Felicia Mason - Gabriel's Discovery

That’s where Gabriel got the biggest surprise of the morning.

As Susan gave him the grand tour, Gabriel found himself struck by two things: the identical quilt in the lounge of the actual shelter, and the number of women he recognized as he walked with Susan through the first-floor common area of the facility. A couple of them called him by name.

“Hi, Reverend Dawson. Did you come to check up on us?” a woman asked.

Before he embarrassed himself by admitting he didn’t know her name, she supplied it.

“Mary Hill,” she said. “I’ve been to a couple of services at Good Shepherd.”

Gabriel nodded, remembering now. “And how are your daughters?”

“Just fine, Reverend. They’re just fine now that we’re here.”

He shook her hand. “I hope to see you on Sunday.”

“You will. Church is one thing we try not to miss. Other than Galilee, it’s the only good thing in our lives these days.”

At her words, Gabriel felt a need to pause, to provide her with encouragement. “Do you mind if we pray?”

The woman shook her head. She motioned for another woman to join them. “This is Nancy,” she said. “She just got here. She’s going to come with me on Sunday.”

Gabriel prayed with the two women, thanking God for getting them to a safe harbor, a place of refuge. He prayed for infinite mercy and sustained grace. When he finished, he warmly shook each woman’s hand, offering a “God bless you.”

Susan didn’t say anything about the impromptu prayer meeting as they moved on.

“Upstairs are the bedrooms. We can accommodate up to a dozen women for six to nine months each. There’s space for another six, but only for short-term stays, no more than eight weeks.”

“This place is huge,” he said as he passed by yet another woman who looked vaguely familiar to him. “What was this building before you moved in?”

“A drug-infested eyesore,” Susan said. “But if you mean originally, it was a mansion, a single-family home that belonged to a prominent businessman. He’d had a falling-out with his family and left no heirs. Over time, the property changed hands, the neighborhood changed characteristics, and before long, this grand old house became nothing more than another blight on the block.

“When the Galilee Foundation purchased it from the city, it was with the provision that we assume all debt and residential responsibilities.”

“Residential? I thought you said it was abandoned.”

“Abandoned by its owners. But not by the homeless and the drug-addicted, not to mention truants, who’d claimed it as their own. There was a lot of tiptoeing around issues back then.”

“Have you always worked with the shelter?”

She gave him an odd little look, something that in such a fleeting moment gave him no time to dissect.

“You could say that,” she said.

Gabriel sensed there was more to the story, but Susan didn’t elaborate as they paused in the lounge, at yet another wall quilt.

“This work is spectacular,” he said, taking a step closer to inspect the stitching.

“You know something about quilting?”

He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Enough to know when I’m looking at fine craftsmanship.”

Susan smiled but didn’t say anything.

“I wonder if this artist takes commissions,” Gabriel mused. “It would be nice to have a wall art quilt hanging in the vestibule or maybe in the fellowship hall.”

“That could probably be arranged,” Susan said.

Something in her tone, a dry note, made him look at her. “What?”

“Nothing,” Susan said. “Those pieces don’t come cheap.”

“I wouldn’t expect them to.”

“Come on,” Susan prompted. “I’ll show you the play areas for children.”

Half an hour later, they finished the tour of the shelter. Gabriel had remained quiet through most of it, only asking for clarification on a point now and then.

Then he looked speculative. “May I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“What’s the likelihood of a single congregation having multiple cases of domestic violence?”

Susan considered the question for a minute, understanding that he was trying to come to grips with what he was seeing. “It depends on a number of things,” she said. “The size of the church. The backgrounds and situations of the people who attend. Statistics show that young boys who witness physical violence against their mothers are likely to grow up to be abusers, and girls who are exposed to domestic violence as children run the risk of later becoming involved with an abusive partner.”

“So the cycle never ends.”

“We work to educate here,” Susan told him. “To reduce the odds. As far as a single church’s ratio of domestic violence cases, the probability gets higher, the more people you have in a congregation.”

Gabriel looked troubled. “But you can’t tell by looking?”

Susan shook her head. “That’s one of the challenges we face—the perception that you can just look at someone and tell if that person is being abused or is an abuser. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. Domestic violence doesn’t know income, economic, racial or cultural boundaries. And domestic violence doesn’t just mean physical violence. It can take many forms.”

Gabriel had seen no less than five women he recognized from Good Shepherd. Unless he’d completely missed his mark, Good Shepherd was having a domestic violence problem. And if what Susan said was true, there was no way for him to know if a church member or couple was in trouble unless something was said or a couple came in for counseling.

Was he so out of touch with his membership that he hadn’t even realized that?

As if reading his mind, Susan said, “It helps when local leaders can see firsthand the work we do here. I especially wanted you, as the new pastor of Good Shepherd, to be on board with our mission and goals.”

“I’m seeing your mission,” he said. “What are those goals?”

“You’re just seeing a part of the big picture, Reverend. I’d like to show you the rest on another day.”

He hedged. “I have quite a busy schedule.”

“Too busy to make a connection with a neglected part of the community? To meet the people who for too long have had a blind eye turned to their suffering?”

“I sense of note of censure,” he said.

Susan shrugged. “I think it’s deserved,” she said, pulling no punches.

He raised a brow, reminded that beautiful roses had deadly thorns.

“Pardon me for being so blunt,” Susan said. “But there is a need here in this community, the very community served by Galilee, yet despite today, we haven’t been able to get an audience with anyone from Good Shepherd.”

“I’m here now.”

“Only because I corralled you.”

He tucked his hands in the pockets of his slacks. “You have an interesting approach, Mrs. Carter. I thought the idea was to garner my cooperation.”

“It was. And is,” she said. “The frustration is a result of what it took to get your attention.”

Gabriel looked at her in a new light. Had she flirted with him at the picnic just to get him to agree to visit her shelter?

“That’s why I wanted you to visit Galilee, Reverend Dawson. It’s one thing for people to make a financial commitment to a nameless, faceless charity or cause. It’s something else entirely when you can make the personal connection. When you can look into the eyes of someone who needs help or talk to someone who has been helped.”

Gabriel considered what she had said. This time he didn’t mistake the censure in her voice. It was a quiet but definitive reproach. “What have I done that makes you so hot under the collar?”