ago, at the end of the pregnancy, perhaps, when even the prison food had tasted good, and the baby growing inside her had needed calories. But once she had delivered, nothing had appealed to her, and she had rapidly lost not only the baby weight but extra pounds, too, because now the clothes she’d worn to prison hung from her thin frame like a scarecrow’s.
Samantha got out and Cristy knew that she had to, as well. She carefully set the plastic bag at her feet and joined Samantha outside. She was surprised at the burst of noise, at the way cars screeching in and out of the lot throbbed against her eardrums, how, once inside the restaurant, she was blasted with air-conditioning, even though the temperature outside was only in the sixties.
The restaurant had an indoor playground, and as they passed it, she averted her eyes so she wouldn’t have to watch toddlers enjoying themselves as their parents looked on.
“What would you like?” Samantha moved toward the front counter where lines had formed.
Cristy stared up at the menu on the wall, as if deciding. But the words swam in front of her.
“I don’t know,” she said quickly. “I...I’m not really hungry. You go ahead.”
“Why don’t you find us a place to sit then?”
Cristy began to panic. She was used to being told exactly where to go. Here some of the empty tables were littered with paper or trays containing half-eaten food that hadn’t been cleared away. If she sat at one, would employees come to clear it, or would they think the mess was hers and ignore it? Should she take a seat by the window, or would that make somebody angry because those seats were the best? Was it okay to take a table next to one that was occupied, or to avoid the appearance of eavesdropping, should she try to move off to the side, where the tables were smaller, less desirable and mostly empty?
“Try to get us one in the sunshine if you can,” Samantha said, when Cristy didn’t move. “It’s cold in here. How about that one?” She pointed.
Cristy moved in that direction, hoping nobody would beat her to the table. Would Samantha be disappointed if she failed? She had already embarrassed the woman by tearfully proclaiming her innocence. By the end of their trip, would Samantha be so disenchanted she would ask Cristy to find another place to live?
Then where would she go?
She got to the table and gratefully fell into a chair. Around her everyone was going about their business. No one knew her. To them she was a shabby, weary-eyed young blonde. No one knew she had just completed a prison term, or that she was the mother of a son she’d never held.
No one could tell by looking at her that she had fallen so deeply into a well of secrets and lies that she would never find her way out of it.
She could see Samantha placing an order, then stepping to one side to wait. She watched for just a moment. Samantha was a beautiful woman, probably a mixture of races or ethnicities, although Cristy had certainly never asked the particulars. She had a mane of curly, dark hair that fell past her shoulders, more-cream-than-coffee skin, and a narrow, delicately featured face that made Cristy think of the illustration of Pharaoh’s daughter in the Old Testament picture book she’d loved as a child. Samantha was tall, slender and graceful in faded jeans and a dark purple sweater, with a smile that could disarm any enemy at ten paces.
To Cristy she looked like someone who had never known a moment of sorrow in all the twenty-five or thirty years she had lived on earth.
By the time Samantha approached their table and set a tray in the middle, Cristy had turned away from a view of cars zooming through the parking lot to see a wealth of food.
Samantha sounded apologetic. “I have a daughter who just turned twelve, and she’s always hungry. I’m afraid I ordered like she was here with us. You’ll help me eat it?”
Cristy had become an expert at recognizing subtext, one of the things she was taking away from her months behind bars. Samantha had guessed she was hungry, guessed she wanted to eat and guessed that Cristy hadn’t known how to make that happen.
“You’ve already done so much for me,” she said.
“And what good will any of that be if you waste away? How much weight did you lose after the baby?”
Cristy shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I bet you can do justice to some of this. I really, really hate to waste food.” Samantha began to unload the tray, pushing a red carton toward Cristy. “Big Mac, fries and a Coke. If you want a shake or a smoothie, I’ll get you one, but I thought that might be a bit much with a long car trip. And please, no matter what, when you meet Edna, don’t tell her what we had for lunch.”
Cristy opened the carton and stared. Her mouth began to water.
Samantha opened a similar one and unveiled what looked like a chicken sandwich. She held it out. “I’ll be happy to trade.”
“You’re so nice, and I don’t know why.”
Samantha didn’t look surprised. “And considering where you’ve been and what you’ve learned these past months, you know better than to take anything at face value. I get that. I’d feel the same way in your shoes. I’ll explain the whole thing someday, in detail, I promise. But for now, here’s the gist. I’m friends with a group of women, and we received a bequest when a mutual friend died. She left us a beautiful old log house right between the townships of Luck and Trust in Madison County, the one I told you about in our phone call. She asked us to use it any way we saw fit.”
“Any way?”
“Any way that matters. Specifically as a way to reach out to other women who can use the help. After we met in class, I asked about you, and I was told you needed a place to go when you were released, someplace close enough to Mars Hill that you could visit your son. I realized the Goddess House—that’s what we call it—would be a good place for you to land for a while.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah, essentially, it is.” Samantha began to eat.
“Why Goddess House? What kind of organization is it?”
Samantha chewed a while and sipped some of her drink before she answered. “It’s not. Not an organization, I mean. We’re just a group of friends.”
“But why goddess? It sounds like some kind of cult.”
“No, there’s just a beautiful story about a Buddhist goddess named Kuan Yin, who died, and on her way to heaven—or whatever Buddhists call heaven—she heard the cry of all the suffering people left on earth. So instead of going to heaven she turned and came back to be with them. She said she couldn’t leave until all their suffering had ended. The story says she’s still with those who need her, an anonymous goddess who helps whenever and whomever she can. Without fuss. Just helps. We’re not that good or selfless. We aren’t saints or goddesses, just women like a million others who find ways to stretch out a hand. But there are things we can do and we try to.”
“And I’m going to be your project.”
Samantha didn’t seem put off by her word choice or tone, which even to Cristy’s ears had sounded rude.
“No. I hope you’re going to be our friend.”
“Why
