“How long have you lived here?” he asked Molly, one of the residents I had come to know quite well. We found her in the kitchen, making a snack for her children. She had four kids, and six months ago they had left their home in the middle of the night after her husband had smacked one of her sons in the face. They had been in the shelter ever since.
“Six months and four days,” Molly said with a stubborn chin in the air. She didn’t like pity and refused to feel sorry for herself. “Olivia found me a job a few months ago, and soon I’ll have enough saved for my kids and me to get our own place. It won’t be much, but at least it will be ours, ya know?”
William nodded and I detected a haunted look in his eyes. It was a lot for anyone to take, but I thought he was handling it well. Molly grabbed the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and left us alone in the kitchen.
“How old is she?” he asked, nodding his head to the door Molly had just exited.
“She’s twenty-two.” I opened one of the cabinets and began removing party supplies. “She has four kids under the age of six and had her first one when she was sixteen.”
“And her husband hit her?” William took the stack of tablecloths from me.
“All of the time. Her kids, too.” I looked him in the eye. “You’re going to see and hear a lot of stuff today. If you’re not up for, I completely understand. Now is the time to decide.”
“Do you really think that little of me?” William placed his armful on the counter and did the same with the bags of food I held. He took my head in both his hands and kissed me gently on the lips. “I’m not leaving. Not leaving here, and not leaving you. Deal with it.”
“Don’t say it if you don’t mean it,” I pleaded, ever-so-quietly. I wanted very badly to believe William. I needed someone like him in my life- someone to stand by me. But it was a lot to ask.
“Just give me a chance. I’ll prove it to you.” William kissed me again, and I knew at that moment I would give him a million chances to prove it to me.
CHAPTER TWO
It only took a few minutes of watching William mingle with the shelter residents to realize that I had underestimated him. The women were skeptical when I would first introduce him to them. Many of them had ended up in the shelter precisely because they had fallen for charming, attractive men. But it didn’t take long for them to see that William wasn’t like those men. The way the kids flocked to him, scampering for attention, made the mothers smile.
I didn’t have time to stand around and smile; pulling off the party was going to be harder than I thought. I had food to make, decorations to set up and kids to entertain. At one particularly frazzling moment, I stood in the kitchen staring at the floor where one of the kids had just knocked over an entire container of eggnog. I needed to get the ham out of the oven, but now a river of liquid Christmas stood in my way.
“How can I help?” William asked, noticing that I was about to tear out my hair. He reached for a roll of paper towels and tore off a bunch before handing me the roll.
It wasn’t until I looked over at him that I realized the child responsible for the mess was cowering in the corner of the kitchen, quiet tears sliding down his cheeks.
“Teddy, what’s wrong?” I forgot about the mess and knelt in front of the boy. William stepped up behind me and Teddy crouched in fear.
“Hey, it’s okay,” William said, startled.
“Teddy, look at me,” I said, as gently as possible. Teddy peaked out at me from behind his hands. “It’s okay. No one is mad at you. It’s just a little spill. No problem.”
Teddy stayed frozen, looking from me to William. He finally lowered his hands. I held out my arms to him. “Come give me a hug. Please?”
He kept his eyes on William as he crawled toward me, looking away only after I held him in my arms. I motioned for William to crouch next to us.
“William isn’t going to hurt you,” I whispered in Teddy’s ear. He lifted his head and glanced at William.
“You promise?” he said in his tiny voice.
I squeezed him tighter. “I promise. I would never let anyone hurt you.”
Teddy wouldn’t take his eyes off William, who was doing his best to look unintimidating. “I won’t hurt you, Teddy. I swear.”
Teddy swallowed and wiped tears from his cheeks. “Okay.”
William tilted his head at him and smiled warmly. “I was thinking, if you want to, maybe we could go outside and build a snowman. Does that sound fun?”
Teddy nodded shyly. “Okay.”
“Cool.” William held out his hand and Teddy took it after just a second of hesitation. William glanced at me. “I’ll take the other kids outside, too.”