Divine (14 page)

But her heart felt like it was a hundred years old.

When they let her out of the hospital, Mrs. Campbell took her to a building called Social Services. She waited for her short-term foster parents in a room with a couch and a television. The air inside was warm and stale.

Mary eased forward on the couch and ran her hands over the thighs of her jeans. They were her first pair in a long time, and they felt stiff and soft all at the same time. Mrs. Campbell had given them to her with a few shirts and underclothes— her first in years that weren't sheer and lacy.

She looked around the room. There were two small children at the opposite end on the floor in front of the televi
sion.
I'm no older than them, really. I never got to be older than them.
What had they been through that would bring them to this Social Services building? Were they waiting for foster families too?

Like an old friend, she could hear Grandma Peggy's voice:
"Your mommy might go, but if I had it my way you would stay. I'd take care
of you, and you'd never he cold or hungry or lonely again. If I had it my way. . . if
Il had it my way
..." Her words were distant now, hushed by the passing of years.

Mary closed her eyes and willed the sound of her grandma's voice to fill her mind, her senses.
Are you still looking for me, Grandma? Don't you know where I am?
She breathed out hard.

The little red purse—that's what she needed. She reached into her back pocket, and her fingers felt the tiny beads. Somehow through all the craziness of the past couple of days she still had it. She opened the buttoned clasp and gently took out the yellowed note that she still couldn't read. Some of the letters looked familiar—an
i
and a
p.

Once, a long time ago, her grandma had read that note to her. But this was where her grandma's words got too tangled to hear. Something about God having plans for her life, right? Or was it that Mary was supposed to make plans for her life? She wasn't sure anymore. She brought the paper closer and squinted hard at it. Why couldn't she remember this part?

She was still looking at it when she heard the door open behind her. As quickly as she could, Mary pushed the note into the purse and slipped the purse back into her pocket.

Mrs. Campbell walked up and sat down beside her on the couch. "Mary, your foster parents are here."

A sensation came over her then, the
same terror she'd felt when the police officers rescued her. Mrs. Campbell was
waiting for her to do or say something. She cleared her throat, stood, and looked down. Her knees were shaking so hard they were hitting each other.

"Are you ready, Mary?"

She nodded but didn't look up. In her new life, she tried not to look at people's eyes. The looks they gave her made her feel like more of a victim.

Mrs. Campbell's expression said that she was sorry and that she also doubted Mary. Finally she slumped a little and turned. "Follow me."

From the moment Mary saw the older couple waiting in the lobby outside the door, she felt herself relax. Ted and Evelyn were their names, and they were young and old at the same time, like her. The difference was that Ted and Evelyn were old in years, with small bunches of wrinkles on their foreheads and around their mouths. But after talking with them for a few minutes, she discovered that they were young on the inside, because kindness was in everything they said, every look they gave her. Suddenly Mary recognized where she'd seen old people like Ted and Evelyn before. Grandma Peggy had been like that, their eyes like hers.

Ted and Evelyn took her to their country home half an hour from the Social Services building. Mary felt hope stir within her. There were no handcuffs, no see-through nightgowns, and no talk of working from the bedroom.

Instead, Ted and Evelyn sat her down right after she got settled and talked about the same things her grandmother had talked about. "Mary," Evelyn told her, "we want you to know about Jesus. He has a plan for you, and He wants to give you a future with Him. A future filled with promise."

Mary liked the way Ted and Evelyn talked, even if their words didn't feel like they belonged to her. She was a victim, right? What hope was there for someone like her, someone who had grown up in a basement and chained to a bed?

That night she waited for Ted to visit her and explain about how she needed to earn her keep, but he never came, and she wondered if maybe Ted didn't have the same needs as other men. He looked at her differently too, at her eyes and her face and not at her body.

On her first morning Ted made breakfast, and Evelyn brought out a yellow-and-white cardboard box. Inside were books and tapes and sets of little cards with letters on them. Evelyn sat across from Mary at the kitchen table and spread the items out in the space between them.

"These tapes and cards will help you know your letter sounds." She smiled. "You're a smart girl. We'll have you reading in no time."

Reading became the focus of every one of their days together. Ted would fix eggs and toast or hot oatmeal with brown sugar, and Evelyn would get out the tape recorder and flash cards and tapes. "We're working on vowels today." She'd smile and pat Mary's hand. "Vowels are the foundation of every word."

Mary loved learning. Every day she felt a little smarter, a little more like maybe the nice words Ted and Evelyn told her might actually come true. By the end of the first month, Mary knew all her letters and the sounds they made, and at the end of the second month she could read the books in the first packet. Simple books, but books all the same.

Mary found Evelyn in the living room one morning. "When I learn how to read, can you help me write a letter to my grandma? She's trying to find me."

"Of course." Evelyn took her hand. "Maybe we could send a letter to the city officials in New York, and they could help us find her."

They'd already discussed the fact that Social Services had been unable to locate Mary's grandma.

But Ted told her to never give up. Never. "If she's looking for you, there has to be a way to find her."

Ted and Evelyn taught Mary more than reading. They told her about calendars and money and checkbooks and the names of animals and stars and historical figures like Abe Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. She learned to drive Ted's pickup across the back acreage when the horses needed hay, and she learned about the Gospels of Matthew and Mark and Luke and John and how Jesus came to save everyone.

She went to sleep every night with her head too full to think about Jimbo and Lou and the handcuffs and customers, and every morning she woke hungry for more. And something else: her nightmares stopped, and she could finally get a full night's sleep.

Ted and Evelyn always reminded her that her place in their home was temporary. "We're licensed to do short-term foster care," Evelyn told her several times. "You understand that, right, Mary?"

"Right. You're going to help me find Grandma Peggy,- then I'll go live with her."

"We all want that, honey. Mrs. Campbell at Social Services is trying every day to find her."

"But. . ." Mary was filled with a sudden fear.

Evelyn touched her shoulder, her eyes sad. "But there's a chance you'll have to move to a different family before we can find her. Do you know that?"

"I guess." Mary would cut the conversation short. She loved living with Ted and Evelyn. If God had a plan for her, then she'd stay with these nice people until someone found her grandmother. Then she'd go live with her in New York and keep learning and growing, and she would send letters to Ted and Evelyn thanking them for all they'd done.

Mary couldn't imagine going anywhere else. Whenever her heart tried to remind herself that any day with Ted and Evelyn could be her last, she shut out the voice. She wasn't leaving.

Once in a while she'd talk to Evelyn about her life in the basement, but only briefly. "They told me my job was to meet the needs of the customers," Mary told her one night before bedtime.

"They were wrong." Evelyn never sounded angry, but in that moment there was something intense in her tone. She looked deep into Mary's eyes. "You are a child. Children need to be loved, not used."

Mary looked down at her sweatpants, the ones she slept in. A thought filled her heart, one she couldn't share even with Evelyn. Back when she was chained to the bed in the basement, sometimes being with the customers felt like love.

They would tell her they loved her and stroke her hair and her forehead and say wonderful things to her, things Jimbo and Lou never said. "You're my beautiful angel" or "You don't know how much I love you." Things like that.

That was all she'd ever known of love.

But somehow she knew that the love she felt from the men in the basement wasn't the sort of love Evelyn was talking about. "That's why the police took me away, right? Because children shouldn't be used?"

"Right." Evelyn's eyes told Mary that she knew there was more to be said, but she wasn't going to push. She smoothed Mary's hair and smiled. "We can talk about it some other day. When you're ready."

But in the end, time ran out on them. The bad news came at the end of Mary's third month with the couple. Evelyn brought her into the living room and sat next to her on the sofa. "Honey, Mrs. Campbell called." The older woman's eyes were watery as she took hold of one of Mary's hands. "They've found a permanent foster home for you." She bit her lip. "You'll be leaving in the morning."

Mary wanted to scream or hide under the bed or lock the front door or beg God to stop the sun from moving so morning would never come. But she'd spent most of her life hiding her feelings, and as much as Ted and Evelyn had taught her, they hadn't taught her how to open her heart and spill out the contents in a moment like this. She felt her lips part, but no words came out.

"The couple is younger than we are. They have two little boys." Evelyn gave her a half smile, but it faded before it reached her eyes. "You'll have little brothers."

"Tell me again . . ." Mary swallowed. Her throat was thick, so she brought her fingers to her neck and rubbed it. "What does
foster
mean?"

The light in Evelyn's eyes dimmed.

Ted entered the room and sat next to his wife.
"Foster
—" his voice was quiet, sad—
"foster
means it isn't forever." He brought his hands together and looked down for a moment. When he found her eyes again, she could see he was hurting. "A long time ago God told us to help kids like you, kids who have a crisis in their life and need a safe home for a short time. It's how we're licensed with the state."

That was the part Mary didn't understand. She squinted, and the words made a slow climb up her throat. "But we didn't find my grandma yet."

"I know." He took his wife's hand. "Mrs. Campbell will keep looking for her."

"But. . ." The walls of her new little world were falling one after another. "Why short-term?"

Ted's face was kind, but his answer was certain. "Because lots of children need a safe place, Mary, and there aren't enough places. We want kids in crisis to know God's love as the first part of the rest of their lives."

"It's what we do." Evelyn covered her mouth with the back of her hand and shook her head. Tears were on her cheeks. "It's never easy, but, honey, I told you this would be short-term. We'll let you go believing God, trusting that He has a plan for you."

Mary nodded, but inside she felt herself closing down, felt her feelings running for cover, back to the cold dark places of her heart. Her back stiffened. "Fine." She stood and gave Ted and Evelyn a look that said she understood. "I'll pack my things."

The tears came once she was alone in her room. She'd been a fool to believe it could last, that she could stay with Ted and Evelyn and keep learning, keep letting them make her feel a little more normal every day. They'd bought her a few more pairs of jeans, more shirts, and a flannel nightgown, and she stuffed them all in the white plastic bag, the one she'd gotten from the hospital.

The rest of the day she kept to herself, even when Evelyn tried to talk to her.

Mrs. Campbell, the social worker, came for her just after breakfast the next morning.

"Mary—" Ted put his hands on her shoulders—"stay with God, follow Him. He has all the answers, honey."

She willed herself not to cry. "You and Evelyn have the answers."

"Because He gave them to us." Ted took a step back. "Remember what I'm telling you. Stay with God."

Evelyn was next. She took Mary in her arms and hugged her for a long time, rocking her back and forth and making small crying sounds. When she pulled away, her eyes were red and swollen. She wiped her hands across her cheeks and held up a single finger. "Wait here."

They stood there—Ted, Mrs. Campbell, and Mary— waiting in awkward silence until Evelyn returned. She was carrying the cardboard box with the books and tapes and flash cards. She held it out to Mary. "Take this. You're halfway through."

Mary started to shake her head, but the gift was too great to pass up. She took it and held it tightly to her chest. "Thank you."

Evelyn brought her hand to her mouth and nodded.

"Mary, we need to go." Mrs. Campbell stood by the front door. "The new family is waiting at the office."