smeared on his face, dribbled down his shirt. Her beloved baby. She had held and rocked him, sat up with him when he had colic, gone through the ear infections and ampicillin routine. Read stories to him and taken him to Bambi and Lion King and Snow White. She was his mother, she thought fiercely.
By six o’clock that summer evening her car was packed, Stacey given her key and shown the twenty-pound bag of Cat Chow.
“And could you collect my mail? I’ll get it from you in a little while. Maybe you can send it. I’ll call.”
“God. You’re sure in a hurry,” Stacey said.
“Uh, yes, my dad is sick. My mother called. An emergency.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I hope he gets well soon.”
“Yes, we all do. Thanks, Stacey.”
She took one last look around her side of the duplex. Her home. The only home Charley had known. But she had to be strong and leave it behind. For her son.
“Come on, sweetie,” she said, and they went out the front door together. Grace let it lock behind her, walked down the path to her car, put Charley in the back seat and fastened his seat belt.
She drove away, down the familiar tree-shaded street, past her neighbors’ houses, past the large red-roofed, sandstone buildings of the University of Colorado, out to the Boulder Turnpike and south to Denver. Behind her was her whole life. If only she could see ahead.
CHAPTER TWO
GRACE NAVIGATED through Denver’s tidy Bonnie Brae neighborhood, craning her neck to read the street signs. Part of her was calmly aware of how mundane everything seemed in the quiet, middle-class area. Another part of her quivered with nerves in the warm summer evening as the shadows of the trees and houses reached darkly toward her. A dog raced out of the growing dimness and barked, chasing her tires.
“Mommy,” Charley said from the back seat, “that’s a bad dog. He’s going to get in my window. Mommy!”
Grace studied the house numbers. This couldn’t be the street. It was too…ordinary. In her distress, she must have written down the wrong address.
She shook herself mentally. What did she know about a safe house? She realized she’d been envisioning some foreboding, secret structure set back in trees, all shuttered up, no lights and windows. But she supposed the house could be any sort, even a mansion, for goodness’ sakes.
“Mommy, the dog’s jumping at my window!”
“Oh, honey, he can’t get in the car. There. See? He’s leaving, going home to his yard.”
“I don’t like him.”
“Well, he was probably just curious,” she said, on motherly autopilot.
She slowed the car to a crawl, squinting at the house numbers. There it was, the house near the corner of Adams and Mississippi. Could this place, this innocuous, square brick home, really be part of the underground railroad?
“Are we there, Mommy? Are we there?”
“Yes, ah, yes, sweetie, it looks like we’re here.”
Grace parked at the curb, as there was already a car in the narrow drive. She got out, noticed the weak watery feeling in her knees and took a breath. What if this wasn’t the place? What if…?
But she wouldn’t think about that now. She’d memorized the telephone number. If this really were the wrong address, she’d call the number again. No big deal.
No big deal? her brain cried. But Charley was undoing his seat belt and opening the back door. “I’m hungry, Mommy. You didn’t give me dessert. Do they have ice cream?”
“I’m sure they have something, sweetie, but let’s make sure this is really my, ah, friend’s place first. Okay?”
Charley took her hand. “Okay.”
She advanced up the walk, gulping air, trying to come up with an excuse should this be the wrong place. One step, two, three. As she rang the bell, her mind was so full of muddled thoughts she barely realized that someone was standing behind the screen—a young teenage girl.
The girl eyed first Grace, then Charley, then called over her shoulder, “Hey, Mom, your friends are here.”
Friends. No names. Just friends. So this was the place.
“Come on in,” the girl said, pushing open the door, giving Charley a perfunctory smile.
A woman was moving toward Grace, her hand out, a gracious smile on her face. An ordinary-looking woman, with brown curly hair and faded jeans and a tank top. A mother, too, but so different from Grace. So courageous. How many frightened women and children had she sheltered?
Grace took her hand and tried to return the smile.
“Well, let’s get you settled,” the woman said, and she gently ruffled Charley’s silky hair. “And I’ll bet you’re hungry, young man.”
Charley looked up at Grace with soulful eyes.
“Yes,” Grace said, “I’m afraid he’s always hungry this time of night. I didn’t think to…”
“Of course you didn’t. Here, your room is just down this hall. It’s off the kitchen. There, the light switch is on the left. And there’s a small bath just to the right. And, by the way, don’t worry, no one can do much rational thinking in this situation. Don’t forget, it is your first night. Get settled and I’ll see you in the kitchen, okay? And you, young man, do you like cookies? Or maybe a Popsicle?”
“A Popsicle.”
“What do you say, Charley?”
“Please.”
The woman smiled again and closed the door behind her.
“Wow,” Grace breathed, sinking onto a queen-size bed.
“What’s wrong, Mommy? Can I get my Popsicle now?”
“In a minute. I just need a minute, honey.”
“But I’m hungry.”
Grace sighed, trying desperately to collect herself. She felt as if she’d stepped onto a train on this so-called railroad, a train with no destination, a train that would never stop. Her heart pounded furiously and suddenly the room was too close. She rose and opened the window that looked out onto a square backyard and an alley behind it. The sound of children playing nearby drifted in, all so normal, so placid in the face of her predicament. She should be home, calling the cats in for the evening, telling Charley to brush his teeth, arguing about his bedtime on this warm summer’s night.
After a few more complaints from Charley that he was hungry, she finally took his hand and led him to the kitchen, where the woman was doing dinner dishes.
The situation was so terribly awkward. She and Charley were strangers in a strange place. She felt
