Read When Love Finds a Home for Free Online Page A

glowed beneath the overhead light. Rona laid the clothes from
the box on the bed and prodded the mattress with her fingertips. The bed was
soft and warm to the touch, as she remembered a bed being. Across the room,
several lively-looking black and white porcelain kittens posed in playful
settings across the top of an old scarred dresser. Rona went over to look at
them. There were six figurines, each approximately three inches tall. One of
them had a small butterfly perched upon the tip of its paw. The expression of
sheer pleasure on the kitten's face brought tears to Rona's eyes. She rubbed a
shaking, cracked fingertip across the kitten's face and marveled at the
uncomplicated beauty of the scene. She tried to remember the last time she'd
seen a kitten. Or even a butterfly. Embarrassed by the sudden rush of emotion,
she quickly set the figurine down.
    Unable to stop herself, Rona
looked into the wide mirror above the dresser. On the streets, she was careful
never to look at her own reflection in store windows. On the rare occasions she
was able to slip into public restrooms, she religiously avoided looking into
the tiny mirrors above the sinks. To do so would reveal what she had become,
and to see that was to admit all she had lost. She stared at the disheveled
woman staring back at her. The once short brown hair was now long and lifeless.
She touched a rough fingertip to the dark hollows around her eyes. Mary had
called her beautiful. What would she say if she could see her now? She moved
away from the mirror.
    A doorway beside the dresser
led into a small bathroom sporting a seascape motif. She quickly grabbed the
clothes from the bed and carried them into the bathroom where she stripped off
clothes that had gone far too long without being washed. She rolled the
stale-smelling clothes in the smallest wad she could and set them on the light
green tile floor before stepping into the shower. She moaned in pleasure as the
water poured over her. She had once thought the hardest aspect of poverty would
be the lack of food and shelter, but she now knew it was the loss of dignity.
It hadn't taken her long to learn that being homeless quickly robbed her of the
most basic of human need—privacy. Of all the things she no longer possessed,
privacy was the most dear. She ate, slept, bathed and relieved herself in
public. During her first few days on the street, she had tried to maintain the
same sense of propriety and uphold the social mores instilled in her as a
child. She soon learned the streets had an entirely different set of rules.
    Determined to enjoy the first
real shower she'd had in months, Rona pushed away all thoughts and concentrated
on the luxurious pleasure of hot water cascading over her body. She found
shampoo, soap and a razor among the items on the shower shelves and took her
time putting them all to use. After triple washing every square inch of her
body, she reluctantly turned the shower off and wrapped herself in one of the
enormous fluffy sea-green bath towels. In the medicine cabinet, she found a
small plastic comb, deodorant, a new toothbrush and toothpaste. After combing
her hair, she vigorously cleaned her teeth and felt the first shreds of
humanity returning.
    Before slipping into the new
clothes, she meticulously cleaned the shower and left everything as tidy as she
had found it. The clothes were meant to fit someone shorter, but they felt
wonderful to her.
    Chapter Five
    Rona tapped on Tammy's door
and smiled as a freshly scrubbed Katie opened it. She was wearing a T-shirt
from the box. It hung below her knees.
    "Mama's still in the
bathroom," she announced as she grabbed Rona's hand and pulled her into
the room.
    Karla was sitting on the floor
flipping through a magazine.
    Rona sat down beside her.
"What have you got?" As she got a closer look, she realized it was a
flower seed catalog.
    Karla scrunched over closer to
her. "A book with pretty flowers." She thrust the catalog into Rona's
hands. "Read it to