"I am so sorry to hear that", says Carl.
"So am I", say I.
"Yes, very sorry", says Francisco.
"Thank you", she says quietly, closing her eyes and bowing her head. "Thank you all of you." She looks in her cup of coffee, now half empty, glances at the screen of her laptop, then renews her focus on us. "Celia was murdered. We are sure it was a bad date that did it. He was never caught. Her body was found on the side of a road in Richmond, of all places, less than a kilometre from the house where I grew up.. I hadn't heard from her for several months. At that time I was raising her daughter for her, on her request, because she didn't feel she could give Lara a safe environment. I wanted to see her more, and for her to see more of her daughter, but she was always hard to get hold of. I knew what she was doing. We never talked about it. She was too ashamed. And too proud. Six months later, I found myself down there in the industrial neighbourhood where she worked on the street. I just randomly began talking with a young indigenous sex worker who knew my daughter. They were close. And suddenly we were both weeping in each other's arms. I was already a well seasoned social worker, and Denise asked me, begged me, to start coming down there often to see them. And that is how this ministry began..."
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