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be out soon and I have to do something about summer!”
    “Let’s look around for a good community summer program for Sophie and Austin,” Corsica suggested. “It won’t be full-time, but they’re well-behaved kids. Maybe they can help around the office sometimes. And if we have a center, we have a place for our volunteers to meet, a place for women in need to go, a place for our support groups and classes.”
    “Oh, and as you know, I’ve been at work on the agenda for our third annual conference,” Dory said. “It’s going to be better than the last two. Those workshops are vital—they changed my world. Actually, I need to meet with the conference committee soon, get a report on their progress, find out who they have in mind for the workshop leaders and instructors. But first I have to find a way to get a young woman to Colorado, back to her mother, where she and her baby can be safe.”
    “We have a little money in the emergency fund,” Mel said. “This sounds like an emergency to me. Why don’t I get Simone a ticket on my charge card and the organization can reimburse me later?”
    “Do you mind? Because if you can do that, I can call Simone and tell her.” Then she shrugged. “And I’m free to drive her to the airport in Redding—the car is fixed and I…” She laughed. “I don’t have to go to work tomorrow.”
    “Dory, my love, I don’t think you’re going to have a real day off for a very long time!” Corsica said with a laugh.
     
    D ORY SPENT THE REST of the week at the old small three-bedroom house in Fortuna that was to become her group’s new resourcecenter. Along with some volunteers who were as giddy with excitement as she was, they cleaned, painted, made minor repairs and scrounged around secondhand shops for essential furniture. Mel donated the computer from her Virgin River clinic—it was time for them to upgrade their equipment anyway. The biggest expense they had was finding and buying filing cabinets that actually locked.
    They found an old desk for her office, which would occupy one of the bedrooms, a sofa and a couple of chairs for the living room, a big old distressed-oak table for the dining room and a bunch of mismatched chairs to sit around it. The stove still functioned and Mel’s husband found them a used refrigerator that worked. Dory had asked him what it cost and he’d said, “Don’t worry about it—it was practically a donation.” She knew that meant he’d purchased it.
    At the end of the school day she would fetch Sophie and Austin and take them back to the house/center, where they would help. At six and eight, they weren’t the most efficient helpers, but they tried, and at least they weren’t in expensive after-school day care.
    Having a phone installed was very important to their operation and Corsica managed to get it done quickly, pulling in all her favors. The first call Dory made was to Colorado, where she spoke to Simone at her mother’s house. The young woman was safe for the time being, but of course she had many needs, the most essential of which was some counseling, a support group of some kind—any available help to get her stronger, more sure of herself and independent, so she didn’t run the risk of repeating this disaster with yet another toxic relationship. Dory spent most of their conversation trying to point Simone in the right direction, encouraging her to search out support groups. All she could think was that nonprofit assistance to single mothers was needed everywhere. With theeconomy in such a mess, social services were tighter than ever and what government agencies considered flab—usually assistance for women and children—was always the first to go.
    At the end of the week the crowning glory came when Jack Sheridan and John Middleton presented Dory with a sign that would fit over the porch. “The Single Mother’s Resource Center.”
    Dory stood in the street in front of the house—all cleaned up, some of it painted, the