Page 44 of Jobe

Thirty minutes later, they retraced their steps back to the SUV, this time his arms held her trembling body. He assisted her into the vehicle, buckled her in and rounded the front.

As they drove in silence, her numbness wearing off, she said, “Can you take me to Jennifer’s?”

He glanced to the side, willing to do anything and pulled out his phone, dialing Gabe. As soon as it was answered, he said, “Jennifer home? Can we come by?” “Yeah, Mackenna needs to talk to her. We’ve been at the morgue. One of her girls ended up here.” After a quick goodbye, he changed directions heading out to Gabe and Jennifer’s subdivision.

Pulling up to a neat, two-story house with a fenced in yard they turned into the driveway. Jennifer’s brother, Ross, was outside tossing a ball with Gabe.

“Jennifer’s inside, Mackenna,” he called out.

Jobe nodded and walked her up to the front door. Kissing the top of her head, he said, “I’ll be right out here, doll.”

Before she could nod, the door flung open and she was embraced in Jennifer’s hug.

“Mac! Oh honey, come on in.” Jennifer gave a small smile to Jobe and then shut the door after ushering Mackenna into the kitchen, seating her at the breakfast bar.

“Okay, Mac. I’ve got beer or wine. Or if you prefer, I can make a mean cocktail.”

Mackenna had to smile at her friend’s penchant for trying to fix everything. “I think this calls for wine. We’ll save the cocktails for a celebration.”

“Right,” Jennifer said, pulling out the bottles and glasses.

Lifting an eyebrow, Mackenna asked, “How much wine are you planning on us drinking?”

“Honey, that all depends on how much talking we’ve got to do. So start spilling!”

Moving to the living room, settling into the comfortable sofa, Mackenna began doing just that. She told her about the problems with the New Beginnings Center and ended with the trip to the morgue.

Jennifer listened carefully and by the time Mackenna got to the end, she was shaking her head in sympathy. “Oh, Mac. How horrible for you to have to do that.”

Lifting her gaze to her friend, Mackenna said, “You know, the morgue wasn’t even like in the movies. They had me sign in, fill out forms on how I knew Teresa and then they showed me a picture of her face. I was able to identify her from that and told them so.”

“Oh, thank God you didn’t have to actually see the body,” Jennifer said, leaning forward to grasp Mackenna’s hand.

Squeezing Jennifer’s fingers in response, she said, “Jennifer, is it all worth it? I thought so. I went into social work to make a difference. To help others. I was so interested in women’s studies and empowering women. The more I learned about how to assist women in moving from poverty to productive lives and then learned about breaking the cycle of gang women, that’s all I wanted to do.”

“You are doing that, Mac. You have to know you’re making a difference.”

“I’ve got one girl who was taken away because she was witness to a horrible gang crime and who knows what the safehouse will allow her to do to keep her studies up. I’ve got a girl who has now confessed to being pregnant by a gang leader, who may be the one behind the drive-by shooting of my house. I now have another one that was kidnaped on the way to a job interview and was killed, before being dumped literally at the door of a gang. And to top it off, I have two others that are now thinking of leaving because they are scared of retribution. And that was before what happened to Teresa!”

Tossing back the rest of the wine in her glass, Mackenna leaned forward and poured another drink. She looked over at Jennifer and shook her head. “Pretty pathetic, isn’t it?”

“Nope. Not at all,” Jennifer stated. “I see in front of me a tireless, active, fellow social worker who is burning out due to being in a high-stress environment.”

“Good God, you sound like one of our professors!”

“I know, but I now know that they knew what they were talking about. Almost fifty percent of social workers suffer from job-related stress and burnout. Look, Mac. You’re making a difference, but right now all you can see is the negative. Tell me, how many girls have you had go through the center and actually graduate to jobs outside the gang system?”

“We’ve been open about eight months and have had seventeen girls finish the program and move out after their three months are up. And we currently have six more.”

“How many failures have you had? And that does not include the girl who had to leave for crime witness protection.”

“Just two who decided after a week that they wanted to go back to the life.”

“Mac, you’re running a program that is so far at about a ninety percent success rate. That is amazing. Think of those seventeen girls who are out of a gang and living productive lives.”

“I know, but…”

“But what?”

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