Page 8 of Jobe

The two women laughed until they had to wipe their tears, the memory of that disastrous date in their minds. As their mirth slowly dissipated, Penny looked at her daughter again.

“Wha abou—”

Shaking her head quickly, Mackenna interrupted, “No mom.”

Her mother sat quietly and Mackenna immediately felt contrite. “I’m sorry. It’s just…that ship sailed a long time ago and to be honest, it still stings a little.”

The silence echoed around the room, each woman with their own memories filling their minds. Sighing, Mackenna gave an unladylike snort, saying, “Not only did the ship sail, but it caught on fire as it was sailing away. And then it blew up. And then while it was burning, it got caught in a whirlpool and was tossed around. And then lightning hit it as it was going down. And the waves knocked it over. And then it finally sunk to the bottom of the ocean.” She sat for a second and then added, “And then when all the tiny pieces hit the bottom, they were obliterated and the dust got totally mixed in with the sand, never to be found again.”

Penny lifted her right eyebrow at her daughter’s description. “I thin I ga the pictu,” she said, her heart aching for her daughter as she watched her lost in memory. Mackenna’s expression was not one of anger, but had the look of resignation.

Mackenna shook her head, chasing out the morose thoughts and said, “Let’s go to bed, mom. It’s late and I know you’ve got to be tired.”

She assisted her mom in getting ready for bed and was excited to see how much stronger Penny’s left side was becoming. Her mother beamed as she showed Mackenna how she could get her nightgown on herself.

Smiling, Mackenna helped her mother to bed and then headed to her own bedroom after checking the house one more time. With her thoughts filled with the past, sleep did not come.Oh, mom. Why did you have to bring him up?

After tossing and turning for almost an hour, she got out of bed and crossed over to her dresser. Squatting down, she pulled open the bottom drawer and felt toward the back underneath her out-of-season sweaters. Her fingers reached the packet of letters and she plopped down on the floor with the papers in her lap.

She smoothed her hands over the envelopes reverently, fingering the addresses in his handwriting. The familiar ache began in her chest. The ache of love. Long-ago love. Lost love. A single tear slid down her cheek and fell on the top envelope. It was not the first tear that had ever landed there.

She shuffled them around until the bottom one was on top. The one that ripped her world apart, never to be whole again. A surge of anger rushed through her as she thought of the words inside. Memorized from having read them over and over and over. A thousand times over.

And just as quickly as the anger came, it was replaced with a dull pain residing in her heart. Wiping her tears away, she put the letters back into the drawer and closed it. She sat on the floor for a long time, her hands as empty as her heart.

As much as she wanted to hate him, she could not. But when she had realized the door to that relationship had finally closed, she never looked for him again. The idea of seeing his smile on Facebook, probably with a new girl, or even wife would kill her.

Oh, to hell with him,she thought as she pushed herself up off of the floor and padded over to the bed. Crawling underneath the covers, she began thinking of what needed to be done the next day.Staff meeting at ten a.m. at DSS. Talk to the boss about more grant money. Go over to a few high schools to talk to the counselors about seeing if they can identify girls that might be at risk for joining gangs. Get back to New Beginnings to check on Gabby.

As she recited her day a restless sleep finally claimed her.

4

The next morning at the Alvarez staff meeting, Tony talked about the contract with the Richmond Police to add some security cameras in a few of the areas known to be gang havens.

Jobe admitted to thinking about the gangs when he visited his parent’s home the night before. “After talking to Shane and Matt yesterday, I found myself looking around for signs of gang graffiti. The neighborhood where I was raised is kind of run down now, but it still seems like the families there are working hard to keep it nice.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way,” Vinny added. “I went home last night and did some searching on the internet. I feel like a dumb shit not knowing this, but we’ve got the Bloods and the Crips right here in Richmond, along with MS-13. I mean, what the fuck, man? And some of these kids are only about ten years old.”

Gabe looked over sharply, “Goddamn, that’s Ross’ age. I can’t even imagine a kid his age belonging to one of these gangs.”

Nodding to his twin, Vinny continued, “And what he’d have to do to get in. Many of these gangs have either beat-ins, where they get the shit kicked out of them by a bunch of others for three minutes or they have to commit a crime. Anything from stealing to murder.”

Tony said, “I’ve got BJ and Jobe working on figuring out which street cameras can be used and where we need to add some more. We’ll also look at using existing cameras for feed for the police department.”

“Guys, Jennifer talked to me last night and Tony, I was going to talk to you about it first, but it ties into what we’re discussing so I’d like to bring it up now if that’s okay,” Gabe said.

Gaining the nod of approval from Tony, Gabe continued, “Jennifer’s got a social worker friend that’s running a small center for reclaiming women and girls from gangs. It’s been open for about eight months and is run on grant money, so you know what that means. A shoestring budget and lots of hard work for the ones that are trying to make a difference.”

“What’s it do?” Jobe asked.

“It houses a few women who have voluntarily left or escaped the gang life, and gives them basic job skills and helps them find work. It’s called New Beginnings and according to Jennifer, it’s doing just that. So far, she said that almost fifteen women havegraduatedfrom the program and have found jobs and apartments to live in.”

Gabe had captured the attention of the rest of the group. Tony asked, “Does Jennifer think they need our help?”

“Yeah. The center currently has seven women there, and they’re hoping to expand to more. The social worker, Mac, who’s running the place, is a real dynamo, according to Jennifer.” This statement brought chuckles from the men around the table, knowing that to a tiny powerhouse like Jennifer, this was high praise indeed.

“They’re in an old house, not a great area of town, but of course where they can afford it. Jennifer said that there’s a night watchman, who checks to make sure the doors are locked and,” he shook his head, “she said Mac claims there are deadbolts on the doors.”

---