Maddie sets up the game Connect Four and waves for Amy to join her. “Would you like to play this with me?” Maddie sits at the end of the table, looking up at her. She picks up a red chip and slides it into a slot.
Amy agrees, sitting in the corner chair. “I’d love to! It’s been years since I’ve played this.” She picks up a black chip and taps it to her forehead, thinking of where to place it.
“You should know that I’m really good!” Maddie drops in another chip.
“I believe you!”
“I like your bracelet.” It’s a simple braided bracelet of turquoise, blue, and yellow.
Amy slides a chip into a slot. “Thanks! It’s called a cord of three. See, it’s got three heavy cords that are braided together because a cord of three can’t be broken.”
“It can’t?”
Amy shakes her head. “Nope. A cord of two can be flimsy but a cord of three is much stronger.”
Maddie slides in another red chip. “I like the colors. It’s pretty.”
“Here,” Amy says, loosening the bracelet from her wrist and sliding it off her hand. “You can have it. See, it slips on over your hand and then you tighten it by moving this bead up.”
Maddie’s mouth drops open. “This is so cool! I love it! But won’t you miss it?”
Amy reaches for a black chip. “I got it at the flea market. The next time I’m there I’ll pick up another one.”
Maddie drops in another chip and grins. “Connect Four!”
Amy bugs her eyes out. “You are good at this!”
“Do you want to play again?”
“Sure!”
Maddie moves the lever so the chips will drop to the table and then moves the lever back in place. “Do you think Lauren will change?”
Amy looks at her. “What do you mean?”
Maddie studies where she should place her first chip. “After she gets married. Do you think she’ll change? Because I don’t want her to.”
Amy shakes her head. “I think Lauren will be exactly the person that you love right now.”
“Mr. G. said that he changed. Said he was a bad husband.”
Amy drops in a chip. “The guy that you wanted me to meet? He was a bad husband and you want me to meet him?!”
Maddie looks at her, rolling her eyes. “He was a bad husband but he would be a good husband now. He said he wasn’t very nice to his wife. Do you think Lauren’s husband will be nice to her?”
Amy looks over at Lauren, who’s helping with the choir. “Lauren strikes me as a person who would be very careful and selective about who she lets into her life. Although I’ve never met him, I can assume that her fiancé is a good man.”
Maddie drops in another chip, grinning at Amy. “Do you want to get married?”
Amy puts a hand on her hip with an exaggerated sigh. “Do you?”
“I’m too young!”
“So am I!”
“You’re not young! You’re old!”
Amy slaps her hand down on her thigh. “Miss Glory never told me that I was signing up for this!”
Maddie grins. “Well, you’re not old but you’re old enough to be married. I still think you should meet Mr. G.”
“The guy who was the bad husband, right?”
“I think he should come to the fund-raiser and meet you. Don’t you?”
Amy sighs. “I will be helping at the fund-raiser so if it makes you happy, then yes, tell him to come and I will be happy to say hello to him.” She leans closer for emphasis. “I will say hello to him.”
Maddie uses a hand to pat the air in front of her. “I get it. I get it. You’ll say hello and that’s it.” She slides in another chip and points to the grid. “Connect four!”
“That’s not fair! You keep distracting me!”
Maddie giggles and moves the lever again so all the chips will fall. “You’re fun to play with.”
“Only because you keep beating me!” Amy looks over at Maddie and smiles. “You said that a nurse named you.” She’s not sure how to continue with this train of thought but Maddie steps in for her.
“She did. The woman who had me was out of there.” She raises her thumb and throws it over her shoulder as if hitchhiking.
Amy stops playing the game. “What do you mean?”
Maddie shrugs. “All I know is that she had me and then she left. My dad too.”
Amy nods. “Their leaving had nothing to do with you.”
“How do you know? I think once they found out I had CP they left.” Maddie drops a chip into the grid.
Amy leans onto the table. “You can’t tell that a baby has cerebral palsy when she’s born.”
Maddie looks at her. “That’s what my foster mom said too.”
“And she’s right!” Amy says. “I worked with a woman with cerebral palsy and she was around your age when she was diagnosed. You can’t look at a brand-new baby and diagnose CP. Your biological parents didn’t leave you behind because of that.”
“But how do you know?”
“Because no one could ever look at your face and walk away.”
“I still wonder why they did.”
“They were probably too young. Maybe her parents didn’t even know that she was about to have you and she had you without their knowing. Maybe he had a drug problem and they thought that they were doing the best thing for you by leaving you in the care of someone healthy and strong.” She desperately wants to believe this and hopes that Maddie believes it too. Maddie’s face is blank, leaving Amy to wonder if she has said something she shouldn’t have.
“They did do the best thing!” Maddie says, sliding another red chip into the grid. “I never would’ve come to my first foster home in Grandon, which means I never would have ended up with Linda. She took me to all my doctor appointments and helped me with my leg braces when I had them. She’s a great foster mom.” She thinks for a second and then says, “I never would have met my teachers or friends at school, or Mr. G., or Miss Glory, or you, or anybody here. Right?”
Amy smiles, nodding. “Right! And my life would be awfully dull without you in it.” She drops a chip into the grid and realizes that she has just set Maddie up to win again and she groans, throwing her hands on top of her head.
“Thanks!” Maddie laughs, sliding her final red chip in to win.
Lauren and Stacy call for Maddie’s group to come sing and Amy says, “Go on! I’ll clean this up.” As she’s leaving, Maddie leans in to hug Amy’s neck and Amy can feel her heart swell.
“She’s awfully sweet, isn’t she?”
Amy looks behind her at Gloria and nods. “She seems to have so much against her but…”
“But she’s got everything going for her,” Gloria says, finishing her sentence. “There’s a lot to be said for childlike faith.”
Amy begins to put the chips into the box and pulls the grid apart. “She said she’s in a foster home. Is it a good home for her?”
Gloria hands her the lid to the box. “Her foster mom, Linda, is a lovely person. She’s a nurse and has given excellent care to Maddie. She’s an older woman who’s been fostering for years. We need more foster parents like her.”
“How have you done this for as long as you have?”
Gloria sits on the edge of the table. “Are you asking me how have I continued to believe that life for some of these kids can be changed, that somehow all their broken pieces can turn out for good?” Amy nods. “I believe because I’ve seen it happen in so many of their lives. I saw it happen in my own son’s life. He ran away when he was a teenager, just two weeks before his father died, and was gone for years. All I had left was hope and faith. All I had was my prayers for him. I left my front porch light on every single day year after year, just praying that the light would lead him home, and it did. It seemed impossible that I’d ever see him again but I couldn’t let my hope and faith die. I had to believe that my son would return. I have that same kind of hope and faith for these kids and I show that to them through the work that we all do here. And I pray for them every day.”
“And that’s enough?”
“It is enough because faith can move mountains.” She laughs. “You learn a lot about mountain moving at my age!”
Miriam shouts for Gloria to from across the big room and Gloria shakes her head, sighing. “I always thought the English were supposed to be demure. Miriam has shattered that image.”
Amy puts the game away and turns to listen as the children practice “O Holy Night.” When she was a child she did believe that faith could move mountains but that belief began to crumble as she grew into adulthood. There is a hollowed-out place in her heart that longs for a simple faith like that of Maddie and Gloria; a faith that sustains her when life pulls the rug out from beneath her. But the rug has been pulled out from under her one too many times, leaving her faith crippled at best. It wasn’t her parents’ fault. She looks back fondly at her home life with her two brothers and mom and dad. Her parents have always been supportive, and when her heart has been broken, her father’s arms have been the first to surround her. It has been years since her heart was broken and she knows it’s time to step out in faith, believing, like Gloria, that the broken pieces in her life can turn out for the good.