Divine by Karen Kingsbury

felt the memory lift like patchy fog. "Jimbo and Lou did a lot of secret talking that night, and in the morning they packed up the apartment and we left."
    Across from her, Emma was still rapt, her expression anxious. "For the remote cabin? the one in Virginia? I think I read something about that in the newspaper."
    "Yes. My mama made a lot of bad choices." She lifted her chin. "But she loved me." Mary wanted Emma to understand this part. "She just didn't know how to go home again."
    The words seemed to hit Emma hard. She sat back, unblinking. Her eyes filled and she shook her head. "Me neither."
    Mary felt her expression soften. This was what she wanted, what she was praying for. That Emma would see herself in the story, and that along the way she would come to know the truth. If Jesus could rescue her, He could rescue Emma. No matter how terrible her life was today. She reached out and patted Emma's hand. "I had a feeling."
    Emma wiped her fingers beneath her eyes. "It's complicated."
    Mary sat back. "It always is."
    "What happened to your mother?" Emma reached for her water. Her hand shook as she took a sip, but she never broke eye contact. "That's the part. . . the part the news never talked about."
    "I've tried to piece it together from the police reports." Mary felt an ache in her heart. Her mother had never found her way off the streets, never figured out how to free herself from the abuse. It was the reason Mary was driven to help women like Emma. She drew a slow breath. "After three days she must've come back for me and found the apartment empty. The three of us gone."
    "She must've been crazy with grief."
    "I think so." Mary closed her eyes for a few seconds. She could still feel her mother's arms around her, the way she'd felt safe in her embrace the last time they were together. She blinked and looked at Emma. "She must've figured there was no way to find me, and the guilt... it must've been too much." She paused long enough to rope in her emotions. "The police . . . found her in an alley a few blocks away. Dead from an overdose."
    Emma was shaking. She covered her face, and for a moment she looked like she might break down. "That could've been me." Her words were muffled, but they rang in painful honesty through the room. "So many times that could've been me." After a while she wiped a few errant tears. Her eyes met Mary's. "I'm sorry. About your mama."
    "It's been a long time." They were words she said easily now, meant to release people from feeling sorry for her. She was okay—she really was. Healed of so many horrors. But still, on certain late-spring days, she would remember her mother, the feel of her arms, the feel of her hair that last time. Only Grandma Peggy knew how much the loss still hurt.
    "What happened next?" The moment Emma asked, a shadow fell over her face. "I mean, if you don't mind talking about it."
    "I don't mind." Mary tried to look past the walls in Emma's heart. "There's a reason I tell this story."
    Emma hugged herself tight. She was still shaking, partly because of the story, no doubt. But at least some of her jittery behavior had to be from needing a drug fix. She took another sip of her water. "It can't be easy."
    " It isn't."
    She raised one bony shoulder. "So why do it? Why tell it?"
    "For you, Emma." Mary's throat was thick. "So you don't wind up like my mama. If maybe someone would've found her on the streets and told her the truth about Jesus, maybe . . . maybe everything would've turned out differently."
    Emma didn't say another word. Her silence allowed Mary to fall back into the story, back as deep as she'd been before.
    The part just ahead was one of the saddest of all. 
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Chapter 5
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    Jimbo and Lou lied to her. They told Mary they were packing up their things and loading them into the back of Jimbo's truck so they could go find Mary's mother. Because her mama wasn't coming back, and they needed to go where she was.
    "Why are we taking the couch