Divine

by Karen Kingsbury

  She would've stayed in his embrace forever.

  A year after they were married she was pregnant. Jay was in the hospital room when Emma was born. She had light brown skin and enormous blue eyes, a perfect mix of the two of them. Emma was the name Jay picked out, so it was the only name Grace ever considered. Because Jay was the best man she'd ever known. The best person. If their daughter had half his traits she'd be an angel in her own right.

  The first time Jay held their daughter, he had tears in his eyes. "God is so good!" He nuzzled his face against hers and looked into her eyes. "Daddy's going to be here for you, baby. Forever and ever. I'll protect you the way I protect all little girls."

  But it wasn't to be.

  Three months later Jay was out with two other Motor Angels when they ran across a frightened teenage girl and a gang of guys hassling her on the street. Grace was never quite sure what happened that night, but the police figured that Jay and the others pulled up and tried to scare the guys away.

  Only this wasn't just any group of guys they were messing with. It was a pimp and his cronies, the ones who ran the prostitution ring along that entire city block. Whatever happened next, the pimp ended up pulling out a .45 and shooting two of the Motor Angels dead on the spot.

  Jay Johnson—hero and prince, father and husband—had been one of them.

  ***

  Grace poked her spoon into the chicken and beans, and she realized that her cheeks were wet. She was crying, so caught up in her own memories that it was like they were happening all over again.

  When the police officer had knocked on her door late that night, the night Jay went out with the Motor Angels, Grace knew. She had known it as surely as she could hear her infant daughter suddenly wailing in the other room.

  Jay was dead.

  She tried another bite of the chicken and beans, but the mixture was cold and it struggled on the way down her throat. Enough. She pushed the bowl back, and her eyes found the photo that had hung on the wall every day since she and Jay were married. The one that would hang there until she died. It wasn't a traditional wedding photo, the kind most people had with the white dress and dark tuxedo and floral bouquet.

  Rather it was the two of them on Jay's bike, him with a leather jacket over his suit coat and her with her wedding dress hiked up to her knees, her arms tight around Jay's waist. It was a picture of everything he'd meant to her. Because that was how he'd rescued her in the first place, on the back of his bike. And that was how he wanted to take her into the future. Him leading the way, telling her more about Jesus every day and always finding time to live out the things he told her.

  "Jay Johnson ... I miss you," she whispered, and a few fresh tears blurred her vision. "If only you were here."

  Grace stood and put the bowl of mush in the sink, washed it down the disposal, and returned to the photograph once more. If only there was a way back to yesterday, a long string of yesterdays.

  She wouldn't go back to the day Emma left home and moved into Charlie's place or even back to the days before Emma started taking drugs. She would return to that evening when Emma was three months old. This time when Jay Johnson kissed her and told her good-bye, she would grab him by the arms and beg him to stay. Because if anyone ever needed a Motor Angel it wasn't the strangers on the street.

  It was their very own daughter.

  If Jay had lived, Emma never would've left home. She wouldn't have gotten pregnant as a teenager, and she wouldn't have started taking crack. Jay's mesmerizing power would've captivated their daughter, and she would've grown up doing everything right, as right as a teenager possibly could. Grace had no doubts. Emma would be married to Terrence, and Kami and Kaitlyn would have a wonderful home. If only Jay had lived.

  * * *

  Chapter 8

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  Emma woke early the next morning and felt her little girls on either side of her. She hadn't had crack for two days, and her body screamed for a fix. But the noise dimmed compared to the sweet breathing sounds her girls made beside her.

  How long had it been since she'd had a morning like this, where she and the girls were safe and warm and she wasn't hung over from the effects of drugs? She ran her fingers gently over first Kami's forehead, then Kaitlyn's. Somehow in the light of day, her troubles didn't seem nearly as bad as Mary's had.

  The idea of running and finding a dealer, overdosing on junk, and leaving her girls alone in the world seemed ludicrous now in the morning light. Her girls were safe, and despite years of bad decisions on her part, they'd been spared the sort of childhood Mary had suffered through.

  Forget about the drugs. It's Charlie you need, Emma. Go back to him today. Don't wait another hour.

  Emma yawned. Yes, that was it. She would climb out of bed, wake the girls, and get everyone dressed. Then she would thank the women at the shelter for their help and go back home to Charlie. She loved him, didn't she? Yes, he had an anger problem, but he was trying to work through it.

  He might take you back, if you're lucky. You aren't worth having someone love you, not even Charlie.

  The voice was there, but it was quieter than it had been in months. Charlie would take her back if she handled herself right. She could promise to pay him everything she owed him and ask him to ease up a little on her. Then he'd see what she was seeing—how precious and wonderful the girls were—and he'd want a normal life like other families. A life where he didn't rage at her or hit her, one that included romantic dates and family outings to the park where the girls could play on the swings.

  That could happen, couldn't it?

  She slid her feet onto the floor and stretched. As she did, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror. Her entire left cheek was still splotched with dark smears from the bruises Charlie had left on her the last time they were together.

  He won't hurt you again, Emma. Go back to him. Leave the shelter and the crazy ideas about God and change. You don't deserve that. You're wasting their time.

  Emma held on to the windowsill and closed her eyes tight. Stop! God, please make the voices stop!

  She held her breath for five seconds . . . ten. She opened her eyes and glanced at the bed where the girls were still sleeping. Again she looked at herself in the mirror. What was she thinking? She couldn't go back to Charlie, not now. Not until he got help for his problems. In the meantime, she had to stay at the shelter because she wasn't finished hearing Mary's story.

  She woke the girls, dressed them, and met two other women down in the cafeteria over breakfast. One of them looked calm and peaceful. If she had bruises, they didn't show.

  "I've been coming here for months," she told Emma. "Mary's story ... it saved my life."

  Emma set her piece of wheat toast back on her plate. "Mary talked to you too?"

  "She talks to all the tough cases." The woman smiled. "She says it's the reason she's here. So she can tell her story and share the power with us."

  "The power?" Beside her, Kami and Kaitlyn were eating cereal, happier and more relaxed than she'd seen them in years.

  "Yes." An otherworldly peace filled the woman's face. "The divine power of Jesus. It's the only thing strong enough to save us."

  The words sounded foreign. Emma knew about Jesus from her mother. But divine power? Power to do what?

  The woman must've sensed her confusion. She patted Emma on the back and smiled again. "You'll find out soon enough. You're meeting with Mary today, right?"

  "Right."

  "Just keep your promise, and one of these days you'll know about the power personally."

  "How do you know about the promise?" Emma took a napkin from the center of the table and dabbed at Kaitlyn's mouth.

  "Mary makes us all promise the same thing. That we'll stay long enough to hear her story. By the end—" the woman stepped back from the table with her empty plate—"you'll know everything you need to know about the power."

  Not for you, Emma. There won't be power for you. The power of G
od isn't wasted on trash. . . . The voice was there, but it was still (quieter than usual.

  Fifteen minutes later Emma was sitting across from Mary Madison once again. The confidence she'd felt earlier this morning faded. She needed a fix in the worst way. Maybe the voices were right,- maybe the power that helped Mary and the other women wouldn't work with her.

  "You're here." Mary smiled, but it didn't hide the loss in her eyes. "I told you the story would get harder."

  Emma shifted in her seat. Why was she here? How could Mary's story—an even worse part of the story than she'd already told—help either of them?

  Mary crossed one leg over the other. She was dressed casually today. Black jeans and a short-sleeve pullover. Even so, she was stunning. "Let go of your doubts, Emma."

  Mary's words took her breath away. How could she know? She was right every time. The voices had nothing to say in light of Mary's understanding of the situation. Emma sat back and nodded. "I'll try."

  ***

  Mary had been up most of the night praying for Emma. God had made it clear: the battle for Emma's heart and soul was one of the fiercest Mary had encountered yet. She was up against some of the same bondage and horrors that Mary herself had gone through years earlier. There was hope for Emma, of course, but she needed to keep coming to the sessions.

  When Emma walked in that morning, Mary had whispered a prayer of thanks. They still had much of her story to work through before Mary could introduce a solution for Emma. Otherwise Emma would never understand.

  She took a deep breath and let herself drift back. "Jimbo let me out of the basement only a few times every month. Otherwise I stayed downstairs."

  Emma squirmed. "I couldn't stop hugging my babies yesterday." She studied her hands, shame etched into the corners of her eyes, her mouth. She looked up. "They could've wound up like you, but they didn't. I'll never stop being thankful."

  "I'm glad." Mary angled her head. "My mama didn't know about the dangers, I guess. She wouldn't listen to my Grandma Peggy, and no one else told her." She hesitated. "Anyway, Jimbo kept making special visits to me, and once in a while one of his favorite customers would come down."

  ***

  The nightmares started before summer was over that first year. It would take Mary hours to fall asleep, and as soon as she did, she would have the most terrifying dreams.

  In one of them, she was locked in a cage near a deep, fast-moving river. Her mother spotted her and screamed her name. Then she came running toward her. "I'll help you, baby! I'm coming!" She held out her hand, and in it was a key. The key to the cage.

  But just as her mother was about to reach her, Jimbo appeared and pushed the cage into the river. "That'll teach you to try to break free!" He laughed at her, and the sound of it hid the sound of her mother's voice.

  "Mama! Help me . . ."

  But the cage began to sink. Water rushed in through the bars, swirling higher and higher until it covered her face. With every second that passed, the cage sank deeper. Finally, when Mary couldn't hold her breath another moment, she gasped and water filled her lungs. She shook and kicked the bars and tried to scream, but it was too late.

  The instant before death took her, she would wake and bolt up straight in bed, gasping for air.

  Another dream had her running from Jimbo and the other men, running for her life. They would be chasing her with knives and guns, shouting at her to stop. But still she ran, terrified, her heart bursting in her chest. Finally . . . finally she would see Grandma Peggy's house. She could feel the men behind her—ten steps, maybe fifteen.

  "Grandma, help!" She threw open the door, but inside nothing was the same. Instead of Grandma Peggy's house it was a roomful of cobwebs and skeletons. In one corner were her mama and grandma, but they were sleeping.

  Jimbo reached her and grabbed her hair, but she pulled away. "Mama, wake up!" She shrieked and ran to them, but when she made her way through the cobwebs and tried to touch them, she realized it was all a cruel trick.

  It wasn't them. They were stuffed dolls, made to look like her mother and grandmother. Mary screamed and turned around, and all the men—each of the ones who visited her in the basement—were inside coming closer . . . closer. . . .

  She would scream again, and this time she would wake up.

  There were a few other dreams, four in all. They repeated themselves in no special order. She might have the dream about being in the cage ten straight nights, and then she'd have the one with the cobwebs and skeletons. It didn't matter which one happened, because once she was awake, she couldn't fall back to sleep.

  So she went through the day exhausted, sleeping in fits and starts between meals, hoping that day wouldn't be one when Jimbo would come downstairs. She was so tired that she felt sick to her stomach most of the time. Once in a while the fear from the dream would stay with her all day, and when nightfall came she'd lie in the basement shaking, imagining things in the dark corners. Men with knives or cages.

  Jimbo's friends continued to come see her. By the end of her first year in the basement, no one bothered to call them special visits anymore.

  They were work.

  The old couch was still in the basement, but Jimbo had brought in a bed a few weeks after setting her up down there. "Treat the men nice, Mary, ya hear?" He handed her an oversized bag. "These are for you. Men pay top dollar. You need to look the part."

  The part was ugly and shameful. See-through nightgowns and panties that didn't fit right. She felt like a doll being dressed up and then used for sport. And that's what she was, nothing but sport to the men who came down the basement stairs.

  One time she asked Lou about the visitors. "There are no neighbors, no other houses." She rubbed at a bruise on her right cheek. Jimbo had slapped her the night before. "Where are the men from?"

  "They come for the stuff, the junk." She made a face at Mary as if she were stupid. "They pay more for the drugs if they get a little action on the side." She chuckled. "A lot more. Makes it worth the drive."

  Mary was eleven when she said something under her breath, words that changed her life yet again. "See if I'm still here in the morning." She blurted the threat at Jimbo as he finished with her.

  His eyes blazed instantly, and he pushed her down onto the bed. With all his weight he pinned her shoulder to the mattress. "Meaning what?"

  Mary was too angry to back down. She sucked up whatever was in her throat and spat it in Jimbo's face. The spit hit him square in the eyes, and before he had time to wipe his face, she answered him. "It means I'm running away. I'll be gone before you wake up."

  Jimbo's face grew deep red, and for a minute she thought he was going to kill her. He slapped her cheek hard and shouted something obscene at her. He probably would've finished her off except Lou opened the basement door.

  "Quiet down," she shouted at them. "I got a customer waiting."

  That night Jimbo tramped down the stairs and studied her. "You're a fool. You think you can run from me, do you?"

  That's when he brought out the handcuffs. He clamped one cuff around her hand and one to the bedpost. "There." He laughed again. "You should be quite a sight trying to run away with a bed flying behind you."

  ***

  Over the next few years, Mary pieced together enough information to understand her lot in life. She was a slave, really. She wasn't sure how much money she was making for Jimbo and Lou, but the last time they let her out of the basement she saw a fancy car in the driveway and a big-screen television in the living room. She could only guess about the money Jimbo had locked away somewhere.

  When she was old enough to have a woman's body, sometime around her fourteenth birthday, Jimbo sent more of his customers down to her. Ten or fifteen of them were regulars. Lots of the visits were from men who came over and over again. They would tell her all sorts of things. "No one's like you, baby. . . . You're the prettiest girl in the whole world."

  That's when she began lying.

  Not just an occasional lie
here and there, but lying about everything she said. She'd tell the men nice things about themselves, and when one of them would talk about setting her free, taking her for himself, she'd correct him.

  "I'm not here because of Jimbo." She'd give the man a practiced smile. "I'm here because I want to be."

  Lying that way gave her a sort of false control over her life, and it made her less frightened—at least in the daytime. After a while, her lies seemed to make life easier for her, less of a fight all the time. And as the years passed, the things Jimbo's friends said to her began to feel like love. Because real love—the way Grandma Peggy and her mama had loved her—was so long ago in her past that she couldn't remember what it was like.

  So maybe love was only a physical thing. That was all anyone ever really liked about her, so maybe it was okay if it felt like love. Though no one ever explained it to her, she figured a lot of it out on her own. She had power over men. Even Jimbo. If she treated him nice when he came down for a session or lied to him about her feelings for him, then he might let her upstairs for dinner or a walk outside. Even then, he stayed close beside her.

  "Can't have you runnin' away on me." He'd chuckle, and the sound would send chills down Mary's spine.

  When she wasn't lying, she rarely talked. Anything she might say would come across as rude, and rude meant Jimbo would pay her a different sort of visit. One where he'd throw her across the room and hit her. She hated the beatings, so she stopped being rude. And that meant she stopped talking.

  Except for the lies.

  ***

  Mary stood and went to the coffeemaker in the corner of her office. "It went on that way until one night when I was fifteen. The nightmares, the lying." She held up her hands and looked at them. "Sometimes Jimbo would handcuff me to the bed, and I'd smash my wrist against the metal. Over and over until it bled."