The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

Hardin does well at the literary agency and is asked to help collaboratively write Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s book, The Book of Forgiving. She and Abrams, the owner of the company, outline Tutu’s book. They hold virtual calls with Tutu and work through the project as a team. She writes a chapter on self-forgiveness and then volunteers to teach a course based on that chapter at Gemma. At this point, she’s been out of prison and sober for four years.

She helps the inmates in the Gemma program through the forgiveness steps in Tutu’s draft book and discusses how important it is to ask for forgiveness. Meanwhile, Hardin continues to conceal her past and has not asked her neighbors for forgiveness, explaining, “I teach what I’m not brave enough to do myself” (247).

Darcy calls and tells Hardin that Bryan is cheating on her, which Hardin already suspected. She helps Darcy through a period of depression and opiate abuse. Hardin tells Darcy about a man she’s dating named Sam, who has two kids and dotes on her. Hardin forgives Darcy for trying to keep her in jail, and they spend Mother’s Day together with the four boys before Darcy divorces Bryan and moves to Boston.