Shelter E-Book

Robin Merrill

• Herausgeber: New Creation Publishing
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Shelter

Leseprobe

Shelter

a novel

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ROBIN MERRILL

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New Creation Publishing

Madison, Maine

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SHELTER. Copyright © 2015 by Robin Merrill. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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ISBN-13: 978-0-9912706-6-8

ISBN-10: 0991270665

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Epilogue

Books by Robin Merrill

Book Club Discussion Questions

Chapter 1

She had no good reason to head toward Maine. Yet, when Maggie pulled out of her Massachusetts driveway, the steering wheel turned right. It just sort of happened, without her thinking too much about it.

True, she wanted to avoid crowds, and on some level, knew that she had a better chance at that if she turned north. True, she was a Stephen King junkie, so while she didn’t consciously choose to turn toward the mastermind of horror, her subconscious may have felt the call of the familiar. She had been mentally escaping to the Stephen King universe for years. Now that it was time to physically escape, it seemed only logical to turn toward Castle Rock.

The trouble was, she hadn’t checked the weather report. The trouble was always that Maggie didn’t have a pragmatic bone in her body. She had always operated solely on her emotions, though, lately, she had been working on that. So, several hours into her trek, at about two o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, Maggie found herself in the only car on I-95, with the needle hovering over the E mark, and the windshield wipers slapping frantically back and forth to little avail.

All she saw was white.

Eddie, her rat terrier-ish best friend, was curled up on the seat beside her, and she marveled at how calm he was. He certainly wasn’t panicking. He was just trusting her completely to guide him through this storm.

Trying to mimic his unquestioning confidence, she prayed again, “Please, God, fix this.” She had been praying that same prayer since she’d left home. She had strongly felt God telling her to leave—it wasn’t much of a home anyway—so she had gotten into the car with confidence, but since then, God had been pretty quiet.

Not a peep.

Maggie looked at the gas gauge and contemplated filling up, but she didn’t want Kirk to know where she was, and she didn’t have any money of her own, only his plastic. It was bad enough that her Camry was titled, registered, and insured in his name.

But the snow showed no signs of letting up. She had to do something. Trying to keep one eye on the road, she opened the weather app on her phone. No signal. She scanned the radio channels, and there were precious few of them in the middle of Maine. She found no savvy weather forecaster to guide her to safety, so she switched back to her Chris Tomlin CD.

Singing along to “White Flag,” making up the words she didn’t yet know, she saw a green exit sign up ahead. “God, should I take that exit? Please tell me!” she pleaded, taking her foot off the gas pedal. She had pretty much decided to take the exit whether or not God piped up, but then she saw an actual white flag hanging off the exit sign and knew. There was her sign. Feeling enormous comfort, she signaled to the right and then giggled at herself for bothering to signal at all. What was she afraid of, getting rear-ended by a snowmobile?

It looked like she was driving straight into a white wall, but she was undeterred. Her tires slid a little under her, but she calmly gained control on the unnecessarily curvy exit ramp. She would be OK. She had seen a white flag.

She crawled off the interstate and smirked at a sign that read, “Welcome to Mattawooptock.” Mattawhat? She searched both sides of the road for a safe place to pull over. She was tempted by the Mattawooptock Motor Inn, but that would require plastic. She drove on, wondering exactly what it was she was looking for; then she saw it.

The sign read “Open Door Church,” and Maggie reasoned it couldn’t get much more obvious than that. She pulled her car into a large parking lot and wondered why there were so many other cars in the lot on a snowy Saturday.

Wondering if she had stumbled onto a Christmas craft fair, she unbuckled her seatbelt and shut off her thirsty engine. Eddie looked up at her sleepily and cocked his head to one side as if to ask, “Are we home?”

Maggie rubbed his head and promised, “Be back in a flash,” before she stepped out into the cold. A man was shoveling a path to the church, and Maggie panicked at the thought of human interaction. But then he smiled at her, and her heart rate slowed to a more reasonable pace.

“Nice day out!” he said.

“Sure,” she said, trying to think of something more clever to say. She didn’t. So she asked, “Why are there so many people here?”

He looked confused. He scanned the parking lot as if to confirm that there were in fact a lot of people there. Then he looked back at her. “Oh, I think this is about normal.”

It was her turn to be confused. “Do you have a Saturday service?”

He leaned on his shovel as if it were a cane. “Not till tonight,” he said, looking at her as if she was the one not making much sense.

His expression made her defensive. “Then why are all these cars here?” she asked.

“Ah!” he said as if he finally understood her question. “Those are our guests. A lot of them have cars.”

He may have understood her question, but she didn’t understand his answer.

“I’m Galen,” he said, taking off his glove and holding out his hand toward her, “but most people call me G.”

“Maggie,” she said, taking his hand in her now frozen, ungloved hand. His hand felt huge as it closed around hers, and warm. “Guests?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Sorry, I’m not being a very good welcome wagon. Come on inside where it’s warm, and I’ll explain.”

She followed him up a few snowy steps and into the warmth—a welcoming and well-lit lobby. Maggie shook the snow out of her hair. Galen pointed toward one of the few empty coat hooks on the wall and held his hand out for her coat. She gave it to him. He hung it up and then spread his arms out, “Welcome to Open Door Church. We operate a sort of homeless shelter here. Most of those cars belong to people who are staying here.”

“Oh.” Of all the emotions that could have popped up right then—gratitude, relief, even fear—nope, it was pride that reared its ugly head. God had led her to a homeless shelter? Seriously, God?

Galen looked as if he was trying to read her. “I saw your Massachusetts plates. Are you just passing through?”

She stared at him for an awkward several seconds, and then said, “No, actually. I’m pretty homeless myself.”

He nodded as if he had known this, and then acting as if he was putting his left hand to the small of her back, but without actually touching her, he motioned down a hallway with his right hand, “Let me introduce you to Cari then. She’ll get you set right up.”

Maggie followed Galen a short distance to the doorway of a cluttered office. Behind a big desk that was absolutely buried in stacks of paper sat a petite woman with a pencil behind each ear.

“Cari! This is Maggie. She needs a place to stay. Maggie, this is Cari.”

Cari looked up from her computer monitor and offered Maggie a sincere but tired smile. “Hi, Maggie. Welcome to Open Door. We’re glad you’re here. Have a seat,” she said, pointing toward the only empty chair in the room. 

“I’ll get back to my shoveling, then,” Galen said and gave a little wave on his way out.

“Thanks, G,” Cari called after him, and reached for something in an open filing cabinet drawer.

She found what she was looking for and handed Maggie a short form to fill out. What was her name and social security number, did she have a vehicle, did she have any food allergies or dietary restrictions, was she a sex offender ...

“Sex offender?” Maggie asked, a little panicky.

“Yes,” Cari said, seemingly unsurprised at the question. “We have children staying with us, so we can’t allow anyone who has been convicted of a sex crime to stay here. However, if you have been convicted of one, we don’t just throw you out in the cold. We help you find your way to someplace that can help you.”

“Oh, no, I haven’t been convicted ... of anything ... I was just ... I don’t know ...”

“It’s OK.” Cari smiled. “Everyone asks about that question.”

Maggie half-smiled back, and then filled out the form as Cari went back to stabbing at her keyboard. When Maggie finished, she handed her the form. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to stay there, but she couldn’t think of any other options at the moment. She vowed she would just stay for one night. She would come up with a plan tomorrow. There must be a pastor around here to help her come up with a plan, right?

“OK, great,” Cari said. “We have Bible study every night at six in the sanctuary, and we ask all our guests to attend.”

“OK, no prob,” Maggie said, a little surprised at how excited she felt about that idea.

Chapter 2

Galen

Galen stepped back out into the cold, trying not to think about how gorgeous that woman had just been. As genuinely compassionate as he was with all the people in his church, he had reservations about having romantic feelings for a homeless person. There had to be a reason she was homeless, right?

As soon as he had the thought, he asked God to forgive him for it, and tried to focus on his shoveling. It’s hard to get into trouble when thinking about shoveling. He finished the path, returned the shovel to the porch, and then headed toward his truck.

On the way to the truck, though, he noticed a cute little terrier—at least, it sort of looked like a terrier—sitting behind Maggie’s steering wheel. Uh-oh, he thought. He turned and headed back inside.

Cari and Maggie were no longer in the office, so he headed toward the women’s bedrooms. He found the two women standing in the hall, and heard Maggie say, “Can I just leave him in the car? I won’t bring him inside.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Cari said. “We can’t have any pets on the premises.”

Maggie looked like she was about to cry.

“Hey, Maggie,” Galen interrupted, coming up behind them. “I can dogsit if you want.”

Cari looked at him in surprise, but then her raised eyebrows turned into a knowing smirk as she made assumptions about his sudden love for dogs.

Maggie, though, looked skeptical.

“It’s OK, really,” Galen said, trying to comfort her, “she’ll be in good hands.”

“She’s a he,” Maggie corrected. “His name is Eddie.”

“Eddie. Got it. Eddie will be in good hands.”

Maggie deliberated, and then finally nodded.

“I’m headed home now. Do you want me to take him?” Uh-oh, Galen thought. The floodgates had opened. Maggie stood there weeping, which made Galen incredibly uncomfortable. He thought then that he might do just about anything to make that crying stop. “Hey,” he said softly, stepping closer to her, “really, it’s OK. I’m a dog guy,” he said, even though he really wasn’t, but he thought he might be becoming a Maggie guy. “You can trust me. I’ll take him home, take him for a walk, get him something to eat, and I’ll bring him back for the evening service. You can see him then.” She looked up at him with giant green eyes as if she was trying to evaluate his ability to do as he was promising. He fought the urge to reach out and wipe away her tears.

“OK,” she muttered. She started toward the door, and then said over her shoulder to Cari, “I’ll be right back. Is that OK?”

“Of course,” Cari said. “I’ll be in the office.”

Maggie headed outside without her coat, so Galen grabbed it and handed it to her on the way to the car. “Thanks,” she said. She unlocked her car and grabbed Eddie. She handed his leash and a bag of dog food to Galen. Then she buried her face in the dog’s neck for what seemed like a long time, while Galen stood waiting, snow piling up on his dark hair. When Maggie kissed Eddie on the side of his snout, Galen felt something too close to jealousy. Maggie looked up, “He’s my best friend. He’s my only friend. He’s all I have left in this world.”

Galen wanted to tell her this wasn’t true, but instead he said, “I understand. I will take care of him as if he were my own. He’ll be OK, I promise.”

Maggie sighed, kissed the dog again, and handed him to Galen. “See you tonight?”

Galen smiled. “Yes, you’ll see us both tonight. Now go get warm.”

She smiled back, tears still in her eyes. “Thank you.” She reached into her car to grab a bag, and then headed toward the church.

“You bet.” He watched her walk away. Then he and his new dog climbed into his truck.

On his way home, he stopped at the drugstore to get some Zyrtec. Galen was allergic to dogs.  

Chapter 3

Her pride was at it again. She couldn’t believe how small her room was. And it didn’t smell terrific. She figured it had served as a Sunday school room in a former life. It was now home to two sets of bunk beds and a single dresser. She was allotted one drawer in the dresser and the top bunk on the left.

She knew she should be grateful, she was grateful, but she still felt some level of shame. She flung herself onto the top bunk, which someone had kindly made for her. How did this happen? she wondered. I’m a good person. I’ve never hurt anyone. I even just gave my life to God. So how did I end up here in a homeless shelter in a town I can’t pronounce? On the verge of more tears, she rolled over, which brought her face to face with giant giraffe eyeballs.

The wall beside her bed portrayed a faded Noah’s ark scene.  She mused about how odd it is that Noah’s ark is a popular children’s tale. It seemed kind of scary to her. Everyone on earth drowned. Why was that a happy story for kiddos? And sure, the animal couples were cute, but what about every single other land-roaming animal on earth? All dead! Funny how the kids’ books never dwell on these angles of the story. As she tried to figure out which Bible account made for better children’s art, she drifted off to sleep.

She woke to someone shaking her. She rolled over to see a young woman with bleach blond hair and brown roots. She sat up suddenly, disoriented and scared. “It’s time for Bible study. You have to go,” the woman said.

Maggie was annoyed at her tone, but she climbed out of bed to follow bad-hair-girl to Bible study. She was halfway down the hallway when she remembered that evening service meant a visit with Eddie. She picked up her pace.

She thought about heading straight for the parking lot, but instead opted to follow the tide into the sanctuary. The place was packed. Just how many people live here? she wondered. She also marveled at what a motley crew they seemed to be. People of all shapes and sizes. Some looked, well, homeless, while others looked, well, not. She wondered where she fell on that spectrum and realized she probably looked pretty shabby herself.

She looked around frantically for Galen, but then a bunch of musicians up front began to make a bunch of raucous, and she decided it might be more important to find a seat. Alas, she couldn’t find one that had a good buffer of space on both sides; her only choice was to squeeze between a woman wearing an orange hunting hat and a dirty little kid. As she sat down, they both stood up, and Ms. Blaze Orange threw her hands up in the air as she started to sing.

Maggie stood back up and finally saw Galen—he was one of the raucous musicians up front. And they were loud. Two singers, a lead guitar, Galen’s bass guitar, and a drum set blasted from speakers all around. Maggie didn’t know the song, but she seemed to be alone on that front. Everyone in her immediate vicinity was singing, many had a hand or two up in the air, and a couple of them were dancing.

Maggie turned around to see what was happening behind her and was a bit relieved to see that the back rows were full of people sulking and refusing to stand. So, not everyone is this chipper around here.

Maggie was so far out of her element. She’d never actually been to church before, and somehow, this wasn’t how she had imagined it. Her friend Anna had invited her, had encouraged her to go, but Maggie always knew it would cause too much of a kerfuffle with Kirk. Instead of Maggie leaving the house, Anna had come to her, and together they had read the Bible, prayed, and talked about life. But they certainly hadn’t engaged in any of this commotion.

The music seemed to go on and on. Finally, they did a Chris Tomlin song Maggie recognized. She began to sing along, and then Ms. Blaze Orange leaned over and said, “You sing like an angel.” Maggie smiled in surprise. That was a new one. But then again, no one except Eddie had heard her sing in years.

Finally the music stopped, and the musicians left the stage. Galen caught her eye and smiled. She smiled back. A man in an AC/DC T-shirt got up to make some announcements. Then the pastor took the stage. She only knew he was the pastor because Mr. AC/DC called him “Pastor.” Pastor was wearing a faded polo shirt and ripped blue jeans. He looked to be about fifty. He was a wiry little thing who bounced around a lot while he talked. He didn’t stay on stage for long, but instead came down and talked to his sheep as if they were in his living room.

The sermon was brief, but Maggie had trouble focusing because she was so overwhelmed by her surroundings. A teenager in front of her was playing Candy Crush on her phone. The guy to Candy Crush’s left kept playing with his ponytail, whipping it back and forth and occasionally chewing on it. And the dirty child beside Maggie kept poking her. She thought about giving his mother a dirty look, but his mother appeared to be the mother of four other children, so Maggie figured she had other, more pressing things to worry about.

As the pastor was winding up his sermon, he asked everyone to bow their heads and close their eyes. Then he said, “If you were to die tonight, do you know where you would go? If you want to go to heaven, then repeat this prayer after me. God in heaven, thank you for sending your Son Jesus to die on the cross for my sins. I ask you to forgive my sins. I am sorry. I give my life to you now. Please take my life and use it. Amen.”

Maggie peeked around to see if it was OK to look up, and apparently it was, because everyone else was doing it. She noticed the musicians had reclaimed the stage, but the pastor stayed down by the altar. As the musicians started to play softly, Pastor said, “If you prayed that prayer with me tonight, I invite you to come down front and see me. The Bible says that we should confess our faith in front of other people, and you can do that tonight. You don’t have to, there’s no pressure, but if you’d like to, I invite you to come down front and I would like to pray with you.... Thank you, brother ... anyone else?” Maggie turned around, surprised someone was coming, but someone was. And then someone else joined him. And then another. Then there were four people kneeling at the altar. Maggie’s eyes welled up with tears. She had never seen anything like this.

Then the little boy poked her again. She looked down at him, ready to be annoyed, but she saw he was trying to get past her. She stepped back and let him make his way to the altar. As the tears poured down Maggie’s cheeks, Ms. Blaze Orange leaned over and whispered, “Don’t get too shook up. He goes down front every night.”

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AFTER THE SERVICE, Galen found Maggie. “Wanna go out and see Eddie?”

Maggie nodded gratefully and followed him to the door.

Outside, the snow had slowed, but the wind had picked up. She realized how “lucky” she was to have a place to sleep, a place that wasn’t Kirk’s.

When Eddie saw her, he smashed both front paws and a nose to the window, wagging his tail as if he was trying to put out a fire with it. Maggie was so excited to see him, she started crying again. Galen opened the door for her, and Eddie leapt into her arms. She pressed her face into his neck as he squirmed in her arms, his tail still wagging. They stood there for a minute, Maggie and Eddie content, and then Galen said, “Do you want to sit in the truck with him? It might be a smidge warmer.”

“Oh yeah, sorry, thank you.”

“No need to apologize,” Galen said as he opened the door for her again. She hoisted herself into his truck and onto the cold leather. Galen trotted around to the other side and climbed in behind the wheel. He started the truck, which gave Maggie a momentary fright, but then she realized he was just firing up the heater.

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this,” she said, her face still pressed into Eddie’s fur.

“No problem,” Galen said, smiling. “Really,” he added.

“So you don’t mind keeping him for the night?” Maggie asked. “I hope to come up with some sort of a plan tomorrow, but right now, I’m just not sure where Eddie and I are headed next.”

“Of course,” Galen said, as if he understood. Then they sat there in his truck, quiet, for about ten minutes. Maggie could have sat there longer, but she started to feel guilty about making Galen hang out in the church parking lot. Or the homeless shelter parking lot. Whichever this place was.

“Well, I guess I should let you go,” Maggie said.

“You can if you want, but I’m in no hurry. Curfew is nine, and it’s only 7:30, so we can sit here for another hour and a half if you’d like.”

Maggie looked up sharply. “Curfew?”

“Yeah, they lock the doors at nine. So, if anyone wants to spend the night, they have to be inside by then. If they’re not, they have to call Pastor. I’m not sure what happens then. They probably still let you in, but it’s more of a rigmarole.”

“Is that really necessary? I mean, can’t people come and go as they please?”

Galen smiled. “Well, I know this is hard to believe, but sometimes we get some rough characters around here, so I think it’s more of a safety thing. They want to know who is here at night, and don’t want someone dangerous strolling in looking for a place to crash at midnight.”

“Oh,” Maggie said, a bit alarmed at his use of the word dangerous. “So, those people in church, do they all live here ... I mean, are they all ‘guests’?”

“Most of them. A few, like myself, live nearby.”

“Oh! So this is just an ordinary church, which happens to double as a homeless shelter?”

Galen laughed. “Well, I’ve never heard anyone call us ordinary, but yes, we’re just a church. One day our pastor ran into a man who had nowhere to go, so the pastor—his name is Dan—just let him sleep at the church. And that’s when it started.”

“So, what’s that building?” Maggie pointed across the parking lot at a small ranch house dwarfed by the oddly-shaped church.

“That’s the parsonage, where Pastor lives.”

“Ah,” she said. “Does he live alone?”

“Yeah, his wife died a few years ago. Cancer. Shortly before the church started accepting overnighters.”

“Oh, wow. How sad. That poor man.”

“Yep. He’s an incredible man of faith, though. Really walks the talk, you know?”

“Yeah ... well, I should let you get home.”

“OK,” he said, handing her a slip of paper. “Here’s my cell. Call anytime if you need anything, even if you just want to check on your little pal here.”

She smiled at him, suddenly noticing how gentle he looked. He sort of looked like a six-foot tall teddy bear. His broad shoulders made him look even bigger than he was. “Again, I don’t know how to thank you.”

“No worries, really. I’ve done far more obnoxious favors for far less pleasant people,” he said, and then she thought she saw a hint of a blush, but it was hard to see anything, their only light traveling from tired parking lot bulbs through falling snow.

“OK,” Maggie said. She gave Eddie one more kiss, then set him on the seat beside her and looked at Galen. “Good night, then?”

“Good night. Talk to you tomorrow.”

She stepped back out into the cold and walked to the church. When she reached the door, she turned to wave. They were still sitting there, truck idling, but as she opened the door, her only two friends in the world drove away.

Chapter 4

“So what’s your story?”

Maggie was lying in her bunk, after lights out, when a voice below her startled her out of her thoughts. The voice belonged to Jackie, an older woman with long, gray, stringy hair and several missing teeth. She had introduced herself earlier and had seemed nice enough.

“Maggie?”

“Yeah?” Maggie said, because she didn’t know what else to say.

“What’s your story?”

“I don’t really have one.” Maggie wasn’t trying to be enigmatic; she just really didn’t find her story all that exciting.

“Everybody has a story,” her bunkmate said, and in the soft light, she saw Bleach Blonde across the room prop herself up on her elbow to watch the exchange.

Maggie considered making up a story, but decided she wasn’t creative enough. “I don’t know ... I just ... I don’t have a job right now and don’t have any place to stay.” She left out the part about never having had a job, despite being twenty-five.

“So you drove all the way from Massachusetts?” her bunkmate said, almost critically, as Maggie silently cursed her license plates. “Don’t they have homeless shelters in Mass?” Maggie heard Bleach Blonde snort and was annoyed.

“I just needed to get away for a while, so I asked God where to go, and he brought me here.”