she would laugh as she recalled how they described the unintended but very real effect she was having on their patrons. The couple had noticed that my mother shied away from men, refusing to engage in their playful banter, scurrying away from their touch. She would unintentionally cower at the sound of a raised voice, or shudder at the clank of a beer goblet on the wooden bar. She had not yet learned that not all men were so brazen in their attempts to appeal to her. But she was about to.
In those early months with the sweet little family, my mother took only if she had already given. She walked the streets with a quick step and lowered head, unwilling to meet the gaze of the passers-by who inevitably stared at her lovely face. She came fully prepared to each lesson with the wife, completing each assignment ahead of schedule and above expectation. Her teachers routinely advanced her to the next level, the next grade until the day came when they told her it was time to begin her secondary education.
This was my favorite story of all. I would beg my mother to tell it over and over. It never got old.
It was the day she received what is equivalent to a high school diploma. Wearing a fine dress given to her by the couple, my mother joined them for dinner at an elegant restaurant she had heard about only in stories. Someone else folded her napkin, someone else gently placed her exquisite meal before her, and someone else paid the bill that came delicately wrapped in a leather binder at the end of dessert. She told me that she had made a decision that night. As she looked at the faces of the two people who had become like real parents to her, she took a deep cleansing breath, and spoke from the most private place buried inside her heart.
She started softly and slowly, the story of her life. She owed them that.
She told them of the family she fled from, the sisters she left behind. She told them of the murdered girl who had been her friend, the vengeful rage of her father, her own fear of becoming what her mother already was.
She explained how she became desperate to run away, single-minded in her driving need to escape the torture of being passed from one heavy-handed man to another.
She watched their eyes, locked on her as she described how she hatched her final plan in a matter of days, her destination guided only by rumor and word of mouth among the women. She said she had prayed that night that if she did not find the door at the bottom of the stairs, God would take her home.
If salvation was nothing more than false hope, she preferred death.
She tried to find the appropriate words to describe to the couple the moment she stood on the edge of the doorway, getting her first look at the outstretched arms of the angels on earth standing just inside. She wanted them to understand the risk these women were taking. One wrong step and there would be no time wasted bringing any one of them to swift justice. How they all knew there would be no acceptable form of punishment other than a violent and bloody death. In spite of that, they risked it all.
The couple held her eyes the entire time, only looking down occasionally when the horror of my mother’s truth seemed to strike so deeply they could barely stand to listen. She will never know what they were thinking that night, because they never asked a single question during the entire time my mother spoke. They were silent as she told of the bold courage of the group. How they hid their soul-saving work from the human corruption that festered just outside their front door.
God’s hands move in many directions, the women had told my mother. Sometimes they push you down to make you fight harder, and sometimes they lift you up when your own mortal resolve has failed.
As the night wore on, and their fellow patrons pushed their chairs in and left the restaurant with the glow of wine and good spirits, my mother’s words began to slow. She looked into the misty eyes across the table and uttered the words she had never had cause to speak before. Three little words she should have known her entire life, but until then had felt as foreign on her tongue as a new language.
“I love you both,” she began, “for giving me hope and kindness and a place I shall call home for the rest of my life.”
The couple did not realize they had been holding tight onto the other’s fingers. For the next few seconds, the fingers froze then tightened, exchanging more than words ever could. The couple who had been blessed with only one child, but had enough love for a dozen, had already given this woman-child a permanent place in their family and in their hearts. The daughter they did not create, but one who came to them as if on a path from above. They told her they had waited for this moment, knowing that she kept her heart guarded, never asking for it to be included or assuming it was even welcomed. Without intending to, she had brought them a peaceful kind of joy; an unexpected gift they could never have prepared for, but couldn’t imagine not getting.
In the months spent with the couple up until that point, the most important piece of this puzzle had been missing. My mother described to me the final moments of her celebration dinner and the surprise that followed, as if they were guiding her to the next fork along the road of her life. She would recite for me what the couple had said to her, word for word.
“Dear, we have loved you from the moment you knocked on our door,” the husband and wife began, each finishing the other’s words. “We don’t know the people you came from, but from this point forward you will always be our daughter.” The husband looked down at their locked fingers, as a single tear slid slowly down his cheek.
“We love Easton in a way we could never imagine feeling again. Yet, we do…for you. We have arranged for you to join him at university. We have saved enough money, and the school is granting you a scholarship to make up the difference. We have kept it a surprise, because we knew you would never ask for our help. Everything is paid for, your place is being held, and you will begin in one month.”
“Easton will meet you at the train, settle you into your new apartment, and help get you ready for classes to begin.” The wife picked up her napkin and dabbed her eyes before continuing. “We will respect your wishes to do as you see fit once you get to school but if I could make one suggestion…” she began tentatively, hoping her words would be welcomed advice. “I see in you some of the qualities we saw in Easton. You are calm and steady, you have a disciplined mind, and you wish to help other people,” she stated firmly, forcing my mother to accept this as fact rather than compliment, which she refused to acknowledge most times. “These are qualities best put to good use among physicians. Doctors must be calm, they must be confident, and above all else seek to ease the pain and suffering of complete strangers.” The wife then focused her eyes directly at my mother. “You are going to be very important in the lives of others, I can just feel it. Where you go from here is completely up to you to decide. It doesn’t matter who told you otherwise, but in this life there is always free will. We will always be here for you, but the world is also waiting for you to take your place in it.”
My mother held the wife’s gaze firmly, feeling the sting of tears behind her eyes. She had never known the physical phenomenon of joyful tears. She spent so many years fully in control of her emotions that not even her sisters had ever witnessed the fall of a tear from her face.
Like a door swinging wide open, my mother’s iron resolve shattered and she was overcome by gratitude. She had a flash of the fear she had felt the night she left her father’s house. The blind rush of adrenaline that had propelled her down the dark empty streets to the safe house. She briefly recalled sharing bread with mothers and children huddled under heavy blankets in the back of rusty old trucks traveling away from the abuse their families had nurtured for generations. She wondered what had become of them, and offered thanks yet again for the blessings she had been given.
As the family prepared to leave the restaurant that night, emotionally spent and ready for the warm comfort of home, they each heard the moan of the heavy wooden door as it was pulled
