Her father hadn’t accepted her, either. Her mother had once told her that he’d always dreamed of having a son. At the time, Lin had been terribly hurt, but as the years passed, she learned to set those feelings aside. She’d been the best daughter she knew how to be in hopes of gaining some kind of approval, and maybe even a bit of love and affection from both parents, but that was not to be. When she told her parents about the decision to keep her baby, they were mortified and humiliated. She’d been tossed out of the only home she’d ever known with nothing more than the clothes on her back.

A soft, mewling sound jerked her out of the past. “It’s okay, little one. I’m right here.”

With the quilt that Irma, Jack’s wife, had made for him, Lin gently wrapped Will in a snug bundle. It was below freezing outside. Lin had halfheartedly listened to the local weather report as it blared from the television mounted above her bed. An ice storm was predicted. Meteorologists said it could be the worst in north Georgia history. With only two small electric space heaters, her garage apartment would be freezing. How she wished she could take Will to her childhood home. While it wasn’t filled with love, at least it would be warm.

But Lin recalled the torturous evenings of her childhood. She would rather die than subject her son to such a strict and oftentimes cruel upbringing. Every evening, as far back as she could remember, she’d had to pray while kneeling on the hardwood floor in the living room as her father read from the Bible.

A die-hard Southern Baptist who considered himself a man of God, her father had constructed a pulpit for himself in the center of the living room from which he would gaze down at her with disdain, as though she weren’t good enough. Then, as if that weren’t bad enough, he’d make her recite the names of all the books of the Bible in order. If she missed one, he would make her start from the beginning until she named them correctly. Once, when she was about seven or eight, she remembered spending an entire night on her knees praying. She’d prayed hard, her father watching her the entire time. Little did he know she’d been praying for his immediate death. Many times she’d wet herself while on her knees in prayer. Her father wouldn’t allow her to change her clothes or bathe afterward.

“The devil lives inside you, girly! Taking a shower ain’t gonna cleanse your dirty soul!”

She’d winced the first time she’d heard those words. After a while, she became immune to his cruel words. She’d even gotten used to smelling like urine. The kids at school were relentless, calling her Miss Stinkypants. And she would do what she always did when she was hurting.

She prayed.