Losing Hope (16 page)

I stared at Luca, stunned, uncertain where to go with that new bit of information. But it did not matter.

My cell phone was vibrating, and I did not recognize the local number.

“Hello?” I answered, breathless, curious. Hopeful.

“Sienna.” Leon Sanderson. “I have your son. I need you to meet me at the precinct near your house. Now.” That is all he said before hanging up.

Tomeeka could see the fear and concern taking over my face. She grabbed my wrists with seemingly all the dramatic flair she could muster. “Don't worry, Sienna. We will find your husband. Right, Luca?”

“Sì,” the Mediterranean cutie affirmed.

“Go handle your business. We can continue next week. Same time, same place,” Tomeeka told me.

A million and one thoughts flooded my mind as I sped to the police precinct. What on earth was Roman doing there?
Oh, God
. The closest I had come to a prayer in I don't know how long. Though I was not that far away, the trip felt like the longest of my life. Terrible images surfaced in my mind, of Roman in handcuffs, of him bruised and bloodied. What had he done? What had someone done to him?

I pulled into the lot at a quarter of nine and immediately sighed in relief. Roman and Leon were standing outside, leaning against Leon's car. I parked in a space nearby and stormed over to them.

“What is going on?” I demanded, glaring at my son. He looked over at Leon.

“Don't look at me,” the officer remarked. “Tell your mother what happened.”

Roman looked away from both of us, his mouth a tight line of defiance, his hands in tight fists at his sides. When it became clear that he was not going to say anything, Leon did his best to fill me in.

“So I get a call from one of my old friends who works for the city police department. He tells me he's picked up a young boy in lower Park Heights that he's about to arrest, but the young boy asks for me. I get there, and this is who I find, sitting on the curb, in handcuffs, a five-ounce bag of marijuana sitting next to him. My friend, Officer Pettit, tells me it was in Roman's pants. I told him he was one of mine and that I'd deal with him. That's the
only
reason Roman is not at one of the intake centers for the Department of Juvenile Services as we speak.”

I wasn't sure who was breathing harder, me or my son, but if fire could form in one's nostrils, I was certainly close to burning down that whole parking lot.

“What! Roman, have you lost your everlasting mind? What are you doing with drugs in your pocket? What were you even doing out?” I was a social worker by training, but in that moment I knew I was about to have to call child protective services on myself. I wanted to wring the boy by the neck. It took all I had to keep my distance from my son. I noticed that Leon was positioned perfectly between the two of us, and I knew it was purposeful on his part. “What? Are you selling drugs now? What is going on?”

Roman remained silently defiant, his eyes fixed on a traffic light swinging in the nighttime breeze. A storm was coming. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

“Roman, answer me.” I did not even recognize my own voice. Something primal, primordial, was lodged in my throat, ready to surface in a scream. I felt like a mother grizzly, poised and ready to attack an unseen danger threatening her cub. When had the world become so evil as to try to claim my son?

“Roman?” The growl intensified.

Finally, he looked at me.

“You told me to go to school. I did. You said I was grounded. I haven't touched a single thing in my room. But I told you I was going to get Daddy's ring back.” His eyes looked glazed over; I could not tell if it was tears or anger.

“What does that ring have to do with having weed in your pocket?” I demanded, trying to sort through the range of emotions that had taken over my mind and body at the thought of that ring again. I realized I was shaking.

“Skee-Gee said he would help me, but I had to help him first.”

“Help him with what?”

“I ain't no snitch. Especially if we're talking about family.” He looked back at the swinging traffic light, his face hardened. I knew that was all we were going to get out of him for the evening.

Leon knew it too. His next words were directed only to me. “Are you talking about Sylvester ‘Skee-Gee' Grantley the third?”

“My favorite nephew.” I rolled my eyes. “You have the pleasure of knowing him too?” I was not surprised.

Leon did not immediately answer, but when he did, his voice was barely above a whisper and his jaw quivered. “I knew his father, Sylvester Grantley the second.” His eyes drifted off to the same streetlight that had Roman's devout attention.

“We're having dinner over at my mother's house this Sunday to talk to both my sister and her son. He and Roman had a bad fight earlier this week. Apparently, they've kissed and made up, but they've given us new things to discuss. With both of them.” I glared at Roman, who still refused to look at me.

But Leon looked at me dead on.

“I know it's a family affair, but can I be a little rude and invite myself?”

His request did not strike me as rude at all. In fact, with all that had been going on with my son over the past couple days, it seemed like Leon
should
be there.

I scribbled my mother's address on some scrap paper and handed it to him. “Dinner usually starts at four, following services at New Eden.”

Leon nodded, and I knew that our little parking lot meeting was over. It was time for me to take Roman home. It was time for the day to finally be over. As I herded my son to my car, I looked back over at Leon. He was still leaning against his car, his eyes drifting into space. A part of me wondered if it was a mistake to invite him to the dinner that would be happening the day after tomorrow.

I did not know Leon's history with Skee-Gee's family tree, but I noticed he was rubbing his uncapped tooth.

I stared at my son's bedroom door, wondering if I could lock it from the outside, knowing that would do no good.

Roman had already proven that he was going to do whatever he was determined to do. Smiling and joking along in my face, scheming and
selling drugs
when I wasn't looking. Who was this person? I felt like I did not know him anymore. He was definitely his father's child. I swallowed to keep a sudden and unexpected wave of bitterness from washing over me.

“Good night, Roman,” I whispered at the closed door, tracing a finger around the Baltimore Ravens poster he had taped onto it. I had no other words for him for that day.

Actually, I had no other words for anyone that day.

 

 

I was in the middle of dreaming about chocolate-covered wildflowers when a buzz from my cell phone woke me up. It was a text message.

Okay, I texted back and turned over in my bed. I was too sleepy to care or remember who Deirdre Evans from the DSS was or why we had to talk.

I found out I was pregnant with Roman on the Fourth of July. Independence Day. I remember because I had felt everything except independent. Lying in my parents' guest bed, staring at two pink lines on a stick while fireworks and firecrackers boomed and sizzled outside my window, I could not comprehend what having a child would mean for my life.

Would mean for my marriage.

I had returned to the United States from KwaZulu-Natal the week before.

Alone.

That was over fourteen years ago, and I still lay in a bed alone.

Somehow in the middle of these thoughts and memories, I awoke. A single ray of sunshine broke through a slit in my curtains, trying to trick me into thinking it would be a glorious day.

I knew better.

I'd gotten a text in the middle of the night, I recalled. Deirdre Evans.

The DSS worker who'd had Dayonna's case during the five months missing from her chart and the same one who'd visited her this week in the hospital.

That fact, I remembered, had been confirmed by the receptionist at that facility when I asked her who had put me down on the restricted visitors' list.

Could Deirdre Evans be the person who requested that I not see Dayonna? The question puzzled me, especially since I did not know this lady from jack, and as far as I knew, she was Dayonna's former DSS worker, not her current one. I nearly fell out of my bed reaching for my cell phone to reread her text.

“Roman!” I pounded on my son's door. It was already eight o'clock, and I was supposed to meet her at nine. “Get up! Get dressed! We're leaving in half an hour.”

I waited a few moments, until I heard his big feet land with a dense thud on the floor. Satisfied that he was awake and moving, I headed back to my own room to get ready.

It was early Saturday morning, and I really did not have the best idea as to why I was meeting this woman. What I did know was that Roman was coming with me.

I'd already learned my lesson about leaving him alone while I chased Hope.

 

 

Lexington Market was one of the few landmarks in Baltimore City that I had not yet fully comprehended. A historic marketplace that had been around for over two centuries, it had vendors selling everything from fresh meat, produce, and candy to tax services, soap and body products, and, of course, crab cakes. But the other reality of Lexington Market was that it was a meeting place of sorts for those of every walk of life known to Baltimore. Against the eclectic backdrop of clashing sights and aromas, there was a clash of classes and cultures. One was just as likely to bump into a working professional standing in line at one of the delis as to be approached by a panhandler trying to sell food stamps in exchange for money. It was this unsettling vibe that made some tourists—and even some locals—leery of even coming near the market, but for those who did venture in, the food, the music, the ruckus were an experience all to themselves.

“Mom? Why are we here?” As big as he was, Roman was practically walking on top of me, like he did as a young child, when I held his hand to cross the street. His proximity to me was the only reason I knew he was nervous.

I followed his gaze to a woman who was probably in her thirties but looked sixty. She looked like she was doing an interpretive dance to a song no one outside of her head could hear, her arms and fingers moving in choppy rotations over and around her matted hair. A few seconds into her dance, she began to nod off, falling asleep as she stood there. Her body leaned forward to the point that I just knew she would topple over; but right before she did so, her head jerked back up and she was dancing again, this time moving her disjointed disco to the middle of Paca Street, much to the chagrin of drivers, who could do nothing but wait for her solo to finish.

“Mom?” Roman asked again.

“You want to sell drugs? I want you to see the long-term side effects your pharmaceuticals can have on people's lives. I guarantee you that for some of these folks, maybe even that poor woman, it started with one joint. That's somebody's daughter right there, maybe even someone's mother. You think this is what
her
mother pictured when she held her as a newborn baby?”

“Of course, my son had seen the tragedies of drug use played out in front of him before, but Lexington Market was an amphitheater of hard-core addiction. Whether you walked there, drove by, or caught the subway two blocks over, it was impossible to miss the multitude of broken lives trapped and dancing in desperation to the rhythm of the drug trade.

It was not a pretty sight.

I knew Roman had enough compassion in him not to want to contribute to anyone's demise.

At least that was what I hoped was somewhere in his genes.

We walked in silence as we went inside. Deirdre Evans was not due there for another ten minutes, and I wanted a breakfast sandwich and home fries. Roman, in a gesture I knew was meant to be a peace offering, paid for both of our meals. I started to ask him where he'd gotten the money, but I knew my son had better sense than to try to buy me off with blood money.

The sight and smell of the chilled chicken and beef carcasses that were in glass enclosures nearby suddenly threatened my appetite as RiChard's bloody hands entered my memories.

“Let's go back outside.” I pushed my son along, checking my watch. It was two minutes after nine.

“Are we waiting for something?” Roman asked after chomping down his sausage, egg, cheese, and grape jelly toasted sandwich a little while later.

I did not answer. Instead, I took some sips of my orange juice and checked my watch again.

It was eight minutes after nine.

“'Scuse me, ma'am.” A finger tapped me on my shoulder.

“Yes?” I whirled around to face who I thought was Deirdre Evans, but immediately knew it was not.

“You got a quarter?” A birdlike man blinked at me. “I'm trying to get a bus pass to make it back across town.”

I could not remember my usual spiel for these types of situations; I just knew I wanted him to move along so I could focus on finding Deirdre Evans.

“Here.” I dropped three quarters in his hand. What he did with it was his business, not mine.

“Thanks.” He nodded before fluttering away to another unsuspecting passerby.

“Mom, I'm finished. Can we leave now?” Roman's bottom lip curled over like he was eight years old. He thrust his hands in his jacket pockets and sighed loudly.

“Just wait. I would have left you home if I knew you could handle independence.”

The word chilled me.

I'd found out I was pregnant on Independence Day, and freedom had eluded me ever since. It wasn't Roman that kept me entrapped; indeed, he was the biggest blessing of my life.

It was the realization that my relationship with RiChard was over as the relationship with my then unborn child was just beginning. It was the realization that my definition of being free had never included being free from RiChard.

I'd never wanted independence from him, and yet I'd been fighting for fourteen years to gain it.

“Let's go, Roman.”

Enough was enough. It was nine twenty.

Maybe Deirdre Evans had come and gone. We had come back to the entrance a couple minutes after nine. Maybe we just missed her. I wondered how she expected to know who I was, anyway. I certainly did not know who to look for, and with me standing there with my son, perhaps she was thrown off too. I considered all these things as we walked one block up and one block over to our car.

“Uh-oh.” Roman froze when we were about five feet away.

“What is it?” I asked, but he didn't need to answer. I saw it. The passenger window was broken. A large rock lay on Roman's seat.

And a note on mine.

My heart broke into a full-blown gallop as I reached for the single sheet of paper sitting in the shards.

“Is that your car, beautiful queen?” A man wearing a dashiki stepped out of a small nearby storefront. The scent of exotic body oils and incense wafted out with him.

“Yes. This is my car. Do you know what happened?”

“Not quite.” His voice was calm and gentle. “I heard the glass breaking, and when I came out to investigate, I saw a woman running away.”

“I was supposed to meet a woman at the market.”

“You on
that stuff,
my sister?” The man lowered his face and gave me a stern look.

“No! I do not have a drug problem. Why would you ask that?” I knew from my line of work that drug addicts came in all colors, shapes, and sizes, but I hoped I did not come off like I had a monkey on my back.

“Ah, I'm not condemning you. It's just that woman, if she was the one you were looking for, she was high as a kite. I didn't get a good look at her, but the way she was running, I'm surprised she didn't get hit by a car. It's sad to be that far out of your mind.” He shook his head and disappeared back into his store.

I pulled out my cell phone. There was no use in calling the police. What could they do? I pulled up my text messages and read Deirdre's words again.

What kind of woman was she?

I was about to call her back to ask her that very question when a realization hit me like a lightning bolt.

I hadn't left my cell phone number on Deirdre's voice mail. I'd left my home number by accident. Who had texted me?

I called the number from the text back twice. It was not in service.