Page 61 of Big Island Weddings
“Thank you!” Nell ran around the counter to give the taller woman a big hug before leaving. “Back soon!”
She drove the short distance to A Place of Refuge, inching along in Tara’s van. She hardly drove anymore, and getting behind the wheel of someone else’s vehicle always made her anxious, but she was doing her best to step over that anxiety without pausing to let it get to her. If she could drive a van full of kids, she could certainly drive some food across town to the shelter.
A chaotic mixture of feelings overwhelmed Nell as she parked in front of the wall of greenery that shielded A Place of Refuge from the road. She was deeply grateful to this place for giving her and her babies shelter when they needed it most… and at the same time, she had been so miserably frightened during her time there that it brought up all sorts of terrible feelings.
A part of her wanted to drive away and never so much as look at the place again.
“Time to make some new memories,” she told herself.
When she got out of the car, she heard a muffled giggling. She stared at the overgrown fence for a minute before she finally spotted a small eye about three feet above the ground, spying on her through the leaves. The rest of the child was hidden behind the greenery.
“Found you!” Nell said.
The kid giggled again.
“Can you help me with something?”
“What?” Even their voice was muffled through the leaves.
“Can you find Auntie Halia?”
“She’s in her office.”
“Go tell her that Nell is here with the food that Tara sent.”
“Auntie Halia!” The kid’s voice faded as he went crashing through the bushes. “The food is here!”
Halia met her at the gate and took the box that she carried.
“There’s one more,” Nell said, starting back towards the van. “Just a sec.”
By the time she reached the communal kitchen with the rest of the food, the whole community had gathered around the picnic tables. She recognized about half of them from her stay at A Place of Refuge; the rest of the faces were new.
“I have an idea,” she said to Halia as the other women distributed the food amongst themselves.
“What’s that?” The older woman was warm and welcoming. At the same time, there was a steel and a steadiness to her that helped everyone who stayed there feel safe.
“I’d like to give back, but it feels like I have so little to offer.”
Halia didn’t try to contradict her; she just listened patiently.
“I’m good with kids, and that’s something I can do with my own babies. I work at a daycare – you know Pualena Playschool, right? I work there Monday through Friday. But I thought that maybe I could offer a childcare program on Saturdays.Or weekday afternoons, maybe? I know how hard it can be to navigate the legal system and even run errands as a single mom, and so I thought that maybe I could help with that. And just give the kids something fun to do.”
“That sounds lovely.”
“I could run it here, or I could talk to ‘Olena about using New Horizons.”
“I know the mothers here would appreciate something like that, especially with summer break right around the corner.”
“Okay, good. I’ll pull something together as soon as I can.”
“I look forward to hearing from you.” Halia gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder before moving off to mediate a dispute between two teenagers who were staying there with their mothers.
Nell stayed for a few minutes to chat with women she knew. One had secured a local place through Section Eight and was set to move in the next week. Another had run into one roadblock after another searching for a job, never mind a place to live, and Nell’s heart went out to her.
She left feeling buoyed by her plans to offer something back to the place that had helped her. It wasn’t much, but it was what she could do with what she had to give. And somehow, that was everything.
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