Sandra moved her feet off the couch and sat up as she heard the apartment door open. Curtis came in carrying a grocery bag looking anxious until he saw her and his whole body seemed to sigh.

"Hi, I'm home." He gave a little laugh and went through to the kitchen. "Everything okay? You feeling any better?"

Sandra walked to the kitchen and stood by the door. "I am, thanks." She'd sat with ice on her face for most of the afternoon and the swelling had receded a little.

Curtis unpacked the bag setting a carton of milk beside a head of lettuce and some croissants. "I brought you something." He took an envelope from his pocket and handed it to her. Sandra opened it slowly and her breath stopped. She looked at him and moved her mouth soundlessly. "I had already run your card when you were in. All I had to do was reenter the number. There's six hundred dollars there. That was the limit on your card for withdrawal."

She flipped through the bills and tried to calculate what Curtis Martin was up to. If he didn't really believe she was Arlene Maxwell then he had just committed a crime of fraud. Sandra set the envelope on the table and decided to confront his motive.

"I can't take this, Curtis. You know that it's not my money."

He put the milk away and then pulled out a chair and motioned for her to sit. "Hear me out. You told me about this friend of yours that beat you up and that he stole this card, right?" She didn't reply. "Let's just say he's the one that used the card."

"He's a man in case you didn't notice."

"It's a secondary issue, a Gerald Maxwell is the prime card holder; he can use either one."

"Why are you taking this chance, Curtis? You don't know me. You don't know who I am really. You could get arrested and lose your job... your life... as you know it."

He walked around and sat across from her. "My life... as it is right now... is pathetic. I'm thirty-nine-years old and I'm a bank teller with no prospects for advancement. I have a crappy pension, a health plan that covers little more than fifty percent of the costs and no relationships of any kind."

"Of any kind? No family? Friends?"

"I was a foster kid and I had more disinterested parents than I care to count. As for friends, well they all have relationships, which kinda leaves me the third wheel at all occasions."

"Curtis this is not the way to go, believe me, I know." She pushed the envelope toward him and waited. If he argues for it, she knew she would milk him dry. If he agreed, she'd come in through the back door, all helpless and needy. She waited.

"I was just trying to help. I saw a woman in distress and I saw an opportunity to do something that might have some meaning." He picked up the envelope and let it flop up and down against the tabletop. "Am I a fool?"

She bit back her opinion and put her hand over his. "Not at all, Curtis. You're a good-hearted person who just let his compassion overtake his common sense. I can't let you do this. I'll manage another way... somehow. You put that back tomorrow and protect yourself."

"But I still want to help you..." He closed his eyes and wiggled his head. "I can't call you Arlene when I know..."

"It's Sandra. Call me Sandra." She squeezed his hand in hers. Curtis placed his other hand over hers and lifted it to his lips.

"You deserve help, Sandra and I want to be the one to give it to you."

She stood and walked around to where he sat and put her arms about him pulling his head to her chest. He moaned slightly and Sandra held him there, making the most of her braless advantage. After a moment she pushed his head back and bent down placing a tender kiss on his cheek.

"I'd like to do more but my face..."

"Oh God, don't worry about it. You just go and make yourself comfortable in the livingroom, I'll get dinner ready for both of us." He stood and assisted her to the couch, making sure she was completely comfortable, fluffing cushions and propping them behind her and then darted back to the kitchen and began working with a flurry of doors opening and closing and pots and pans banging.

Sandra afforded herself a satisfied grin. For Curtis this was going to be one long and very expensive project. lay back with her eyes closed letting her mind drift to another time.

******

Sandra Lawlor sat on the swing in her grandmother's back yard and let her momentum from a vigorous series of pumps carry her back and forth as she listened to the screaming argument inside the house. When her mother's boyfriend had arrived smelling of booze and perfume and throwing his weight around, she had been sent outside while the adults carried on more like children.

Grandma Lawlor was a nice but useless when it came to personal confrontations and she could only stand and wring her hands, as her daughter screamed profanities and clobbered her current swain with a wooden rolling pin. Sandra stared at the ground under feet, as it seemed to be the thing that moved back and forth instead of her.

She only heard some of the words, words that would have meant an early to bed and a thrashing if she'd ever uttered them. When the front door slammed and the car rocketed out of the drive and away, Grandma Lawlor had come down the steps to the yard with a glass of juice and a cookie and told Sandra that everything would be fine now. Less than a month later the episode was repeated almost scene for scene.

Another ride on the swing. Another glass of juice and a cookie. Her mom could really pick them. Sandra wondered if all those years of different 'uncles' and the abusive behaviour had ingrained themselves in her own psyche. Was that why she ran away from home and tried everything she'd been raised to avoid? The jail time certainly hadn't helped and the news certainly didn't help Grandma Lawlor either; she just went to bed one night and never got up again.

******

Gabe slammed the hotel room door and swore aloud as he marched to the fridge and yanked out a beer can, ripping off the top and spilling most of the first mouthful down his front. Sandra hadn't returned and when he took a walk past the bank there had been no sign of her. Not in any of the places around or on the street. His problem was that he didn't really know if she had bugged out on him with the money from the card or whether she really was hurt and went to some clinic or hospital. He didn't think so.

The bitch pulled a fast one. Now his problem was what to do. He had a car but little money and it was tougher knocking off these joints and having to drive as well; he needed her in spite of how he felt. That thought made him even angrier and he paced about the room verbally calming himself.

Gabe decided he would drive by the bus station and see if she was there or had been, and then maybe the train station. He didn't think she'd have the balls to rent a car, not with all that phony ID and looking like she'd fought a friggin' kangaroo. He drained the can of beer and charged back out to his car.