The Whore Of Babylon, A Memoir Part 13

"If you take all of the evil in the whole world, throughout time; all the Hitlers, and killers, murderers, every bad thing you can possibly think of and lump all of that together, all of it combined wouldn't be equal to a single drop in the ocean compared to G.o.d's love for us."

"But then why is there evil in the world? How can G.o.d allow all of that?" I ask. I'm aware that I must sound like a petulant child, but she brought up the subject.

"The more important question to ask is, 'why do we we allow it?" allow it?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean how can a middle cla.s.s, average person walk down the street, say, walking to their daily job, and pa.s.s by someone who is obviously homeless, hasn't eaten for a week and is dying of AIDS, and do absolutely nothing? Or how can a businessman, on his way to a lunch meeting at a fancy restaurant, step over a drunken b.u.m in the parking lot and do absolutely nothing? Is this G.o.d's fault? Or is it ours? We can hardly blame G.o.d for allowing the suffering that we ourselves let our brothers and sisters endure every single day."

I had never thought about these kinds of issues this way. I remain silent, and stare at the rosary in my hand.

"In the world there is a disconnection. There is an 'us' and then there is a 'them'. When we evolve to a point where the 'us' realizes that we're exactly the same as the 'them', we could end to world hunger, and homelessness just like that," she says, snapping her fingers. "Once we see that the homeless vet isn't just some man, but he's our brother, our father, our uncle, we will truly be able to say we are Christ-like. Until that time, we reach for that ideal."

"We can't all be Mother Teresa," I say. I do not mean to sound so ill-tempered. The words are out of my mouth before I even think.

"Saint Paul says we are all different parts of the same body. You can't have a complete body if all the parts are just eyeb.a.l.l.s. How could you eat if you didn't have a mouth? In the same way we are each called to accomplish different things. I was called to be a nun. You were called to be a wife and mother."

"I guess," I say, thinking of Rob probably drunk is some bar. "At least the mother part."

"If what you say is true and your husband Rob is an alcoholic, he has a disease. The same as if he had cancer or diabetes. Now, would you just abandon him if he had cancer?"

"Of course not," I respond.

"Okay then." She stops as if those two words explained everything.

"But I don't know what to do!" I say.

She laughs, shaking her head. "I told you, dear. Pray." She smiles at me. "When you have forgiveness in your heart, all things are possible." She inhales a deep breath and then raises and drops her shoulders. "Alright then. Come on. I want to show you something else."

I do not think I want any more revelation in my world today, but I say nothing and follow Sister Margaret to the very back of the church and into a small room containing empty vases, candles holders and the like. From a cabinet, the nun extracts a plain white box.

"I thought Chevy might like this," she says, opening the box.

Inside is a pale rose colored print blouse. The pintuck design at the shoulders is completed by flutter sleeves and long ties at the neck done into a pretty bow.

"Wow," I say, unable to imagine Chevy in such an article of clothing.

"Think she'll like it?"

"It's beautiful," I reply.

The nun carefully folds the blouse back into the confines of the box and replaces the lid. "Do you have the time?"

"Time?"

"To come with me and give this to her," she says, producing her keys from the shadowy pocket of her habit. I open my mouth to fabricate some sort of excuse, but those bright gray eyes will brook no refusal. She thrusts the box into my hands.

"Come on."

She takes me to a large building nestled between other large apartment style buildings. The name on the window of the front door reads SafeHouse SafeHouse.

"Safehouse is for women eighteen and older who are trying to get out of prost.i.tution. It was co-founded by my order, The Sisters of the Presentation and a woman by the name of Glenda Hope. The founder of my order, Nano Nagle, dreamt of establishing safe havens for prost.i.tutes nearly two hundred years ago. This place is the fulfillment of that dream. It's a place to start over," Sister Margaret says as we walk through its main corridor. "I got special permission to house Chevy here while she recovers from her injuries."

"How long can she stay?" I ask.

"As long as she wants to." She leans closer to me and whispers, "and I'm hoping this might even get her off the streets permanently."

We turn a corner, to another hallway. The halls smell of fresh paint. Inside Chevy's room, the decor is simple but inviting. A strawberry colored swag over the window lets in soft rays of the morning sun. There is a small vase of fresh flowers on a simple pine dresser opposite the bed. The bed itself doesn't have a headboard, but the quilt on top matches the window swag and looks homey and warm.

Chevy is in the bed, asleep. Sister Margaret raps softly on the opened door of the room and the young girl opens her eyes. Even from this distance I can see that the wounds on her face are nearly healed. The large gash that was so prominent on her forehead looks now to be a distant memory covered by three Steri-strips, and her left eye that was blackened and swollen shut looks nearly back to normal, the dark eggplant color is now much lighter and edged in yellow.

"Knock, knock," the nun says.

Chevy opens her eyes and seeing us both, smiles.

"Hey," she says, her voice cracks.

"Thought you could use some company," Sister Margaret says.

Chevy b.a.l.l.s her fists in a muted stretch and then sits up in bed.

"Sure," she replies. "Kinda boring around here."

Sister Margaret stuffs the boxed blouse into my hands and says sotto sotto voce voce, "I think I hear my cell phone," and ducks out of the room. I heard nothing and am suddenly alone with this little girl, standing awkwardly holding the gift.

Chevy smiles again. She eyes the box.

"Oh," I say foolishly, "this is for you."

I walk to the bed and hand her the present. Chevy opens the box and pulls out the blouse, holding it up to her shoulders.

"It's beautiful."

"It is," I agree.

"I should try it on," she says, undoing the bow. She slips the blouse on over her pajama top and gets the b.u.t.tons done, but struggles in retying the bow. Her finished effort produces a twisted jumbled mess that looks more like a restraint than a bow.

"Here," I say, "like this."

I sit on the bed next to her and retie the tie ends into a neat bow.

"There," I say. I look around and spy a handheld mirror on top of the dresser and retrieve it, letting Chevy take a look at herself in the pretty blouse.

She blushes and grins.

"I look like a real lady," she says.

"You do," I agree.

We talk, haltingly about a variety of subjects. Chevy recounts to me her physical therapy and how she feels almost back to normal. I tell her of Robyn's rescue but leave out my marital issues. Chevy is silent for a moment.

"Robyn is very lucky," she says. "Havin' a mom like you." She draws a hand to her mouth and begins biting a fingernail.

I smile but say nothing. My heart is suddenly riven with emotion thinking of my last encounter with my daughter. Watching her ferocious struggle against deliverance from a world so depraved as to have no redeeming value. A world that only wants to use her up until nothing is left. I grind my jaw against the sting of tears as Chevy talks, and I manage to force a weak smile onto my face.

"I remember trying to talk to my mom about these things," she says.

She brings a hand to her mouth again and begins work on another nail. I push a wisp of hair out of her eyes.

"I told her, like, we could do better, you know? But she wasn't interested. The next day I found her. She'd OD'd." She looks down and purses her lips.

"That must have been very difficult for you," I say.

The longer I stare at her, the more my vision begins to blur. I see Robyn's face instead of Chevy's. I have to blink to restore my vision.

She shrugs in response to my comment and begins chewing on her nails again.

"I guess," she says finally.

"Have you ever thought about finishing school?" I ask.

"Sometimes. But you gotta, you know, like be organized."

She begins her teenage catalogue of excuses about why she never finished school and my mind is again wrenched back to life with Robyn. The struggles with learning, the unfinished homework and the endless succession of parent teacher meetings.

"What's it like?" she asks.

"What's what like?"

"Working in an office? Isn't it boring?"

"Not at all," I respond. "Bookkeeping is very rewarding because you create order from confusion."

Chevy gives me a wistful look and then says, "sometimes I wish my life was, like, you know, different."

And that's when it hits me. The disjointedness of life. Chevy, who has had absolutely no breaks in life, no chances, no nothing and Robyn, who has had a good family, has had everything a child could want or need; they both end up working the streets. The impossibility and hopelessness of it all.

Chevy is rattling on about what she imagines life as a grownup will be like; her little hopes and dreams. As she talks my eyes well with tears.

"Why do you do it?" I ask, interrupting her stream of consciousness.

"What?" she asks, looking puzzled.

"How on earth can you prost.i.tute yourself?" The question itself makes me want to retch.

Chevy sits up, wipes away my tears.

"There's lots of reasons," she says. "For me, it started out as a way to get money just to eat and stuff."

"Robyn always had food on the table," I say in protest.

"For Robyn it was different."

"Different? Different how?"

"At first it seems glamorous. You know, thinking about guys wanting you; the money and the clothes and the nightlife. It seems like the life of a movie star or something. But, like that's not how it really is and you don't find out until it's too late."

"Oh G.o.d," I cover my face with my hands.

"Hey," Chevy says. "It's okay. Don't cry." She is stroking my hair and murmuring words of encouragement. Her kindness plucks me from my despair.

I mop my face brusquely with the back of my hand.

"Well this is something," I say, reigning in my emotions. "The patient comforting the visitor."

"It ain't no big thang," she says with her teenage inflection, laughing.

I reach over and give her a hug, being careful not to squeeze her too tightly, mindful of her healing ribs.

"Everything's gonna be okay," she whispers into my ear.

October 7, 2002.

It's just after seven when I cross the threshold from work. The house is hot, as usual; the weatherman warning against a "protracted heat wave the likes of which we've never seen before." I close my eyes to the heat and think about the sweet relief of a cool shower washing the heat of the day from my body.

I drop my purse to the floor and close the door behind me. The little pamphlet that Sister Margaret gave me the other day about praying the Rosary falls to the floor. I pick it up and fan through the pages. Inside are various pictures with t.i.tles like, "Second Sorrowful Mystery", and "Fourth Glorious Mystery". Though reading through the entire pamphlet seems daunting, I open to a single page of Christ holding bread out to his disciples gathered round him at the table. The t.i.tle at the top of the page is "Fifth Luminous Mystery". I begin reading the meditation below the picture when I am interrupted by the telephone. I stuff the booklet back into the folds of my purse and sprint to answer the phone.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"Mrs. Skinner?" a male voice asks.

"Yes?"

"John Simpson here. From Peaceful Acres."

His voice is taut with an unnerving disquiet. My heart flips in my chest.

"Yes?"

"I'm afraid I have some bad news."

"What's wrong?" Needles of fear p.r.i.c.k my spine.

"Robyn was doing really well; we felt she was ready for a field trip to an NA meeting with the main group of young adults."

"And?"