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.
Grace took another bite of chicken and shook her head. She was lucky her aunt and uncle hadn't kicked her out. No matter how she viewed herself back then, the reality was clear. She'd been wild and rebellious. The summer before her eighteenth birthday, her attitude had been terrible—especially toward her aunt.
One night she had a visit from Lindy, a girl her age who lived at the end of the block. . . .
***
"Let's take the train into the city," Lindy suggested. "I met a guy there." She was smacking her gum, and her mascara was thicker than usual.
"I don't know . . ." Grace sucked at the inside of her cheek. Going into the city could mean trouble for two girls alone at night.
"Live a little, Grace. Come on." Lindy was black, like her. The two of them shared hairstyles and clothes, and both turned heads wherever they went. Now Lindy's eyes shone with excitement over the possibilities that lay ahead. "This guy told me about a place where we can make a lot of money—" she looked over her shoulder to make sure Grace's aunt couldn't hear—"fast money."
Grace had a pretty good idea where girls dressed like Lindy might make a lot of fast money. The idea scared her, but at the same time she didn't want to spend another night with her aunt and uncle. Finally she tossed her hands in the air. "All right. But if it feels dangerous, let's come back."
Lindy rolled her eyes. She took hold of Grace's hand and shoved her in the direction of her bedroom. "Get ready. Hurry up."
While Grace was dolling herself up, she thought about what she was doing. Maybe it would be exciting out on the streets at night. It was a way out of the house, and if it brought in enough money . . . well, then in time she could leave and start life on her own.
But when they got downtown to the place where the guy was supposed to meet them, there was Jay instead. He spotted them and revved the engine of his bike. With a nod in their direction, he pulled up, parked his Harley, and approached them. "You ladies look awful young for this neighborhood." He was a white guy, and his face was covered with hair. But his eyes—kind and warm and deep and blue—would haunt Grace until the day she died.
When they didn't respond, he spoke louder. "I said, you ladies look awful young for these parts."
"What's it to you?" Grace stepped up to him, chin raised, voice defiant. "We can do whatever we want. Age doesn't matter."
"Actually, it does." He straightened, and she guessed he was well over six feet tall. "It matters because once you start working these streets, you leave one of two ways. Hard and old and used, an old lady at thirty."
Lindy smacked her gum and gave Jay a sarcastic look. "And the other?"
He leveled his eyes straight at her. "In a body bag."
Something about that image had snapped Grace's cool exterior. She turned to Lindy, struggling to stay in control. "Maybe he's right. Who needs the street stuff? Let's go home."
"That's my good girls." He crossed his arms and smiled. "Go home and don't ever come back."
Just then a car screeched to a stop a few feet away. There were four young guys inside—one white, two black, and one Hispanic. They were loud and drunk, and they hooted at Grace and Lindy. "Hey, girls, wanna take a ride?" The driver honked his horn, and the other three burst out laughing.
"The ladies aren't working, fellers." Jay planted his hands on his hips and took three strides toward the earful of guys. "Be on your way."
"Wait!" Lindy ran to the car before Jay or Grace could stop her. She looked over her shoulder once. "I'm going to do things my way. You can come or you can go home, Grace. Your choice."
Grace looked at Jay, and there they were again—those amazing eyes.
He lowered his voice so only she could hear it. "Anyone ever tell you about the Bible? about a God who loves you and wants to be your friend?" He nodded at the car and at Lindy, who had already climbed into the backseat with two of the guys. "God wants more for you than that." His voice was soothing, like healing oil for the cracks in her soul. "Believe me. Come on."
The driver of the car yelled at Grace, "You comin' or not?"
Next to him, another guy was peeling off twenties from a pile in his hands and handing them to Lindy. "Come on, pretty friend." He held the bills up. "Plenty to go around."
Jay took gentle hold of her arm. "I'll take you home. Let's go."
She looked at Lindy and the guys and then at Jay and back at Lindy one more time. Then she took a step in Jay's direction, just one single step. And it was a step that changed her life. Jay helped her onto the back of his bike, and for the next forty minutes she clung to him as if she were clinging to the only hope she had. She had no reason, really. Nothing to prove he was honest or that he really wanted to help her.
But when they reached her aunt and uncle's house, they stayed outside and talked. Jay was twenty-two, a few years older than her. He was part of a motorcycle group that called themselves Christ's Motor Angels. They rode through the worst parts of town a few evenings each week looking for people who needed a way out, people like Grace and Lindy.
"Usually we bring 'em home, give em a little tract about salvation in Christ, and leave it at that," Jay told her. He took off his jacket and laid it over the back of his Harley. He had on a cut-off T-shirt.
Grace saw a tattoo on his shoulder that read All or nothing. She looked hard at it and ran her finger over the letters. "All or nothing?"
"That's what God wants. Give Him our all or give Him nothing." He shrugged. "Pretty simple."
Something about Jay stirred strange, mysterious feelings in Grace's heart. He was a rebel—or at least he looked like one. That meant her aunt and uncle definitely wouldn't approve. They were straitlaced and went to potluck dinners. Sunday services and Wednesday church nights. A motorcycle man— even a motorcycle man for Jesus—would never be acceptable to them.
Maybe it was that or the way he made Jesus seem so real. Whatever it was, Grace couldn't get enough of Jay Johnson. At the end of the night she told him yes. Not yes to the sort of question most men asked, because Jay wanted nothing sexual from her, not at all. Rather she told him yes about Jesus. Yes, she wanted to be cleansed from her sins, and yes she wanted a relationship with God and yes—most of all yes— she wanted a Savior.
When Jay started to leave, he turned to her and grinned. "Can I call you sometime?"
And Grace said yes to that too.
Jay called her the next morning, and after that they were inseparable. She told her aunt and uncle about Jay's faith and that he was the nicest guy she'd ever met. But still they were suspicious.
Her uncle pulled her aside after meeting Jay for the first time. He raised an eyebrow at her. "Doesn't look like your type, Grace."
"He's a Christian, remember?"
"So you've said. Still ... I'd keep a close eye on him."
Her aunt was even worse, saying only a few words to Jay and making it obvious by her expressions that she didn't approve. A week later Grace found out why. "White guys want one thing from black girls, Grace."
"Are you kidding?" She was furious at her aunt. "That's a horrible thing to say! All my life you've taught me that color doesn't matter and it's wrong to be judged because of your race. Color this and color that." Her voice was louder than she intended. "How dare you think Jay's like that just because he's white." She anchored her fists on her hips. "Maybe you should stop judging people by their color."
Her aunt backed off then. "I'm sorry." She made her tone calm again. "I ... I guess I didn't see it that way."
After that, her aunt and uncle gave Jay more of a chance. They didn't like motorcycles or beards or tattoos. But after a month they liked Jay. He had that way about him. At the end of their first year of dating, two things happened that Grace would remember all her life.
First, Lindy overdosed on drugs on the very street where Jay had first found us. She'd been making money as a prostitute, hiding the fact from her parents. The double life caused her so much pain inside that nothing helped eas
e it—-not even Grace's pleas. Finally—as it did with so many girls who sold their dignity—the desperation drove Lindy to drugs, and the drugs killed her.
The second thing was that Jay Johnson asked her to be his wife. "You're young, but I don't need another year or five years to know you're the one for me." He had been so careful with her, kissing her only once in a while and never asking more of her than what God would've allowed. Now he merely cradled the side of her face with the palm of his hand. "Please, Grace. Marry me?"
She couldn't answer him. Not because she had any doubts, but because the emotion in her heart had spilled into her eyes and down along her throat, and she couldn't talk if she'd wanted to. She threw her arms around him, her wonderful prince. And when she found the words she whispered them into his muscled chest, "Yes, Jay, I'll marry you."
Jay was a mechanic by day—and a good one. He made enough money to pay for a beautiful church wedding. Most of Christ's Motor Angels had attended and filled up one side of the pews, while her aunt and uncle and their nicely dressed conservative friends filled up the other.
"I don't think anyone's ever had two more different sets of guests at a wedding," Jay told her as they danced in the church hall after the ceremony. "But you know what?"
"What?" The hall might as well have been the queen's ballroom, because Grace had never felt more like a princess.
"It's good for them." He leaned in and kissed her forehead, showing the tenderness that had marked their relationship. "Because people can't be judged by their clothes or their hair or their skin. But only by the way they love Jesus."
It was a good motto, one that drove Jay back onto the streets to rescue young girls even after the two of them had settled into a house and begun experiencing the thrill of married life. And it was thrilling. Night after night, knowing the safety of Jay's arms, the height of his passion for her. And days spent working at Patty's Preschool down the street, coming home to make dinner. Pot roast was Jay's favorite. He'd come into the kitchen, kiss her on the mouth, and pull her close. It didn't matter if he smelled like sweat and grime and car grease.