Dóchas

Dóchas (Gaelic for “Hope”) – A shelter offering a safe place for abused women and children. It was located on the Lower West Side.

History

• Established in 2059 by Roarke

Features

• A rooftop garden was mentioned in Portrait in Death - it had dwarf trees, flowering beds, and tidy squares of vegetables, including wax beans and turnips, with straight paths lined between. A faint mist from the perpetual sprinkler system kept everything lush and watered in the blazing heat.
• From the outside, it appeared to be a “well-maintained, modest, multiresidential building”
• It included first-rate security: privacy screens on all the windows, full-scan cams, motion pads at every access, alarms, palm plate identification for entrance, keypad code and/or clearance from inside, and 24 hour security.
  • In Survivor in Death, Dóchas was put under Code Red status when Roarke had some concern for the safety of those at the shelter.
• In Visions in Death, a woman was giving birth upstairs; Louise said they had full obstetric and natal facilities, and a full-time midwife on staff

Staff

• Desi
• Louise Dimatto
• Gracie
• Natalie
• Moira O’Bannion - Head crisis counselor
• Unnamed midwife
• “Some of the best therapists, doctors, psychiatrists, and counselors in the city,” according to Louise
• Rochelle Pickering volunteered there before becoming head therapist at An Dídean, and in Connections in Death, Roarke told her “our head counselor speaks highly of you.”
• Dr. Mira volunteered there “a few times a year”

Residents

• Olivia (Livvy) and her mother in Portrait in Death
• Marly and her daughter, Abra, in Visions in Death
• Jana, who was giving birth in Visions in Death
• Elena Solas and her three daughters spent three weeks there before Salvation in Death (February, 2060)
• Misty Polinsky in Obsession in Death, who was too young, but An Dídean wasn’t open yet
• Zoe Metcalf and her young son, Gabe, went there after they escaped their Natural Order house in Faithless in Death

Other

• In Concealed in Death, Roarke told Eve that he was planning to rehab an old building into an adjunct for Dóchas. The new facility would take in children “who get sucked into the system through no fault of their own, but are mistreated or neglected by those who should tend to them” (as Eve was) and “the lost, you could say—who end up on the street trying to find a way just to survive” (as he did).
  • Eve suggested he call it Refuge, but “in Irish”: An Dídean.
• In Fantasy in Death, when Eve and Roarke are discussing the motive the remaining three owners of U-Play had for killing Bart Minnock, Roarke said, “They loved each other,” meaning they wouldn’t have killed him, but Eve replied, “That’s just one more motive. How many women and kids are in Dóchas right now, because someone loves them?” When Roarke told her, “That’s not love,” she replied, “The person doing the ass-kicking often thinks it is. Believes it is. It’s an illusion, like the game, but it feels real. A lot of nasty things grow out of love if it isn’t ... tended right. Jealousy, hate, resentment, suspicion.”
• In Connections in Death, Eve reminded Roarke, “you built Dóchas, not because of rules or lines, but because of who you are. And you’re doing the same with An Dídean.”
• In Golden in Death, Eve suggested to Roarke, “You could, potentially, have minors who come to Dóchas for shelter transferred to” An Dídean, which Roarke said was a hope.
• After Lorcan Cobbe surfaced in Shadows in Death, Eve had some cops keep an eye on An Dídean and Dóchas.

YANNI

• The correct spelling is Dóchas but it was incorrectly spelled Duchas in two books.