Alessa’s visit with her family, she spent more of her free time in homeless shelters. Remo and Lucy were always with her. The residents at the shelters had remarked a noticeable change in Alessa. She was quieter than usual, and her characteristic enthusiasm was absent.
On a Saturday afternoon, one of the teenage boys, Harold, whom she had been working with for some time, approached Alessa in the park. He had been on the streets since he was thirteen. In the three years he had been homeless, he felt that Alessa was the only person who understood him. The boy had been offering sex for enough money to buy himself meals. Since he was gay, the other homeless teens assumed he was making money doing something he enjoyed. Alessa, however, understood the sacrifices he was making to keep himself alive. There was no pleasure in selling your soul to survive.
“Alessa,” Harold said, “I don’t know what’s wrong, but you ain’t been acting like yourself. If you need to talk to someone, I’m here to listen.”
For a change, Alessa was eager to share her feelings with someone other than Ebby or Remo.
When she finished relating what had happened with her family, Harold was pensive as he rubbed his chin with his thumb and index finger. “See, that’s the shit that makes you so special. People screw you over and you keep on barreling along like an eighteen-wheeler on an open highway. I don’t know why you feel bad. Sounds like you said all the shit you needed to say. You’ve faced your monster and you’re still here. Get over it.”
After Harold was gone, Alessa mulled over his words. Harold was dead-on with his opinion. She had to get over it. She had faced her monster and was still alive. Yes, I was raped when I was a kid, she thought to herself. Maybe that’s why I’m stronger. Get over it.
Alessa knew the people on the streets didn’t judge her for having been a stripper and a prostitute. In fact, they loved her all the more because she had used what God had given her to make a living and wasn’t embarrassed to tell people about it.
After her conversation with Harold, Alessa was more positive. She didn’t reject that maybe God had allowed this to happen to her so she could help others. Maybe he had wanted her to find Lucy. Maybe God had needed her to suffer so she could understand the suffering of others and help them heal. She realized her line of thinking was theatrical, the stuff you saw in the movies, but it was better than assuming she deserved to be punished for her past.
In bed that night, Alessa was staring at the ceiling. “Remo, are you awake?”
“I am now,” he answered in a groggy tone.
“When I get my degree and a job, I’m going to open a shelter for the homeless. You know, a safe house for young girls or young mothers with kids.”
Remo rolled over and scooped her into him. “That sounds like a good idea,” he murmured. “We don’t have to wait until you get your degree, though. You could use the money you saved from your dancing for a down payment on a house, and we can use my salary to pay the mortgage.”
Alessa hesitated. “Really?” she said, somewhat skeptical. “You can pay a mortgage on your salary alone? While I’m not working?”
Remo smiled. “We’ll make it happen. We don’t have to figure it all out now.”
Alessa stared at him, wondering if he had gone mad. “Remo,” she said, “I get what you’re saying, but we can’t do this without knowing how we’ll pay for everything.”
“Alessa, you need to jump in, sometimes, and believe,” he told her. “You need to believe like a child.”
Her expression darkened, as she wrestled with a concept so alien to her. “I don’t know what that looks like, Remo,” she said wistfully. “I never got to be a child.”
Remo realized his mistake and was furious with himself for his insensitivity. She was so strong now he’d forgotten that Alessa never had a normal childhood. She had never dreamed about her future.
“When I was a child,” Alessa said miserably, “all I focused on was how awful I felt. I dreaded every single day, never believing that better times would come, that the future could hold something positive for me.”
Alessa’s anguish twisted Remo’s gut. His heart went out to her, thinking about how much she had lost. “Well,” he said gently, “most kids live with the excitement of getting a new baseball glove or going on vacation. Kids don’t think about how good stuff happens. They know good things will come.”
Alessa smiled. “That sounds like a wonderful place to be. Can you teach me how to do that?”
“First, you have to believe. You need to expect good things to happen and they will. You are where you are today because you expected it to happen, right? You wanted a better life and believed you would have one. That’s what I’m talking about.”
Alessa burrowed herself into his bare chest. It meant everything to her that Remo loved her enough to invest in her dream. She struggled with herself, hesitating to believe it would be so simple. Then she thought about all the things that had brought her to this moment. Maybe, she thought, I do know how to believe like a child, after all.
