn’t mind playing with younger kids. Monopoly would keep him busy until staff meeting was over at least, if the kids didn’t end up fighting.
    Manna House was designed for homeless women, not families, and didn’t have enough kids to develop a full-blown youth program, but the shelter occasionally took in moms with young children if there was bed space. And residents like Precious McGill and Tanya—I didn’t even know her last name—felt it keenly, not being able to make a home for their kids.
    Which was exactly why my “House of Hope” idea stuck like peanut butter to the roof of my spirit.
    I scurried downstairs to the lower level, which housed the shelter’s dining room, kitchen, laundry facilities, rec room— and my office. A former broom closet. Still, I got a rush every time I unlocked the door with the nameplate: Gabby Fairbanks, Program Director.
    Except—the door was already unlocked. And a ribbon of light shone from beneath the door of the windowless room. What ? Had I left it unlocked all weekend, and the light on too? Or . . .
    I tentatively pushed the door open, unsure what I’d find.
    A yellow furball explosion nearly knocked me over. As I protected myself from the excited wriggling dog, I saw a familiar craggy face under a cap of thinning gray hair grinning at me from my desk chair.
    Lucy!

chapter 5

    â€œLucy Tucker, you goose! You scared the bejeebers out of me.” I bent down and gave the wriggling yellow dog with her a good scratch on the rump. “Okay, okay, glad to see you too, Dandy. Where have you two been the last couple of weeks?”
    â€œAround.” Lucy’s standard answer. Don’t know why I bothered to ask.
    I hadn’t seen Lucy but once since we’d come back from North Dakota in July, when she’d ridden along with my mom’s casket in the Manna House van to bury my mother. What a strange friendship