Chapter 19: A Prayer in the Dark
Nights were the hardest.
When the house finally quieted, when her aunt and cousins were asleep, Mary would lie alone on her thin mat in the corner of the kitchen. The air was damp and heavy. The smell of firewood clung to the walls. In the dark, she wrapped her arms around herself—not for warmth, but for comfort.
Sometimes her stomach growled. Sometimes her eyes burned from holding back tears all day. But this was her moment. The only time in the day that was truly hers.
And it was in those moments that Mary began to pray.
Not with the loud, practiced words her aunt used in church. Not with fancy verses. Her prayers were whispers—broken, raw, and real.
"God… are You listening?"
"If You see me… please help me."
"I don't want to hate them."
"Please let me become somebody."
They were the prayers of a child trying to survive a world that had forgotten her. But in those quiet whispers, Mary began to shape her dreams. She imagined a life where she wore clean clothes, where no one raised their hand to hurt her. A life where she could sleep without fear and wake up with joy.
She imagined standing tall in a school uniform that fit. She dreamed of becoming a teacher, like Mrs. Raymond, who saw her and made her feel like she mattered.
Sometimes she would cry. Not loudly—just a few silent tears that slid into her pillow. But when she was done, she'd breathe deeply and whisper again:
"God, don't let me give up. I want to be better than this pain."
And in that darkness, with no one else around, something began to shift.
Mary's prayers weren't just calls for help—they became seeds of belief. Belief that there was more to her life than this suffering. That she could rise above it. That she was not forgotten. Not by heaven. Not by herself.
Because even when the world gave her nothing, Mary held on to hope—a hope fierce enough to survive the dark.