I turned the V.W. into the parking lot of the 
battered women's shelter where I worked night shift.  
An icy wind rocked the car, typical for January in
Denver.  The weatherman predicted snow, if you believed 
him.  I didn't.  It felt too cold.   
     I could hear the crunch of gravel under my tires 
as I pulled in.  Then I caught sight of my soon to be 
ex-Volvo in the headlights.  Roger, my soon to be
ex-husband, sat in it alone.  
     What brought him here?  He got out as I parked, and
stood staring intently into my headlights.  He looked 
suave in the same gray suit and topcoat he'd worn that 
afternoon for our session with the lawyers.  His short 
dark hair stayed neatly combed despite the weather.  
     I took my time getting out of the car.  I resisted 
the urge to smooth my own, always-unruly, dark hair.  No 
way I'd primp for him.  But I belted my red woolen coat 
around me like armor, knowing how it flattered my olive 
skin.  Then I methodically gathered purse and papers 
together, trying to think why he'd be here.  He was 
supposed to be spending his time on Monday nights with our 
sixteen-year-old daughter.  Was something wrong with
Hannah?   
     I saw him smile at me, his teeth white and straight. 
No, he wanted to charm me into something.  Still I couldn't 
help asking about her.
     He shook his head.  "I left her off at a friend of
hers on Alkire street.  She'll be home by curfew.  I wanted 
to talk to you alone without any lawyers."
     Oh, right.  "I've got to get to work."  Nothing he could
say would interest me, especially after that preliminary 
divorce hearing today.
    "It's ten to, Kaye.  You've got time to hear me out."
     I shrugged and leaned against the V.W., wishing I still 
smoked so that I could pretend coolness by lighting up.  He
and I had quit together a couple of years back.
     "Look ,if it's about me changing my name back to Berreano,
I’ve already...."
     "It's about the whole thing."  He stared down at me, 
trying to look sincere.  "I think we'd work things out better 
ourselves," he said.  "I've read where couples can save 
thousands of dollars by arranging things to suit themselves. 
Let's leave the lawyers out of it.  They only complicate 
things."
     Thousands of dollars.  Wouldn't his lawyer, Arthur 
Patterson, be thrilled to hear that?  "Why Roger Atchinson!  
I thought you liked Art."  
     He smiled that phony smile he used on clients that I 
hated so much.  "I've been thinking about what you said 
about the car."
     "Um hmm," I made my voice non-committal.
     "You said," he looked at me as though he was a good
little boy who had learned his whole lesson.  "You needed a
 new car and new furniture."
     "Roger, you know this.  The way you've structured the 
agreement, you get everything, including the house, and all
the furniture.  It was pulling teeth to get you to give me 
the little bit of money you did.  I had barely enough for a 
down payment on the house I bought.  And there you sit with 
ten times that amount stashed away in the bank.  You tried 
to make me feel lucky to get the kids' bedroom sets and the 
TV from the family room.  I sleep on a camping cot for
heaven's sake."
     "You ought to feel right at home--or should I say work?"
     It took me a minute to realize he referred to the rollaway 
cot they kept at the battered women's shelter--an amenity 
I've never used.   
     "Great Roger.  Just swell.  Another slam at my job." 
He'd never liked my job from the day I took it over two years
 ago. To hear him tell it, he'd never even contemplated an 
affair, until I worked nights.  I felt that after twenty years
 of marriage, he should be able to put up with a few nights 
without me. 
     I started to leave, but he grabbed my arm.  
     He looked at me, his face serious.  "Look, I'm sorry.  I 
shouldn't have said that.  I'm really here to try to settle 
things."
     "Yeah, what?"  
     Roger shrugged.  "The settlement, you know everything."
     "The settlement.  What settlement?  Have you heard anything
 I've said?  Everything is yours.  All you gave me were the 
mismatched linens.  Why should you get the good car too, when 
I'm the one who will never have the money to replace the old 
one?"
     "Hey, you made this decision here.  You were the one who 
wanted this divorce."
     "What did you want--a menage a trois?  I'm not moving in 
with Bambi."
     "Brenna."  He held his hand out to stop me.  "That's water 
under the bridge.  I'm trying to compromise with you here.  Now 
hear me out."  
     I closed my open mouth and glared, arms folded over my
 chest. No way I'd want anything he wanted to give me but I'd 
give him five minutes.
     "As I said, I thought about you needing furniture.  Why
 don't you take the stuff in the family room?  You've always 
liked it."
     True.  In that whole miserable professionally decorated
house, the family room was the only real place to relax.  Roger 
and I bought the furniture together.  The serene blues and sand 
colors of the room reflected the colors of the beach I grew up 
near back East.  The room's casual, laid-back feel would look 
wonderful in my new house.  No more lounging on floor pillows.  
And if I didn't have to spend money on furniture, maybe I could 
afford a good second hand car soon.
     "I've decided to redecorate anyway."
     He would redecorate for that bimbo and expect me to be
happy with the castoffs?  I forced myself to look off somewhere
else for a moment trying to master my anger.  The cold crept 
into my bones, and I shook with it and my rage, equal parts. 
 I heard the crunch of heels on the gravel.  
     Amanda Gannon, a tall athletic blonde came around the side 
of the safe house and waved, then got into her red Neon.  
Normally we had a curfew for residents, but Amanda worked a night
job at a factory manufacturing kidney dialysis equipment, so we 
made an exception for her--in more ways than one.  Most of our 
residents were victims of abuse.  But a judge, known throughout
 the Denver area for his quirky sentencing, remanded Amanda here 
for beating up her husband, George.  She claimed self-defense--
but I didn't see any bruises on her.  George ended up in the
emergency room.  I waved back, but I couldn't make myself look
happy.  Luckily she didn't appear to be feeling chatty either.  
The red taillights of her car disappeared out of the driveway 
before I could make myself respond to Roger. 
     I drew myself up to my full five foot two, but I made my
voice smooth, though I felt like gritting my teeth.  "Sure, I'll
take the furniture."       
     Roger put that fake smile on again, talking to me through it, 
giving the impression of a puppet with an immovable jaw.   "That's 
great.  Then it's settled.  I'll talk to Patterson tomorrow, let
 him know."
     I held my hand up, trying to act calm.  "But I want the Volvo
 too."
    "Too?  Yeah, right Kaye."  Mister calm-and-collected's voice
was rising.  His smile looked more like clenched teeth.  "That's 
not the deal."
     "That's the deal I want." 
     "Listen, I'm not going to stand here while you try to take 
advantage," he shouted.
     "Fine.  Don't."  I smiled now, as I hadn't been able to 
smile at Amanda just moments earlier, a heady, I've-won-this
-one smile.  I walked away with the satisfying conviction that
 I'd pricked Roger's sugary shell.  At least I felt satisfied 
until I saw a cluster of women at the red curtained window of
 the brick bungalow, watching their night counselor have a 
fight with her estranged husband.  Then like a balloon the day
after the party, all the air came rushing out.
          -------------------------------------------------------  
     The kitchen felt warm after the chill outside.  I closed the 
door  slowly.  
The women had moved from the window to gather around the red
Formica and chrome table, talking.  The shelter had used the table
long enough for it to develop retro-chic, like the rest of the room.
I hated retro-chic.  I would have loved to remodel the whole room,
from its glass fronted birch cabinets down to its rounded top
refrigerator.  If we only had the money.       
     Right about then it felt as though the room was filled to
bursting with every resident in the house.  When I really looked,
there were only three of them.  They stopped talking abruptly.  
Somehow I faced them, making myself look every single woman in the
eye.  
     They applauded.        
     Mary Ellen sat with her hands primly in her lap on one end of
the table.  In the middle, Nicky, Mary Ellen's young and pregnant 
roommate stretched her long, black stretchpant clad legs.  Closest
to me lounged  Barbara Washburn, wearing red sweats that warmed her
 cocoa skin, but did nothing for her short chubby figure.
     "Look, guys, I'm sorry you had to see that."  I felt my face 
getting hot with embarrassment.  
     "Way to go, Kaye," said Barbara, dunking a cookie in her mug, 
then raising the mug towards me in salute. 
     "Really.  We have to show these S.O.Bs what's what," said Nicky,
her whole, tiny, pointed face smiling.  She looked tired.  Harried as
I felt, I noticed that.  Tired, but proud of me.  She swung her legs
to the ground and got up to get another pop from the stash she kept
in the fridge.  She didn't even appear pregnant from the back.  
     Even Mary Ellen nodded and smiled, although I knew that her
religion didn't believe in divorce.  Dressed in a beige double-knit
shirtdress, her long mousy hair escaping from its tight braid, she
looked like a stereotype  of the bookkeeper she was.   
     Embarrassed, I shook my head and headed for the office, hoping
for some time alone to calm down.  Unfortunately, the sleeping porch
office was already occupied.  My boss, Liz Windfield looked up from
her gray steel desk calmly.  The woman had her shoulder cried on at
least a couple of times a day.  Her gray eyes narrowed in concern, 
as she pushed the sleeves of her soft plum sweater up to her elbows.
She said, "Want to tell me about it?"
     I didn't.  I shook my head and made a business of taking my coat
off so I didn't have to look at her.  "Personal problems," I said. 
     She shrugged her sturdy shoulders and nodded as though she'd 
expected that answer and proceeded to update me on the day's changes.
      Nicky had found an apartment and hoped to move in about a week.
Cindy had a lead on a job, but seemed afraid to take it since the
 man who wanted to hire her knew her husband well.
     We had a possible new one coming in.  A shelter in L.A. had a 
woman trying to get away from a Crips gang member, and she could
arrive that night or the next.  
     I frowned.  "That's pretty dumb.  The Crips have people here
in Denver too."
    Liz said, "If it's a problem, we'll pass her on to somewhere
else."
    I nodded.  We'd done this kind of thing before, acting as a
sort of underground for women who got involved with guys in gangs
or organized crime.
     I sighed, took Liz's notes and told her goodbye.
     Most of the women settled down early.  I had a few sporadic
crisis calls.  One woman wanted to know if slapping constituted
abuse.  When I assured her it did, she got quiet and got off the
 phone quickly.  The house stayed peaceful except for the barely
 heard thump of a bass coming from someone's boom box.  I took 
the time to catch up on some of the reading on counseling that I 
needed to do.
     The phone rang again, "Beginnings, Battered Women's Shelter."
     "What a crock.  Ain't no battered women there," he whispered.
     I leaned forward as though that would help me hear, but the
 only word I could make out next was "dykes." 
     "Can I help you?"  I knew I sounded irritated.
     He laughed.  "I'm gonna help you, Honey.  Get all those ladies
 out of there and send them home to their husbands where they belong 
before it's too late."
     "Too late for what?"  
     "That's all I'm gonna say.  You just make sure you listen."
With a click, he was gone.
     Harassing phone calls were part of the routine, but we tried to
be careful about them.  You never knew.  I called security who 
promised to get with the phone company and the police.  I also noted
it in my shift log.  In other words, I did what I could to make sure
everything was all right.  But I still felt unnerved.  Glancing out 
the window across from my desk, I even thought I saw something move 
outside.  I stood up so quickly, I almost toppled the rickety 
office chair.  I pressed my nose to the window.  Snow swirled 
against the cold glass pane.  The fenced back yard was empty.
     I was letting this get to me.  I needed to think about 
something else for a minute and calm down.  I looked at my watch-
-Nine o'clock.  I decided to call home to see if Hannah made it in. 
My hand was on the phone almost before I completed the thought.  
     "Hello?"  RJ dropped his voice an octave, trying to sound 
older, I guess.  Mostly he sounded out of breath.  
     I heard Hannah say loudly enough to compete with the music
in the background, "Oh yes, RJ, you jerk.  Give me the phone." 
     "Don't fight, kids," I said automatically, for what good it
did.
     He dropped the phone, and I heard them scuffling and 
breathing hard.  Just when I was wondering if I should call someone
in to work to cover for me so I could go home, RJ shouted, "Hannah, 
you dork, it's Mom."
     Then the heavy breathing stopped, and the music volume went
way down.  RJ came back on the line.
     "What in the name of all that's wonderful is going on?"  I 
asked, gritting my teeth so I wouldn't yell. 
     "Nothing," he said in that innocent voice that would have 
tipped me right off, even if I hadn't heard the scuffle.  Right 
now it was play, but Hannah wouldn't take much before she got mad.
     "RJ?  Hannah does not have to have your permission to be on 
the phone."
     "She's been on the phone all night with Josh.  I'm sick of it."
     "You leave the phone alone.  Do I have to call your father to
go over there and baby-sit you two?"
     "What?  No."  
     I'd never threatened that one before, and RJ definitely didn't 
like it.  I filed that away for future reference.  Not that I was 
likely to carry it out, considering Roger's attitude toward my job.   
     "Then leave the phone and your sister alone."
     "I will."  His promise seemed genuine.  I decided to take him
at face value.
     "So except for this, how's it going?"
     "Fine." 
     "Did you lock both doors?"
     "Yes, Mom, we locked the doors."
     "Got your homework done?"   
     "I'm working on it."
     "How about Hannah?  Is her homework done?"
     "She's doing hers, too."    
     I could tell from his long-suffering voice as I questioned him 
that he wished he had let Hannah have the phone.  He kept it 
perfectly polite, but he sounded bored.  
     "All right, I'll stop nagging you," I said.  "But you behave."
     "I always do, don't I?" 
     "I love you, RJ.  Tell Hannah I said goodnight."  
     I missed home's cheerful noise as soon as I put the receiver 
back on the cradle.  The phone seemed to be dead after that.  I felt 
restless, and uneasy.
     About two-thirty I heard a knock, and went to let Amanda in, 
her work shift done.  She didn't speak, just waved a tired hand, 
and took her long, muscular body upstairs.  I thought she'd gone to 
bed, and I wished I could do the same.  Not long after that, I heard 
noises in the back hall.  Sometimes Amanda headed to the kitchen 
after her work shift for a little snack before she went to sleep.  
I got up and stretched cramped legs as I walked down the hall.  The 
kitchen was dark.  All I could hear was the hum of the refrigerator.
The noise I'd heard must have been the heater or the house settling
 or something.  
     I went back to the office and flopped down in the battered desk
chair, wrapping the neon afghan around me.  The house felt chilly 
and empty, and it was one of those nights when I wondered if Roger 
wasn't right about this job.  
     It must have been close to three when I heard a loud buzzing 
noise.  I jumped up, flung the afghan back on the chair and raced 
into the hall before my conscious mind realized that the blaring 
mechanical drone was the fire alarm.  
     Smoke billowed from Mary Ellen and Nicky's room.  I had to 
get everyone out.  
     "Mary Ellen!  Nicky!"  I roared out their names, pounding on 
their door with my fists.  It felt hot under my hands.  I'd had 
enough training to know that I should leave it closed if it felt 
hot. 
     Oh, God, now what?  I'd forgotten the fire extinguisher.  
Should I run back and get it? 
       Thick dark smoke dimmed the hall light above me.  No, 
first the fire department.
     I couldn't handle this by myself.  Our alarm would alert 
our security company, but I couldn't wait for them to call to 
confirm before they turned it into the fire department.  The 
women and kids inside that room didn't have that long.   
     I ran back to the office and dialed 911.  "It's Beginnings.  
I mean, this is Beginnings Battered Women's shelter."   
     "Yes ma'am," said the unruffled voice of the operator.
"And you are?"
     "Kaye Atchinson--Berreano, I'm the counselor.  We've got a
fire."
     "We're on our way, Ma'am." 
     "Hurry."  I banged the phone down then ran up the stairs
for the rest of the women.  I raced from room to room, banging 
on doors, yelling over the screech of the upstairs alarms.  
"Come on.  Everyone out.  Now.  This isn't a fire drill."   
     The stairwell acted as a conduit, so the smoke already 
clouded the upstairs hall.  Doors began to open, and a chorus 
of buzzes filled the air as individual bedroom smoke alarms 
responded.  Shrieking dark figures stumbled for the stairs,
 some shepherding smaller crying shapes.        
     I followed close behind them.  "Come on.  Come on,
hurry."  Smoke caught in my throat making my voice hoarse, but
 I tried to sound calm and authoritative.  I watched the last
 woman disappear down the murky stairs then inspected each 
room to make sure that everyone in the upper part of the 
house was out.  Then I returned to the downstairs bedroom.   
     The door was still closed and if possible hotter than
before.  Oh dear Lord, why didn't either of these women wake 
up?  Nicky had two kids as well as her unborn baby.  It 
wouldn't take much of this kind of smoke to kill them. I had 
to get them out. I ran to the bathroom and got a towel, wet 
it and tied it mask like around my face.  Then taking a deep 
breath, I went in.  Heat and smoke hit me in the face.  My 
eyes teared about the makeshift mask.  I couldn't see 
anything except the fire below the window.
    Smoke billowed toward me, powered by the air from the 
open window.  As I watched, the air from the open door fanned
 the flames to the ceiling.  I could feel the heat scorching 
me from here.  I had to get out of there.  I had to get 
these people out of there.  
     "Nicky!  Mary Ellen!"  I screamed as I started 
feeling around blindly.  Nothing but clothes on the floor.  
Thank God.  I'd had pictures in my mind of children collapsed
by the door.  I felt around some more.  
     I could hear the crackling of the flames as I searched.  
Why didn't the alarm go off in here?  The bottom beds were 
empty--which meant Nicky's kids got out.  Thank God.  Maybe 
they'd all escaped.  I stood on a lower bunk and felt around
one of the upper bunks one more time to make sure.       
     No.  Someone lay still in the bed.  
     I felt around, since I couldn't see.  Too slender to be 
Nicky's pregnant body.  
     "Mary Ellen," I screamed in her ear, and shook her.  This
had to be more than just a deep sleep.  I grabbed her shoulders 
and tried to drag her out of her bed.  "Unh," I grunted as I 
heaved--hard as I could.  Tears poured down my face, the upper 
half of her body moved with me, but her legs still lay tangled 
in the bed sheets.  She dangled awkwardly from my arms.  How 
could someone so thin be so heavy? 
     Where happened to the fire department?  What was taking so 
long?  I stood for a moment with Mary Ellen in my arms, 
screaming and crying.  "God, what is going on?  Mary Ellen,
 wake up.  Help me, I can't do this alone."  I shook her again 
and almost lost my grip on her.  My knees buckled under her 
weight.  I had to do something.  Sweat ran down into my eyes, 
and I coughed uncontrollably through my makeshift towel-mask.     
     "Help!"  I yelled through the smoke.  The snapping, 
popping sound of the fire was the only response I heard.