"Not many news stories come out of Virginia hill country." The tall officer pinched his lips together and blew out hard, so hard his cheeks filled up. "I'm sorry about this, Mary. We need to get you out of here and somewhere safe. But there's going to be a lot of confusion, a lot of people asking questions as we leave. You don't have to answer any of them, okay?"
She nodded. What was he talking about? They were taking her somewhere safe? Where would that be? An idea hit her, and she felt her eyes light up. "Could you take me to my Grandma Peggy's house? She lives . . . she lives in the city. In New York."
The faces of the officers changed, and they looked less shocked and sad. The officer with the mustache almost smiled. "You have a grandma?" He raised his pencil over the pad of paper. "Tell us her name, and we'll call her right now."
The tears were back. They stung her eyes and made it hard to see. "I'm sorry. I . . . can't think of it."
"We can figure it out later." He reached out as if he might touch her arm, but then he stopped himself. Instead, he walked to the bed and picked up a blanket. Without touching her, he put it carefully over Mary's shoulders and nodded toward the stairs. "We're going to take you out now. Stay between us, okay?"
"Okay." The shaking was back. How would she get up the stairs if she couldn't get her legs to move? "What about the other officers?" She looked from the tall cop to his partner. "Will you tell them not to shoot?"
The tall officer's shoulders slumped. "Mary, no one's going to shoot you. You haven't done anything wrong, understand?"
She nodded and took a step toward them. As she did she rubbed her wrapped wrist and looked back at the bed one last time. The bed where she had worked and slept and had nightmares for most of the past five years. How could she have thought any of it was normal?
The tall officer nodded toward the bed, then gestured toward the rest of the basement. "Is there anything you want to take?"
Mary didn't hesitate. She moved past the officers and over to the old couch against the wall. With practiced ease, she reached in behind the center seat cushion and pulled out the only thing that mattered to her at all—the small red-beaded purse. The single thing in all the world that she would keep with her, wherever the officers took her. It mattered to her for the same reason it had mattered when she was a little girl.
It reminded her that someone, somewhere, still loved her.
* * *
Chapter 10
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Mary took a slow breath and finished her coffee. Sometimes when she told her story, she stopped here. The details of her life were hard to take in big sections.
Across from her, Emma was wiping tears off her cheeks. "Did they take you to your Grandma Peggy's?"
A heaviness settled in Mary's chest. The answer was never easy. "No. I couldn't remember my last name." She stood and stretched. The room was stuffy, and outside the sun had broken through the clouds. She opened the window and took in a deep breath of the air that rushed in. "Even in the heart of the city you can smell the blossoms. Even in June."
Emma nodded, but her eyes never left Mary. "What happened? Where'd they take you?"
Mary sat back down on the sofa. "We can pick up again tomorrow, or we can take a short break and I'll keep going. You decide."
Emma didn't hesitate. "Please, Mary. I want to know what happened. If you don't mind."
They agreed to meet back in Mary's office in ten minutes, long enough for Emma to check on her girls and use the restroom.
When they met again, Emma was anxious and fidgety.
"Are you okay?" Mary had poured water for both of them. She was settled back in her place on the sofa.
"No." She covered her face with her hands for a few moments. Then she looked at Mary again. "I can't help but think . . ."
"Yes?"
"It wasn't fair, what happened to you." Her voice held a cry, as if it was taking all her energy not to break down.
"Abuse is never fair. It leaves its mark on everyone involved."
"But. . ." Emma leaned her head back and stared at the ceiling for a few counts. The struggle was so real it filled the room. "This story is supposed to involve God, right? God's power?"
"Yes. Like I said yesterday, it isn't finished."
"But why did God allow it?" She ran her right hand over the scars on her left forearm. "Don't you ever ask yourself that?"
It was a timeless question, one every victim asked at some point or another. "We'll talk about that at the end of the story, okay?"
"Promise?"
Mary smiled. "You keep coming every morning, and I promise I'll answer that question at the end."
Emma relaxed her hands, but she sat at the edge of her seat. "Okay, then, go ahead. What happened next?"
A breeze filtered through the room and took Mary back. "Well, most of the time I was so scared by my new life, I wondered if maybe I was better off before."
A shadow fell over Emma's face. "This morning I thought about going back to Charlie."
"I'm glad you didn't."
"Me too."
A red flag shot itself through Mary's consciousness. This was the first detail Emma had shared, and it proved she was still so much at risk. Charlie was the man who had abused her. If Emma went back to him, he would be angrier than ever. Angry that she left him, angry that she waited so long to come back home. That sort of rage could lead to his most violent act yet.
Mary swallowed and kept her thoughts to herself. Emma was waiting for more details. "I spent two nights in a hospital, and then a social worker explained that I'd be paired up with short-term foster parents."
***
At the hospital there were machines, people poking Mary with needles and taking blood from her arm, and doctors and nurses whispering to each other, sometimes right in front of her. They'd look up and catch her watching, and sometimes they'd give her a nervous smile.
"Tests, honey," they told her. "We're discussing the tests. We need to make sure you're okay."
On the second day, a doctor gave his report to Mrs. Campbell, Mary's social worker. "Mary is surprisingly healthy," he told her. "She has traces of disease, but nothing life threatening. We'll give her strong antibiotics for a few weeks, and she should be fine."
"Physically." Mrs. Campbell lowered her voice, as if maybe Mary couldn't hear her.
"Yes." The doctor frowned. "Physically. The rest. . . well, that's up to your department."
Mary understood. Her body was going to be okay. But her dreams, her hopes, her reasons for believing in tomorrow . . . all of them were diseased and dying. She still couldn't read, and there were so many things about life that she didn't understand. In some ways she was still the same child Jimbo and Lou had kidnapped and taken to the basement five years earlier.
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 television. 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 m
ind, 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."