Page 37 of Reaper
While she does so, Abigail, Christina, and all the others take advantage of her distraction to open the doors to the van and hop inside. I feel a pang of guilt at that — if Susan knew what we were really up against, she’s send them away.
“Come on, Reaper. I’ll drive.” Adrian has her keys out and is already halfway back to our stolen Sebring before I start moving. It isn’t easy to walk with guilt weighing my feet down.
It’s nearly ten minutes before we get to the guest suite. We park in front of a drab gray apartment building that looks like it was cut out of crumbling concrete by a 1980s Soviet cookie cutter. There’s a drab, yellow-green yard out front, shaded by a short solitary tree that’s half-dead, and a few children’s toys — a car, a school bus, and a pair of dump trucks — litter the grass.
Susan exits her van, scans the neighborhood twice, then nods in our direction.
“She’s cautious,” Adriana says. “Like she suspects something.”
“She always suspects something. You know how many drunk ex-boyfriends have shown up at ‘Never Again’ trying to beat their scared ex-girlfriends back into submission?” I stop, swallow my anger, then continue. “It’s fucking sick, what they do to the people they love. I know for a fact that Susan keeps a pistol on her, though I’ve never seen her use it. But I’ve seen a marksmanship award on her desk.”
“She’s a hard woman,” she says, looking at Susan again, with even more respect. “But she also isn’t. That isn’t easy to do. I know I’ve never…”
Her voice trails off, but I know what she means. I don’t know how Susan does it — how she seems so loving and open and vulnerable, while holding her arms open so wide to invite in all the people who need her help, and all the torrential and terrible problems they bring with them. How can she smile so warmly, be so kind, when every day involves facing such brutality?
“She is. And she’s trusting us. I’ve never seen this guest suite, but I’ve heard about it. The shelter rents it under a shell company; they only use it for their really desperate cases. Women and girls running from real dangerous men.” I look up and down the street. It’s empty, but I’m now very aware of how exposed we are. “Let’s go. We should get up there.”
We exit the car, and Susan is waiting for us on the doorstep of the apartment building, keys in her hand and a barely visible, impatient look on her face. It hurts to think we’re using her like this, testing her, and that feeling is only lessened by the times Susan’s eyes drift from us to the women and girls she cares for — every time her eyes touch them, her smile grows and warms.
“It isn’t the Ritz or anything, but I promise it’s nicer inside than it looks from the outside. There’s a reason we picked this building — no one wants to look at it,” she says as she unlocks the door and leads our group down a long, poorly lit hallway, where the walls have the occasional crack and spots of peelingpaint, and then past an elevator bearing an ‘Out of Service’ sign that looks older than Abigail, and up several flights of stairs. At a door with a painted-on number that’s so faded that I can’t tell if it’s apartment ‘62’ or ‘82,’ she unlocks the door and pushes it open with a gentle grace. “Welcome to the guest suite.”
The door opens to a fine-enough living room, with a blue-gray couch that’s seen better days, but only in the way that makes it look just the right amount of warm and worn that I know laying on it will be like stretching out on a cloud. There’s a coffee table made of deep brown wood, polished so that it shines, and there’s a big screen television with a few mussy, child-sized handprints on the screen. I smile at that.
Connected to the living room is a kitchen, with linoleum floors that have yellowed with age, an expensive-looking gas range that tempts me to find a spare hour or two to bake something, anything, for Adriana, and a stainless steel refrigerator that looks relatively new. It doesn’t surprise me that Susan’s made sure the kitchen is well-equipped; there’s something about a good, home-cooked meal that makes all of life’s problems seem smaller.
This is a place meant to be a refuge. To give the most desperate cases a chance to breathe and to feel even a brief sensation of what a normal, peaceful life could be like.
“This is really nice,” Adriana says. “Definitely better than my apartment in Chicago.”
“Better than my place, too,” I say.
Adriana looks at me sideways, smiling. “Do you mean the rathole hotel room you were living in? Or do you actually have an apartment somewhere?”
“Well, since I never settled in to Ironwood Falls, I guess I only have my rathole hotel room to compare it to. So, yeah, this place is definitely better.”
“I’m glad you approve,” Susan says. Christina and Abigail both leave the entry hallway and run deeper into the apartment, first running into the kitchen and opening every cupboard and drawer, and then running to the living room, where they add handprints to the television as they chatter to each other about finding some cartoon to watch. “Girls, behave yourselves. You are guests in Ricky and Adriana’s home.” The girls quiet — still searching the television channels — and Susan sighs and gives Adriana and me an apologetic smile. “Sorry. I hope you can forgive their enthusiasm. The TV’s been out at ‘Never Again’ for the last two days, ever since… It doesn’t matter. Let me give you your keys and go over the ground rules, OK?”
Adriana holds up a finger. There’s a look on her face that’s a mix of curiosity and anger. “Wait a second. It matters. What happened to the TV?”
I open my mouth —why is Adriana talking back to Susan, when Susan is already doing so much for us?— but before I can speak, Susan does.
“There was an incident.” Susan stops, then looks at the other women from ‘Never Again.’ Roxanna flinches, and bows her head a little. “I need to talk to Adriana and Ricky in private. Can you all take the girls on a little tour of the apartment? Maybe to the bedroom, and close the door?”
It’s hard as hell to keep my mouth shut and my fists relaxed. The tone in Susan’s voice, the concern she carries in the look she gives to the girls, the stress-line that appears across her forehead; I’m ready to kill.
When the girls are gone and we’re alone with Susan, Adriana moves closer to her and puts her hand on her shoulder. It’s compassionate, yes, but it reminds me of a police officer putting a blanket around the shoulders of a victim; businesslike, with the same depth of someone who’s done that action a thousand times.
But Susan smiles and puts her hand over Adriana’s.
“Tell us what happened,” Adriana says.
“Ricky, sit down,” she says.
“I’m fine standing.”
“You don’t look it. I’ll tell you what happened after you sit down. I don’t want to worry the girls.”
Adriana looks into my eyes and nods. I sit.
