Free Mother of Prevention by Lori Copeland Page A

airport. Rain hit the windows in sheets. After we left the plane both girls and I were drenched to the core by the time we hailed a cab and piled into the back seat.
    The cab took us to The Crab Corner—four-star accommodations, according to the travel agent. Somehow The Crab had dropped a couple of stars by the time we got there. I opened the door to the dingy-smelling room and dissolved in tears.
    Kelli and Kris sat me down on the lumpy bed, and then sat next to me. We all had a good cry. Finally Kris got up and plugged in the small coffeepot and made a cup of hot tea. She carried the offering to me, urging me to drink the warm liquid. By now Kelli had fallen over on the awful-looking crab-patterned spread and fallen asleep. One lone piece of gum rattled around in my daughter’s belly.
    I took a sip from the cup, and the liquid was so strong my eyes burned, but I drank it anyway.
    If I’d been speaking to God, I’d have been asking a lot of questions, demanding to know why He’d do this to me and my girls. He was supposed to be a just and loving God, and there was nothing just or loving about my situation.
    The tea brought me around. Kris had located the thermostat and turned off the air-conditioning and turned on the heat. Warmth filled the smoke-drenched room. I started to come back to life.
    “We’d better leave our clothes in the luggage,” I told Kris. I didn’t trust the old chest of drawers to be bug free.
    When Kelli woke, we left the room and the three of us waded deep puddles to a fast-food chain sitting in front of a huge, garish pink crab statue. We ate hamburgers and fries. Later we walked around the hotel pool, the facility looking rather bleak, like an ocean after a hurricane. Leaves floated on brackish water; wind had overturned lounges and chairs. Some kid had left a green beach towel and a pair of white sneakers lying beside the pool.
    I turned a chair upright and sat down, staring at the dreary sight, knowing with every ounce of perception that San Francisco wasn’t going to be the healing oasis I’d hoped it would be.
     
    Nine o’clock the following morning, Burt Baker of New Homes Realty picked us up. It would have been nice if we could have started yesterday afternoon, but as long as the real estate agent had houses, I had no complaint. Well, not many. The girls climbed into the back seat of Burt’s van, and I took the passenger seat. Burt already knew my budget; it would be hard to find anything in the Bay Area for my price, but he was willing to try, he said, flashing me a three-million-actual-dollar-sales-this-year smile.
    Kelli leaned forward and told him how much Neil’s insurance policy was worth, and I reached back and clapped a hand over her mouth. Was nothing sacred to a child?
    The first house in my price range scared me. We walked through the “roomy fixer upper,” kicking trash out of our path. The occupants had cats. I spotted cat hair hanging off the one overhead fan in the living area. The cat’s litter box was in the bathtub adjacent to the guest bedroom. The litter had not been changed in what I guessed to be aeons. My eyes watered from the stench and I quickly left the room. Kris and Kelli were not so discreet; they held their noses, making noises like gross, eweeee and my personal favorite, pea yew, while we toured the remainder of the house.
    “Needs a little work,” Burt said, “but fresh paint and new wallpaper will make a huge difference. Lot of possibilities,” he added, pausing to admire the pitted oak woodwork.
    The only possibilities I could see were a bulldozer and a dump truck to haul off the rubbish.
    “Well, I have more!” Burt said when he realized I was underwhelmed, to say the least. And indeed Burt did.
    For the next six hours the girls and I tramped through equally nauseating possibilities. Then Burt drove us to the “for just a little more” listings. These were minimal improvement; one or two actually demonstrated potential, but the prices