Love's Sweet Shelter

By Sharon Walker

Kate is a mother of two and a widow. She volunteers at a homeless shelter, never suspecting that it will create a world of adventure, challenge, and mystery that will require her to persist in the face of opposition and to follow her heart. Compassion guides her as she embraces new experiences and new people that change the course of her life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9781532330810

Book preview

CONCLUSION

CHAPTER ONE

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

PRESENT DAY

Saturday morning seven a.m.

Mom! Kate’s oldest son was yelling at her from the second floor…again.

Cam, I asked you not to yell at me from your room. Please come down here and tell me what you need.

Twelve-year-old Cameron was tall and lanky. He was at that awkward stage that boys go through between eleven and teenage and for poor Cam it had been made worse by the fact that his father wasn’t here. Kate did the best she could, but she knew that she was a poor substitute at times for a father.

Cam came bounding down the stairs two at a time. I can’t find my glove, he said, screwing up his face in almost the same way that Conner, his dad, used to do. Sometimes having a son who looked so much like his dad was a blessing, and sometimes looking into those green eyes that put Kate so much in mind of Conner was gut-wrenching.

Did you look under the bed? she asked.

Why would it be under there? he asked.

I don’t know, but that seems to be where you find everything else that goes missing. Why don’t you just look?

He rolled his eyes but turned around and ran back up the stairs. A few seconds later he yelled, I found it!

Kate shook her head and smiled. Before she could yell for both of the boys to get a move on, her younger son, Jake, came running in from the backyard. His white baseball pants had grass stains on the knees.

Jake, what the heck happened to your uniform? It was clean ten minutes ago.

Jake looked down at his soiled clothes and shrugged. I don’t know, he said.

What were you doing out back? Kate inquired, trying a different approach.

I was checking on my worms.

Your worms? she asked. Now Kate was scrunching up her face. She hated wiggly things.

Yeah. Me and Sammy made a worm farm. Most of ‘em are still alive, Jake exclaimed excitedly."

Sammy and I made a worm farm, Kate corrected him.

Sammy made a worm farm with you, too? Jake asked.

Kate laughed, No way, she said. I was correcting your grammar.

Oh, well anyways, me and Sammy are gonna take ‘em to school next week for show and tell.

Hmm, she said, for lack of a better comment. It made her almost happy that her son and Sammy weren’t in her class. Kate was a fifth- grade teacher at the school Jake attended. Jake had just started fourth grade.

That’s nice. Michael will be here any minute. Do you have all your gear in your bag?

Yep.

Did you finish your breakfast?

Yep.

Ah, the multi-faceted vocabulary of a nine-year-old, she said with a grin.

Huh? Jake asked.

Kate laughed, Never mind, buddy. Go grab your and your brother’s water bottles out of the fridge.

Just about the time Jake headed to the kitchen, the doorbell rang.

Come in, Kate called, trying to get her own things together. She was due at the homeless shelter this morning, and she was running late.

It’s not really safe to leave your front door unlocked and just yell, ‘Come in’ to any Tom, Dick or Harry who rings the doorbell, you know.

Kate turned to look at Michael.

But it wasn’t Tom, Dick or Harry. It was Michael.

Michael came over to Kate and gave her a kiss on the cheek. I just worry about you and the boys.

I know you do, and we love you for it. I’ll do my best to remember to lock the door. Just to make you feel better.

Michael had been Conner’s partner and best friend. Before Conner had died, Michael and his then wife, Lily, had been over all the time for barbecues, movies, and ball games, whatever. The two couples had been inseparable. After Conner’s death, Michael had become depressed and withdrawn. He had drunk too much, and he and Lily did nothing but fight. She had ultimately cheated on him with another officer from his department. Kate couldn’t understand it. You were supposed to stand by the ones that you love, not pull further away from them.

Michael was still a policeman, but because of his problems with alcohol and with his wife, not a very effective one. Michael and Lily had divorced after her affair was discovered, and, with Kate’s urgings, Michael had finally pulled himself up out of the abyss. He had gotten help also from the department, which had been threatening to take his job away. He saw a psychologist within the department and started dealing with the grief and conflicting emotions of guilt he had been feeling since the night Conner died. He also started spending a lot of time with Kate and Conner’s boys. He and Lily hadn’t had any children, and Michael had told Kate that being with the boys helped him hang onto a piece of his friend. It had given him a new lease on life, and it helped Kate out, freeing her to do other things she wanted or needed to do- like volunteering at a homeless shelter.

You going to the shelter today? Michael asked her.

Yes, she said, looking at the clock on the wall. I’m running late, too. Do you mind if I take off?

Nope, go right ahead. I’ll round up the heathens, and we’ll head out to the game. Do you think you’ll make it for any of it?

I should be there before Cam’s game even starts, she told him. The boys were in a baseball tournament this weekend. Normally, Kate wouldn’t have missed even a minute of a game, but they had both made the championships after she had already committed to working the breakfast shift at the homeless shelter this weekend.

Thank you, Michael. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your help.

It’s my pleasure, he said. You’ve got great kids.

* * *

SECOND-CHANCE HOUSE

Later that morning

Kate rushed in the back door of the kitchen at the shelter.

A.J., the guy who ran the place said, with a grin in his words,"Oh, good of you to show up, Katie-did.

She smiled at him and said, Are you kidding, A.J.? I wouldn’t miss your eggs and home fries for anything.

A.J. grinned back and threw her a white apron. Katie had been volunteering here for five years now, and she knew her way around the kitchen better than most.

Hey, Suzie, she said to one of the younger girls there peeling potatoes. Do you want me to relieve you and you can go set up the coffee or something out front?

Suzie looked hesitant. She was new to the shelter, an indulged teen who had gotten into trouble with the law and had been remanded by the court to helping out at the shelter. So far, she had kept to the kitchen, doing things that allowed her to avoid having too much contact with any of the homeless folks they served. Besides the forty beds that A.J. offered here on a temporary basis, he would open the kitchen to everyone on the weekends and holidays and usually feed upwards of two hundred people in a day.

Kate had a feeling Suzie’s plan was to serve out her time in the back, but she knew from personal experience that she would get so much more out of her time here if she could meet these wonderful people and hear a few of the stories about how they had fallen on hard times. Kate herself had been surprised to find that that the homeless of the mean Chicago streets had not all been drug addicts and alcoholics their whole lives as most people callously assumed. There was so much more to them than that.

Um…I’m doing okay here… Suzie said.

Kate looked out towards the front. She saw a man come through the doors in a scruffy, old army jacket and a beat up New Orleans Saints’ hat. She wondered briefly if he had been displaced by Katrina and just never gotten back on his feet. Either way, she was sure that, like the others, he would have an interesting story to tell if and when he was ever ready.

Go on out and get the coffee table ready, honey. It’ll do you good to meet some of these folks. Kate used her teacher’s voice, and Suzie didn’t argue. Kate watched as the girl went out front. One of the older regulars, a man named Horace, who would alternate staying a week at the shelter and then one on the streets, said, Thank you, Jesus. Coffee! when he saw the girl with the big pot.

The man with the Saints’ hat hung back by the door like he hadn’t really committed to staying yet. By the time Kate had finished peeling the potatoes and A.J. was frying them up, the place was brimming with people. Suzie came back into the kitchen and said,

The coffee’s all gone already.

Kate smiled, Yes, they do love their coffee. I’ll make some more. Why don’t you help Jake carry the eggs and biscuits out front?

Kate took the giant pot over to the sink and sat it under the faucet. As she waited for it to fill up, she looked out front again. Horace was trying to engage the younger man with the hat in conversation, but the other man wasn’t having it. He had rudely turned his back on Horace in the middle of his conversation and was sipping his coffee, with his eyes darting here and there. Kate thought he looked a little paranoid and wondered if he were running from the law.

When the pot was full, she scooped in the coffee grounds and took it out front to plug it in. Many of the regulars came over to greet her, and while Kate was talking to a woman named Sheila who had been staying at the shelter with her teenaged son for a few weeks now, she happened to glance up and see the man with the hat heading out the door.

Excuse me for just a minute, Sheila, will you? she asked. Sheila nodded, and Kate headed out after the man. When she got out the door, he was walking away from her down the street. Sir! she called out. "Excuse me, sir! You with the Saints’ hat!

The man either heard her or was completely ignoring her or he was deaf. Kate chased after him and was relieved when he had to stop at the street light before crossing. She stepped in front of him where he could see her face, and she said,

Excuse me, I’m sorry. My name is Kate. I work at the shelter.

The man just looked at her. She could see now up close how sunken his gray eyes were, and his lips were dry and cracked. His beard looked to be about two or three weeks old, and his hair was long and shaggy, touching the collar of the jacket he wore that looked too warm for the pleasant Spring day.

Um…anyway, she said, I was wondering why you left? Jake was just putting out the food. Wouldn’t you like to stay and eat?

He was still staring at her. Kate couldn’t tell if he could even hear her, and if he could, if he was processing her words. He smelled of old sweat and alcohol, and she wondered if he were drunk. It was things like this that would give Michael a heart attack, if he knew she was chasing homeless bums, as he called them, down the street.

Kate decided that she should probably get back. A.J. was surely wondering where she had gone by now. She looked at the man and trying one more time, she said, A.J.’s a real good cook. I think you’ll be happy if you came back. She turned calmly and went back to the shelter.

When Kate got back, the rest of A.J.’s staff and volunteers had assembled behind the buffet line and were already beginning to serve.

I’m sorry, she whispered to A.J. as she stepped up beside him to help serve the eggs.

Someone’s a bit distracted today, he said.

I just saw this new guy come in, and then leave. I was trying to catch him and tell him what a fabulous cook you are.

A.J. laughed, Thanks, Katie-did, but this restaurant doesn’t really need to advertise. We get more business than we can handle without it.

She smiled, I know. He just looked…lost.

A.J. laughed again and gave a chin nod at the guy who had just stepped up to the line with his plate extended. He was talking to himself. Him and everyone, A.J. said. Kate elbowed him playfully in the ribs. She didn’t know what it was about the other guy—just a certain haunted look in his eyes…

The Saint’s fan’s alcohol-soaked brain was still trying to figure out what the clean, pretty woman had wanted from him. He wasn’t used to people asking him to stay. For the past two and a half years, he had pretty much gotten thrown out of everyplace that he’d been. Hell, in a way he’d even gotten kicked out of Afghanistan. Before he could wish he hadn’t thought about that, he was sitting slumped against a wall on the street, welcome oblivion covering him like a damp fog. He was no longer on the streets of Chicago; his brain had sent him back to that night, back to that mountain…

CHAPTER TWO

Outside Kabul, Afghanistan

Hindu Kush Mountains

September 2010

The little convoy drove slowly in the pitch darkness. Jody’s nerves were raw; he’d give anything for a drink right now. He wasn’t much of a drinker, really, but it was damned cold on this mountain, and a little something to warm his blood would have been just what the doctor ordered. The boy in the seat next to him suddenly illuminated his watch and looked at it.

Damn It, Clint! Douse that light!

I’m sorry, sir, the kid said in a shaky voice. This was Clint’s first tour, and Jody hadn’t asked him, but he didn’t look to be over eighteen years old. His face still bore the patches of angry red zits that often plagued adolescence, and Jody would bet that he had only recently begun to shave. Jody himself hadn’t made it out of his twenties, but with this being his fourth tour in Afghanistan, he felt a lot older.

There are no Sirs up here on this mountain, Clint. Call me Jody. I’m sorry for biting your head off, but we’re in a complete blackout for a reason here. We don’t want to give them a target to aim at.

Clint was nodding in the dark. Jody could barely make out the motion of the boy’s head with his night vision goggles.

Sir…uh, I mean, Jody, can I ask you a question?

Sure, Jody said. After almost seven years straight in this God-forsaken country, there wasn’t much left about it that he didn’t know by now.

Doesn’t it scare you to drive around on this mountain with no lights on like this?

Jody laughed, I’d have to say yes, but not as much as the Taliban spotting us up here would, he told the boy, honestly.

Jody’s radio crackled suddenly and came to life as a voice said something that sounded like complete gibberish to Clint. Jody apparently understood it. He laughed and said,

Roger that, Senior Chief, Jody said. Thanks for the update.

Clint said, I’m sorry. Can I ask you one more question?

Shoot, Jody said. They still had a ways to go. At least the boy’s lessons killed some time. Jody knew from experience that most of their job consisted of long,drawn- out periods of boredom while they waited for something to happen. Then when it did, they endured the minutes, hours or days of fear, noise, and confusion, just praying that everybody made it out the other side alive and with all of their limbs attached.

What the heck did the Senior Chief say?

Jody laughed. The Senior Chief, also Jody’s best friend, Bartholome, or Bart, as all the guys called him, was a French Creole from New Orleans. He had barely ever been out of the bayou before he joined the Navy. He and Jody had met in Seals Training, and it had taken Jody a good six months in the desert with him before he understood a word the man said. His accent was nowhere near as thick now as it used to be, or maybe Jody had just grown accustomed to it.

He said we are at 2200 meters, its 0220 hours and it’s 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Summed up, we’re near the top of a freaking mountain, in the middle of the freaking night, and we’re freezing our freaking asses off. Leave it to Bart, always one to state the obvious.

Jody glanced out the driver’s side window of the Humvee. They were in a vastly remote frozen desert, which in the daytime would have afforded them a stunning view of the whole valley. As it were, even in his night vision goggles, Jody counted himself lucky to keep the Humvee that carried Bart and another fairly new guy named Devon, in his sights. They were carrying supplies to the NATO forces. They had gotten safely through Pakistan, which was no small feat these days. Until the end of 2007, this route had been a mostly safe one. The tribes living there were paid by the Pakistani government to keep the area safe. Since the end of 2007, however, the Taliban had taken control of the region, making it wildly unsafe and unpredictable for U.S. and NATO forces to get their supplies across.

Jody’s superiors had decided they would try a new approach. They sent Jody and Bart, two seasoned Vets, in to drive the Humvees under the cover of night with all lights extinguished. It was a trial run, and it fell to the Senior Seals and their budding new recruits to be the ones to try it out.

The darkness enveloped them here in the midst of the towering mountain peaks. Since they couldn’t see their gauges in the dark, Jody and Bart had to rely on their memories and what little they could see of the landmarks around them to judge where they were, and how far they had left to go.

Jody’s radio crackled to life once more. J. B., sweep twenty right and confirm, the voice said. It was Devon’s voice, and he had seen some kind of movement.

Jody slowed to almost a stop and told Clint, Twenty right. What do you see?

Clint and Jody were both looking in the direction that Devon had indicated.

I don’t see anything, sir, the boy told him. Jody didn’t see anything either, but that didn’t mean nothing was there.

Damn! he said, getting back on the radio. We’re not seeing anything back here, Bart. Can you still see it? What did it look like? he asked, and then suddenly he yelled out, Wait! There it is, Clint! What is that? It had been just a very brief flash of something white. If Jody had been a believer, he might have thought it was a ghost.

The boy was still straining his eyes in the night vision goggles. I’m sorry sir. I don’t know, he said, sounding almost pitiful to Jody. Goats maybe? the boy said, chancing a guess.

Jody looked back towards the Humvee advancing slowly in front of them, and as he did, he was forced to watch helplessly as a thick, fiery orange haze surrounded it. He may have yelled out (later, he wouldn’t be able to remember) because almost as quickly as he realized his best friend’s Humvee was on fire, a searing white heat surrounded the one that he and Clint were in, and then everything went black once more.

CHAPTER THREE

Little League Baseball Complex

CHICAGO, IL

PRESENT DAY

Saturday morning

You want a hotdog, Katie? Michael was calling up to her from the bottom of the bleachers.

Kate patted her stomach, No thanks, she said. A.J. filled me up. They had served almost two hundred people at the shelter that morning, as well as offering seconds to those who wanted them, and A.J. still had food left for the volunteers and staff. A.J. was good people. Kate wished that there were more like him in the world. One of the reasons the judge had remanded Suzie to his shelter was simply because she had reminded the judge of A.J. A.J., too, had been an over-indulged child. His father was CEO of a computer software company, and A.J. was a trust-fund baby who had started getting into trouble when he was young. The judge that Suzie had come in front of just so happened to be the same one that A.J. had run up against many times in his youth.

A.J. had insisted, however, on learning his lessons the hard way. He was driving one night, intoxicated way beyond the legal limit for anyone, let alone a 17-year-old. He had blown through a stop sign and barreled into a van filled with a mother and her three children. They had all died.

A.J. had slipped into a deep depression. He was charged