Mary lay on the sidewalk in the late summer sunshine of southern Illinois. She bucked and kicked from the seizure, drool spewing from her mouth. In her well of darkness she heard a baby crying, trying to get her attention. Her eyes fluttered until finally opening. The first thing she saw was her baby, Malissa.

Gone was Ken, the husband and father who in a rage punched Mary until the fight spilled out into the open walkway where he pushed her down and pummeled her some more. After a few swift kicks and some parting threats--he was gone. No one raced to their rescue.

Holding her child, Mary found her feet. She figured it was another seizure that took her out, not to mention Ken's pummeling. She recalled how her father paid for an expensive brain scan a few years ago when she was prepared to be with Tom at Arlington Baptist College. But it was Tom who wasn't ready for the commitment. Her thoughts would never stray far from the life she could have had with him. But she ran off from home, married a high school friend. She wanted out of the house. She was tired of her slavish life taking care of her young siblings and doing all the household chores.

Mary knew Ken liked guys. No problem. She thought she could change him. Ken's parents used her with that purpose in mind. The Blakely family disowned the whole affair. Maybe the echo of her father could still be heard. "Wait for Tom, he'll come around. He will come back."

Too late! Mary sealed her fate without her family's blessing. A few months later, Mary was pregnant. From then on, her life spiraled down a dank, dark well of despair where no one heard her cries.

Mary was the bread winner as a beautician. Ken hardly held a job for more than a few weeks. She paid the bills but found out he'd take the checks out of the envelope and spend the money at gay bars. He preferred having his wife work during the day so he could hop into bed with another man.

Mary wasn't turning Ken into a loving, God-fearing husband; he was turning her into a bitter, broken wife and mother. Her faith got buried under the bitterness.

Before their one-year anniversary, Mary kicked him out of her life and took up with an aunt and uncle. After the birth of her daughter Malissa. She could think of only one blessing in her life, and that was a healthy baby girl with brown doe eyes and brown curly hair. It gave Mary something to live for. It gave her a reason not to take her own life. It wasn't just a wilderness journey; it was hell on earth.

The second thing she thought about as she scrambled to her feet and put the baby on her hip, was how she was such a fool to have divorced Ken and then got sucked into moving to his home state to give their relationship another try. Oh, he was a talker, not just a fighter. He convinced Mary that his same sex attraction was over! He would even go to church, step up and help pay the bills. It was all a ruse.

As she stumbled through the grass down a hill and crossed over a busy road, all she wanted then was to find a safe haven and get out of southern Illinois. She feared having a seizure and passing out again. As she fought through the pain, bruised, and battered, thoughts of home brought tears to her eyes. She didn't care if she was called the Prodigal Daughter, She just wanted the love of home, family, and safe place for her baby daughter.

Pain shot through Mary's legs like shockwaves, but her adrenaline kicked in when she spied the house in the modest neighborhood where ken's half-sister lived with her husband Phil. They had a baby too. She didn't know what else to do. It seemed everyone was related to Ken. Ironically, he'd been adopted as a baby by Texas parents. His mother played fast and loose with men and had a string of unwanted babies. Somehow Ken found her and found the most real kin of his lifetime in the small town. His mother never called herself a whore, just another victim of drugs and alcohol. They bonded.

Holding the baby until her arms were numb, Mary stumbled up the driveway to the modest one-story house. She paused in silence in front of the door. People seemed afraid to get involved. It was something foreign to her mind. What would Phil and Debbie do? Would they send her away?

Mary pounded on the door. Debbie didn't open the door immediately. She looked out the window.

"Please Debbie, help me! Your brother beat me half to death."

Phil opened the door. His jaw collapsed at the sight of Mary. "Good God girl. What happened to you?" By then Mary's face was bruised with a swollen eye, and she had marks up and down her arms.

"I passed out on the sidewalk. I thought he would kill me. Please, please can I come in and call my Dad."

Phill tensed up. His face turned red with anger. "Ken did this to you? Get in here." He locked the door behind her.

She fell forward and couldn't wait to plop down on the couch in front of the bay window. Debbie stood near her crib, her baby asleep, looking afraid to get involved.

Mary had a hard time talking. Her mouth was dry, lips chalky. "Can I use your phone. I need to...to call my Dad. I got to get out of here."

Phill took charge. He looked over at his wife. "Deb, get Mary some water and get this baby something."

"We were in the kitchen. He...I told him off about something, then he went nuts. I scrambled to get out of the apartment. I...I thought someone would hear, someone would help! I got no one."

Mary shuddered and gulped the glass of water. Malissa took a sippy cup of juice. Debbie warmed up to Mary's baby and took hold of her on the couch while the couples baby slept in a crib.

"I won't let him touch you again," said Phill. "But you have to get out of town as soon as you get a bus ticket. Tom's mother knows too many people. You can't trust anyone in his family here." He looked over at his wife Debbie holding the baby.

Debbie looked over at Mary with a hinged look. Phill looked at her. "Debbie, you know it's true. Before long I guarantee he's calling Mary on his mother's orders to smooth things over.

Phill handed Mary the landline with a long cord across the living room. She dialed the operator to make a collect call. The line was busy. She tried and tried again. She tried for over an hour.


*****
As it turned out I was the one on the line that day talking to her father, keeping her from getting through. Soon I would learn that it was a God moment of timing. I called Mary with an urge unlike any other after two years! Yet I was the reason she couldn't get through to her father. What an irony.


*****
Desperation mounted for Mary. She used the bathroom, checked her bruises, freshened up the best she could, then she looked out the picture window near dark half expecting Ken to be standing in front of the bay window in the front yard. The phone rang! She jumped.

Phill answered. "No, you scum, you can't talk to Mary." He hung up. It was Ken. "You need to tell the operator to break through on your Dad's line. It's an emergency! I fear he may come over here with his mother. But no one's getting to you or that baby unless it's over my dead body." He looked at baby Malissa with tears in his eyes.

Mary broke through on the line and made the collect call to her father. She hiccupped through tears but managed to get her father to wire money for bus a fare home. Sometime after Mary hung up, she collapsed on the couch. Little Malissa hugged her neck. She kissed her baby and said, "We're goin' home to be with Mamma and Pappa."

Phill and Debbie made a place for mother and daughter in the babies room with a spare bed. As Mary lay in bed with her baby asleep, she stared at the ceiling and recalled how she almost called Tom when she was divorced and living with her aunt and uncle in Ft. Worth, Texas. She had his number memorized. She'd pick up the phone on different days, started dialing the number, then hung up. She couldn't bring herself to finish the call. She'd made a mess of her life. She had a baby. She was damaged goods. Tom would graduate and be in the ministry. She didn't want to screw his life up too.

Before Mary nodded off to sleep she clung to her Dad's words. "Tom called. He wanted to see you again. He wanted to know if you were okay."

A sliver of hope ran through her spine that night. She hoped, no, she prayed she'd meet Tom again. There was never a day when she stopped loving him. Never.