Free Rose Madder by Stephen King Page B

her remaining courage—the last thirty-six hours had taken a great deal of it—Rosie asked if she could spend the night at Daughters and Sisters.
    â€œQuite a bit longer than that, if you need to,” Anna replied. “Technically speaking, this is a shelter—a privately endowed halfway house. You can stay up to eight weeks, and even that is an arbitrary number. We are quite flexible here at Daughters and Sisters.” She preened slightly (and probably unconsciously) as she said this, and Rosie found herself remembering something she had learned about a thousand years ago, in French II: L’état, c’est moi. Then the thought was swept away by amazement as she really realized what the woman was saying.
    â€œEight . . . eight . . .”
    She thought of the pale young man who had been sitting outside the entrance to the Portside terminal, the one with the sign in his lap reading HOMELESS & HAVE AIDS , and suddenly knew how he would feel if a passing stranger for some reason dropped a hundred-dollar bill into his cigar-box.
    â€œPardon me, did you say up to eight weeks?”
    Dig out your ears, little lady, Anna Stevenson would say briskly. Days, I said—eight days. Do you think we’d let the likes of you stay here for eight weeks? Let’s be sensible, shall we?
    Instead, Anna nodded. “Although very few of the women who come to us end up having to stay so long. That’s a point of pride with us. And you’ll eventually pay for your room and board, although we like to think the prices here are very reasonable.” She smiled that brief, preening smile again. “You should be aware that the accommodations are a long way from fancy. Most of the second floor has been turned into a dormitory. There are thirty beds—well, cots—and one of them just happens to be vacant, which is why we are ableto take you in. The room you slept in today belongs to one of the live-in counsellors. We have three.”
    â€œDon’t you have to ask someone?” Rosie whispered. “Put my name up before a committee, or something?”
    â€œI’m the committee,” Anna replied, and Rosie later thought that it had probably been years since the woman had heard the faint arrogance in her own voice. “Daughters and Sisters was set up by my parents, who were well-to-do. There’s a very helpful endowed trust. I choose who’s invited to stay, and who isn’t invited to stay . . . although the reactions of the other women to potential D and S candidates are important. Crucial, maybe. Their reaction to you was favorable.”
    â€œThat’s good, isn’t it?” Rosie asked faintly.
    â€œYes indeed.” Anna rummaged on her desk, moved documents, and finally found what she wanted behind the PowerBook computer sitting to her left. She flapped a sheet of paper with a blue Daughters and Sisters letterhead at Rosie. “Here. Read this and sign it. Basically it says that you agree to pay sixteen dollars a night, room and board, payment to be deferred if necessary. It’s not even really legal; just a promise. We like it if you can pay half as you go, at least for awhile.”
    â€œI can,” Rosie said. “I still have some money. I don’t know how to thank you for this, Mrs. Stevenson.”
    â€œIt’s Ms. to my business associates and Anna to you,” she said, watching Rosie scribble her name on the bottom of the sheet. “And you don’t need to thank me, or Peter Slowik, either. It was Providence that brought you here—Providence with a capital P, just like in a Charles Dickens novel. I really believe that. I’ve seen too many women crawl in here broken and walk out whole not to believe it. Peter is one of two dozen people in the city who refer women to me, but the force that brought you to him, Rose . . . that was Providence.”
    â€œWith a capital