craft room where Ebby was chatting with another woman. One look at her and Ebby could tell the girl was terror-stricken. She rushed over to her. “What’s wrong?” she asked breathlessly.
Alessa told her about Tasha’s phone call. “Ebby, you have no idea what he will do to me. Nobody gets one over on Harlin. I need to leave this place now. Otherwise, he will find me and kill me or worse, take me back to North Philly. Oh, Ebby, I can’t go back there again,” she wailed, flinging herself into Ebby’s arms.
Ebby assessed the situation quickly. She didn’t want to lose Alessa to the streets again, but she would also have to consider the safety of the other women in the shelter. She led Alessa to her office and asked one of the staff members to have the shelter director come and see her. “Tell him it’s an emergency,” she said.
Ebby sat Alessa down on her small sofa and seated herself beside her. The girl clung to her and cried, her mind racing ahead to consider what her next step should be. Perhaps she could move to another shelter in the city?
Jon, the director, came into Ebby’s office within minutes. A handsome Black man, he was six feet, two inches tall and had the physique of a bodybuilder. “What’s going on?” he asked. Jon’s voice rang with authority and commanded immediate respect.
As Ebby explained the situation to him, the edge of concern in her voice did not escape him. The next moment, he picked up the phone and dialed the Philadelphia Police Department. They had experience dealing with this kind of situation in shelters all over the city. In the past, pimps and abusive partners had gone looking for the women who had fled to the shelter for safety. Jon stepped out of Ebby’s office for a few minutes and returned with one of the staff members, who led Alessa to the office across the hall.
When they were alone, Jon turned to Ebby again. “What’s going on?” he inquired. “We’ve been through this a hundred times, but I’ve never seen you this shaken.”
Ebby explained the relationship between Harlin and Alessa. “It goes beyond him pimping her out, Jon. This man sounds like the Godfather of North Philly,” she said. “Alessa has seen him kill a man. From what she told me, this Harlin character opened a guy up with a knife from the stomach to the sternum. He was protecting Alessa after he caught another man raping her. However, since then, he has been earning a pile of money by forcing her to have sex with other men. It’s a real knight in shining armor tale.”
Jon grunted his acknowledgment of the situation as someone knocked on the office door. The Philadelphia Police arrived within minutes. The two told the officers about Harlin, without divulging all the details that Alessa had shared. The policemen knew the routine. They could gauge from Jon’s expression that this thug, Harlin, could become a real problem for Alessa and everyone else at the shelter. To be on the safe side, they posted two men inside the shelter lobby.
The officer-in-charge turned to Ebby. “Ma’am,” he told her crisply, “she has to be moved out of here today. We can help with transportation, but you must find somewhere else for her to go. We wouldn’t recommend moving her to another shelter in the city because that will be the first place the guy goes looking.”
After the police had left, besides the two officers staked out in the lobby, Ebby brought Alessa back into her office and sat her down. Knowing the police were in the building had calmed Alessa down so she could think more clearly. Ebby explained to her she would have to leave the shelter, both for her safety and for that of the others who lived and worked there. Alessa frantically searched her mind for a response but could find none.
“You’re not in this alone, Alessa,” Ebby reassured her. “I’m going to help you, but you need to be strong. You were strong enough to leave Harlin. And now you have to be stronger still. I’ll be honest with you. This is not going to be easy. I’m in this with you, though. I’ll do everything I can to help you, okay?”
Alessa nodded.
“Do you think you might be able to stay with your sister, Rosabella, for a couple of weeks?”
Unsure of everything now, Alessa shrugged. “I don’t know, Ebby. I haven’t talked to her in almost two years. My family doesn’t even know if I’m dead or alive.”
“Well, I think it may be worth a try,” Ebby decided, leading the girl to her desk. “Do you think you could call her?”
Reluctantly, Alessa agreed and gave her sister’s full name and last known address. Ebby dialed Information and got Rosabella’s telephone number from the operator. Then she looked at Alessa. “Are you ready?” she asked.
Alessa nodded. Ebby dialed the number she had been given and handed the receiver to her.
Rosabella answered on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Hi, Rosabella, it’s Alessa. How are you?”
It took a few seconds for this information to sink in. “How am I?” Rosabella responded. “I’m fine. Alessa, where the hell are you? I thought you were dead. Uncle Danny told everyone that some creep had come and picked you up the night you left. He said you had told him that you hated all of us and if he tried to stop you, the dude you were with would kill him. Mom acted upset at first, and everyone felt sorry for her. The way she presented it, it was all about her. She played the grieving mother to perfection. She got a lot of attention for a while, and you know how she thrives on attention. Anyway, at that point, the family and the neighbors were bringing in food and stuff.”
Alessa was silent as she listened to Rosabella. She had been right all along. They had never made a serious effort to look for her. And her Uncle Danny had gone out of his way to make it her fault. He’s a rotten bastard.
“Rosabella, none of that is true. None of those things ever happened. I left because I couldn’t live there anymore. Uncle Danny wasn’t very nice to me, and once Rhonda died, I was like a prisoner in the house,” Alessa explained.
By Alessa’s tone, Rosabella suspected there was more to the story. Their mother was not only a liar, but someone who lived in denial, the queen of her fantasy world, believing only what suited her. Rosabella had no respect for their mother, but she had not thought to share her feelings with her younger sister. “Where are you?” she asked.
“I’m in the city. I came here after I left home. I was living in North Philadelphia until a couple of weeks ago. Rosabella, I’m in trouble. This guy is looking for me, and I need a place to stay where he won’t find me. He’s very dangerous. I ran from him when he turned me out on the street to prostitute for him. He does a lot of drugs, and I watched him kill a man. Do you think I could come and stay with you for a couple of weeks?”
Rosabella hesitated. “I’d love to help you out. Really, I would. But since you left, I’ve had a baby, and I’m living with my boyfriend now. He was okay, at first. But he’s turned out to be a big loser. I have to ask his permission for anything I do. I could ask him about your coming to stay, but if it pisses him off—and everything seems to these days—he’ll . . . he’ll beat me.”
“O my God,” Alessa cried out, alarmed. “Why are you staying with someone like that?”
Rosabella was sobbing. “Where am I gonna go?” she mumbled between tears. “Our parents aren’t helpful, and everyone else I know either can’t or won’t take us in. It’s not like I have a lot of options. Besides, he’s okay as long as I don’t piss him off. How did our lives get so wrecked?”
“Because our parents abandoned us a long time ago,” Alessa replied sadly. “They focused on their survival at the cost of their children.” She took a deep breath before asking, “What about Anna or Anthony? Where are they?”
“Anna met some guy, got married, and moved to Arizona,” Rosabella told her. “I talk to her about once a month. She seems happy, but she did admit that her husband drinks too much. She doesn’t have any kids yet. Anthony moved out and is living with a girl he met at a bar. They seem content, but he works long, crazy hours. So I rarely get to talk to him. Being the only boy in the family, he didn’t have as difficult of a time growing up as we did. Mom always favored him over us girls. You know that whole ‘my Italian son’ bullshit. When I see him, which isn’t often, he always slips me some money to buy stuff for the baby.”
“Do I have a niece or nephew?” Alessa asked her.
“You have a niece. We named her Eva. It means the ‘breath of life.’”
It was only natural that Rosabella should choose a name based on its meaning, Alessa thought. From the remote recesses of her memory, she dredged up the meaning of her name—“defender of mankind.” Not that she felt like a defender of anything, but she cherished the fact that her grandmother had chosen the name because she had seen at least some good in her. Maybe someday, she could live up to her name, but today was not the day. Today, all she wanted was to run and hide. Get as far away from Harlin as humanly possible. “Listen,” Alessa said, “I have to go now.”
“But where will you go?” Rosabella screeched into the phone. “How will I know you’re okay? Who is this guy anyway?”
Alessa expelled a long sigh. “I’ll be fine,” she reassured her sister. “Please don’t worry about me. I’ll tell you everything once I get settled. I’ll call you then.”
“Do you promise you’ll call me?” Rosabella’s voice sounded desperate.
“Yes, I promise to call. You take care of yourself and Eva. Be safe and don’t let that goon beat on you.”
Alessa hung up the phone, having concluded that Rosabella’s life wasn’t much rosier than hers.
Ebby had overheard Alessa’s side of the conversation and didn’t need to be told that she couldn’t stay with her sister. Alessa seemed stoic as she told Ebby she would leave the shelter and figure out a solution. She was withdrawing, once again, to her quiet place, an alternative universe within her mind, from which she drew her strength.
Ebby watched her disengage and took her by the shoulders and shook her gently. “No,” she said firmly. “That’s not how it’s going to be. Go pack your belongings and meet me out in the lobby in half an hour.”
Alessa stared at her as if she were talking to her in another language. But she obeyed.
Thirty minutes later, she was back in the lobby.
Ebby was waiting for her. “Come on,” she told Alessa, “we are leaving through the back entrance.”
Stepping out into the sunlight, Alessa saw a car waiting for them. Ebby guided her to the car, and they both got in.
Ebby turned to Alessa. “The Philadelphia Police Department arranged for this car to get us out of here,” she explained. “That way, if anyone is watching, they won’t know you’re in here.”
Alessa was scared and confused. “Where are you taking me?” she asked, alarmed.
Ebby put her hand comfortingly over Alessa’s. “To my house.”
