Divine (9 page)

Kami noticed her first. Her eyes lit up. She jumped off the sofa and ran toward her, arms open wide. "Mommy!"

Behind her, Kaitlyn eased herself down and came running too.

The older woman smiled and set the book down. "1 have some paperwork in my office. You three look like you'll be just fine without me," she said before she quietly left.

Emma immediately dropped to her knees. The girls came to her, and she pulled them in close to her chest. Her precious daughters. How could she overdose and leave them alone, without their mommy? The voices were wrong. Her girls needed her. A chill passed over her spine, and she felt a wave of nausea. She'd come so close. If Mary hadn't said something at the end, she might be buying the drugs right now.

Kami pulled back enough so they could see each other. "We missed you, Mommy. Where have you been?"

"Talking to a nice lady." Emma's words stuck in her throat. Looking into Kami's eyes was like looking into Mary's, the way they must've looked when Mary was a little girl. Not that they shared any physical resemblance, but there were innocence and trust in her daughter's eyes that must've been in Mary's at one time.

Until she had been kidnapped and locked in that basement.

Without warning, tears flooded her eyes and spilled onto her face. What sort of life had she made for her girls? At every turn she'd gone against her mother's wishes. Gone against God. In the process she'd exposed her girls to violent abuse and drugs.

She buried her face against them as her sobs came in waves. How many nights had she been so high that she didn't feed them dinner? And how many of Charlie's friends had been around them, holding them and teasing them? It was a miracle something hadn't already happened to them.

"Mommy—" Kaitlyn stroked her hair and dabbed her fingertips against Emma's face—"why sad?"

Kami took a turn, brushing her soft knuckles against Emma's cheeks. "Mommy's having a hard day."

Mommy's having a hard day were words she'd told her girls hundreds of times. Mommy can't make breakfast. . . . Mommy can't take you for a walk. . . . Mommy can't see out of her right eye. . . . Mommy can't lift you up. . . .

Because she was too wasted on drugs or too exhausted from all she'd consumed the day before or too beaten up to be the mother they needed. And always she said the same thing: "Mommy's having a hard day." Her girls must've heard that nearly every day of their lives.

She pushed her sobs down to the deepest part of her heart, the part that never stopped crying. "Girls . . . Mommy's sorry."

Neither girl said anything, but Kami patted her head and kissed the tip of her nose. Kaitlyn drew closer, her head on Emma's shoulder.

They were the sweetest girls. If she hadn't come to the shelter, she might've lost them by now. Maybe she would've taken enough junk that she lost track of the girls. They could've been kidnapped or sold into slavery. Anything was possible. "God . . ." His name was a cry, a quiet moan on her lips. I m sorry.

The girls sensed somehow that this was different than any other time their mother had been upset before. They clung to her, and Kami started to whimper. Emma closed her eyes and savored the feel of her precious daughters in her arms. What if she'd lost them? What if she'd killed herself the way she'd planned to do? She would never have had a moment like this again. Instead here she was, and suddenly the sorrow and fear and heartbreak that represented her life cleared long enough for her to feel one very real, very clear emotion.

Gratitude.

However it had happened, she was here. Despite her fear and the fact that every inch of her body screamed for a fix, she was here. She had her girls and her life and her hope because Mary had more of the story to tell. What was it Mary had said? Her story wasn't finished, and neither was Emma's.

Finally as she dried her tears and kissed her girls' cheeks, as she took their little hands in hers and led them to the craft table, she was overwhelmed by one single possibility.

Maybe Mary was right.

Grace Johnson had never missed her husband more. If Jay were here, he would've known how to find Emma and the girls, how to reach them and bring them home. Instead, she wandered alone around her small three-bedroom house across the river from the nation's Capitol. How could God have allowed this, and how had everything gotten so bad? Grace hadn't gone a day without blaming herself since Emma left home years ago.

Two weeks ago Grace had dropped by to see Emma and had realized how bad things really were when she'd seen for herself the bruises on Emma's face, the finger marks on her arms. The way the girls had cowered behind Emma even after they saw that the person at the door was their own grandmother broke her heart.

Grace could still see the horror on Emma's face. "Mama! I told you never to drop in without calling!"

The situation had been horrific, so much worse than Grace had ever imagined. Not only was Emma battered, she was painfully thin and her fingers trembled. Sure signs that she'd found her way back to taking crack. Grace wanted to take her and the girls home and never let them back on the streets again. But that wouldn't work any better than it had worked when Emma first moved out.

Grace had taken a step inside the apartment and let her gaze dart around the room. There were broken windows and dents on the wall. Pieces of a vase lay near one of the baseboards. "What—" she'd looked at Emma, her mouth open— "what has he done to you?"

Emma didn't answer. The look on her face told the obvious—she couldn't answer. Instead she shook her head and blinked fast. "I'll figure it out myself, Mama." She put her arms around the girls and pulled them to her sides. "It's not like it looks. Everything's fine."

Fine? Grace took a step closer. "Look at your arms." She brushed her fingers across her daughter's bruises. "How could he do this?" Her eyes lifted to Emma's. "It is like it looks."

For the next five minutes she had begged Emma to leave Charlie and come with her, to get help and counseling and a new start.

But Emma had shrieked at her, pointing at the door. "You're the problem, Mama! Leave me alone." She pushed herself past the girls and opened the front door. "We'll figure it out ourselves."

But they hadn't, of course. Grace left and called the next morning. When no one answered, she went back to the apartment and knocked on the door.

Charlie answered, his eyes bloodshot.

Grace wanted to spit at him. Instead she looked into the room, peering around him. "Where is she?" Her tone was beyond angry. She wanted him in jail for what he'd done to her daughter.

Charlie was scraggly with dark hair and unkempt facial hair. He reeked of cigarette smoke and something else—something strangely sweet. Drugs, probably. He took a step back and shut the door all but a few inches. "She's gone. Took the girls."

"Fine." Adrenaline raced through Grace. "I'll stay outside until she gets back."

"Look . . ." Charlie flung the door open and gestured toward the apartment. The smell of smoke grew stronger. "She's gone. She ain't comin' back. She's a crackhead, and she needed a fix." He shrugged. "She'd sell her soul for a fix."

Sell her soul? Fear reached up and grabbed her around the throat. If Emma was that far gone, maybe Charlie was right. She'd been through bad bouts with drugs before. They made her crazy, desperate. Grace pinched her fingers against her temples and squeezed her eyes shut.
Think. .. please, God, help me think.

She blinked and looked at Charlie again. "Where'd she go? She must've told you." Her daughter had no family in the area, no one except her. No matter how she'd messed up, regardless of her poor choices, Grace had always known where to find her.

Until now.

"Listen, lady, she's gone. If you see her, tell her I'm looking for her. She owes me a thousand dollars." Charlie slammed the door in her face.

Grace left, not sure where to go, what to do. She called the police the next day and filed a missing person's report, but no one was going to put man-hours on a case like Emma's. Women left their men all the time. It didn't necessarily mean that something bad had happened to her. But still . . .

What if Charlie had let things get out of hand? What if he'd hurt her and the girls ... or worse? Where would she or the police begin to look then? In all her life she had never imagined her daughter living with a man—not when she'd been raised to believe such a thing was wrong. But to think she lived with an
abusive
man who hit her and threatened her and raged on her . . .

Finally, four days after she disappeared, Emma had called from a pay phone. "Mama, don't worry about me and the girls." Her voice was cool. "We're fine."

"Thank You, God!" Grace's heart pounded so hard she could barely hear her own whispered voice. "Are you back at Charlie's?"

"No." Emma sounded rushed. "I don't want to get into it. I just didn't want you thinking something bad had happened to us." There were soft voices in the background. "Look, Mama, I gotta go."

The phone shook in Grace's hand. "Call again soon, all right? I'm worried about you."

Emma said good-bye, and that was it. Whatever had happened between them back along the trail of years, the chasm was a mile wide, too far to cross. Somewhere between pigtails and prom dresses, Grace had lost her only daughter, maybe forever.

Half the time Grace felt as if she were stuck in some horrible nightmare. As if she'd stumbled into someone else's life. And nothing—not prayer or phone calls to the police or walks through the heart of Washington, DC—helped her find Emma and the girls. She had to rely on the information from that one call, had to believe what her daughter had said.

Emma and the girls were safe.

It still didn't make sense that Emma would choose a life of abuse and drugs over a life of love and safety back at home. That and her good friend Terrence, of course. Terrence had loved her since she was a sophomore in high school. He was still single and plodding through medical school now, trying to figure out why Emma left, why he hadn't been enough for her.

Grace grabbed a can opener from the top drawer beneath the microwave and tapped it on the counter. She'd had no appetite since Emma and the girls left Charlie, but she had to eat. Otherwise she wouldn't have the strength to keep looking, to always keep looking. She opened the cupboard and stared at a shelf full of canned goods. She decided on two—a small can of diced chicken and a can of black beans. The can opener fit neatly on the edge of the bean can, and the lid was off in a few twists of the handle.

Life's done that to me,
she thought.
Cut into me and sliced off the top layer. Now my heart's bare for everyone to see. Right, God?
She emptied the can into a glass bowl.
Right?

I am here, daughter. . . . Your ways are not My ways.

"Stop!" Grace slammed the can on the counter. Her breaths came fast and hard. "If You're here, then where are Emma and the girls?" Maybe the quiet voice in her soul was God talking to her. Maybe not. But every time she thought to pray lately it was there. God was here,- He had everything in control. Her ways were not His.

But as long as her girls were missing, she didn't want to hear the voice of God traipse across her heart delivering false hope. If God had something to say to her, then how about handing over Emma's whereabouts? That would be something useful. A bunch of pithy platitudes weren't enough anymore, not when the people she loved most were living on the streets.

Grace opened the other can and dumped the chicken over the beans. The mess looked like something she might've found in the disposal or gathered at the bottom of the trash can. She shuddered. It would be better warmed up. She heated it in the microwave and took it to the small dining room. The table was slightly lopsided, but it was the same table she'd had for fifteen years and it would do. No matter how frustrated she was at God, she still bowed her head. "Thank You for the food, God. You know the rest. Amen."

Emma and the girls were all she had left. Didn't God understand that?

The window in the kitchen was open, and she looked toward it. The sunshine had been constant since Memorial Day, and now that it was the end of June, the temperature matched the season. Hot and humid and drawn out, day after day after day. Most grandmas worried about whether their grandchildren had sunscreen and enough water on a day like this one. Not Grace. She worried about whether Kami and Kaitlyn had a place to sleep and enough food.

She pulled her spoon through the chicken and beans and ate a few bites. They swallowed like so many boulders. If only Jay were still alive. He'd been everything to her. He was the one who had told her about Jesus. She ate another bite, chewing slower than before.

Jay Paul Johnson had been Grace's knight in shining armor. Yes, he'd worn a leather jacket and driven a Harley, but he was her knight all the same. Without him, she might've gone the same route as Emma. She had been headed that way after all. Her own parents had left her for a life of crime, and both wound up in jail. She had been raised by her aunt and uncle in Jersey, and by the time she was seventeen she was sick of their rules and curfews and distrustful glances.

Seventeen was supposed to be wonderful. She felt free and fun-loving and anxious to find her way. Sure, she hung out with a wilder crowd, and sometimes she came home stone drunk. But she wasn't that bad, and she didn't appreciate her aunt and uncle giving her lectures.