A Heart Made New by Kelly Irvin Page A

to wails.
    Charisma plopped down on the curb next to her daughter and put her face in her hands. “Gracie, please, please, you have to get in,” she sobbed. “For Mommy. Please.”
    Annie sidled up to the van and peeked in. Food wrappers and paper bags cluttered the front seat. The middle overflowed with blankets. In the rear sat brown sacks stuffed with clothes. No wonder Gracie didn’t want to get in. It looked like a dirty, cluttered, makeshift home. If they were staying in the motel, why were all those bags of clothes still in the car?
    Annie knelt down next to Charisma and put her hands on the weeping woman’s shoulders. “Are you all right?”
    Charisma didn’t look up. She started to rock back and forth. “Please, Gracie,” she whispered.
    “Sorry.” The little girl threw her chubby arms around her mother’s head. “I sorry, Mommy. I sorry.”
    Charisma cried harder.
    Annie squeezed her shoulders. “Can I help you?”
    “You again.” The woman raised her tear-stained face. “Why would you help me?”
    “You’re living in your van. You need help.”
    Charisma’s face went from red to white. She popped to her feet. “We are not living in our van. It’s just messy. We’re messy people, okay? Have you ever taken a cross-country trip in a car with a three-year-old? They’re messy. That’s all. You can’t tell people we’re living in our car.”
    “I’m sorry…I didn’t mean…I won’t tell anyone anything.” Annie stood. “Who would I tell? I just want to help.”
    “You’re not gonna tell SRS?”
    “What is SRS?”
    “Come on, you can’t be that innocent! Even with the dress and the bun and the bonnet, you have to know about SRS. Social and…something services. They take kids away from parents who don’t take good care of them.”
    “Are you not taking good care of Gracie?”
    Charisma nodded toward the van. “What do you think?”
    Gracie stood on her tiptoes and patted her mother’s belly. She giggled. “Baby, baby, baby!”
    Charisma squeezed the girl’s hand without seeming to realize it. “Don’t you see? They might not understand about the van. You can’t tell. Promise me you won’t tell!”
    “I won’t tell. I want to help.”
    “Why?” Charisma sat Gracie on the front seat and handed her a ragged brown monkey. “You don’t know me. Logan tried to rob you.”
    “You need help. I can help.”
    “How? Are you going to give me money so I can put gas in the car? Are you going to give me money for a motel room?”
    “I don’t have any money.” Annie gave everything she made at the bakery to Luke. She fumbled for a way to help. Something. Anything.
    It hit her. “You can come home with me. We have room at our house. We have lots of food. We can share.”
    Charisma’s mouth dropped open. “Are you crazy? Or like some kind of nun or something?”
    “I’m not crazy and I’m not a nun, I promise.”
    “I couldn’t just go home with a stranger.” Despite the words, Charisma’s expression said she was thinking of the alternative. She glanced at Gracie, who tossed the monkey over the back of the seat and grabbed a dirty plastic fork with an equally dirty hand. Charisma licked cracked lips. “Could I?”
    “My name is Annie Shirack. Now you know me. Come with me to my brother’s shop. We’ll come back in the buggy for your things or you can drive the van to our house. Josiah will tell you how to get there.”
    “I can’t take the van. It’s out of gas.”
    “Then we’ll get your clothes and come back for it later. My family will help.” Annie sent up a little prayer that she wasn’t overestimating Luke’s charitable instincts. He had so many children to support already. “We all will.”
    Her face pensive, Charisma traced a square in the dirt on the car window, then added a roof and a door. “Won’t your parents think it’s weird, you coming home with a pregnant girl and a little kid?”
    The question stung. It shouldn’t. It had been more than