Losing Hope (22 page)

As I traveled back down the elevator, I did not know what bothered me more: the questions I had about the Monroes or the new questions I had about Ava.

Why was she acting so strangely toward me? What was she trying to hide?

 

 

Roman was asleep in his bed when I returned home. I knew only because his door was open and a trail of potato chip crumbs led right to where he lay, bundled up in the mola quilt RiChard had sent us from Panama. Seeing him curled up in the warm, vibrant colors of the handmade patterned blanket, I remembered bundling him up in the quilts my mother handed down to me when he was first born.

I remembered watching him sleep back then, his miniature lips sucking an invisible breast as I stroked the tiny curls that framed his round face. I remembered the vast terrain of feelings I held on to during that first year of his life. Wonder at his perfection. Resolve to succeed as a single mother. Anger that his father was not there to share those precious moments of loving on his son.

Then again, had those feelings ever really left?

Roman stirred a little in his sleep, and it took all I had not to go over and pat down the curls that still framed his chubby face. Instead, I reached to turn off the desk light, which he'd left on. As I clicked it off, my elbow bumped his computer mouse and the screen jumped to life.

A map of Portugal filled the window, and snapshots of its people and culture filled frames of varying sizes all over the screen.

Roman had said he was not going to give up on finding his father. Dead or alive, I knew. But what could a fourteen-year-old boy do? I shook my head, grieving for the pain that I knew would be the only thing he'd find.

That was all I'd found over the years searching for RiChard. Pain. Hope for a different outcome had withered away and shriveled up in me, like an aged woman who'd lived a too harsh life. Like I'd told Roman earlier that day, I was done.

I took one last look at the map and then headed out of the darkened room, leaving the bright illustrations to blacken out on their own when the computer resumed hibernation.

But seeing the map had stirred up something in me.

A memory. A recent memory.

I'd just been staring at a map of Portugal the night before, along with that crazy teacher, Tomeeka Antoinette Ryans, and the model wannabe, Luca, in my ill attempt to reach somebody who could talk to someone at the crematorium in Portugal.

Luca had said he was from Perugia, Italy, the same city that was the birthplace of RiChard's mother.

Perhaps I still had one last hand to play. I just needed direction on how to play it.

And how to win.

Sunday morning.

It was the first time I'd opened my eyes to a new week since my world fell off its course. First the ashes, then losing Hope, and now . . .

And now I didn't even know.

I decided to dedicate the entire day to church and to Roman. It had been a trying week for him, and for me because of him, and I guess I'd been holding on to the thought—the hope, Hope?—that everything concerning him would be perfected.

There was a Bible verse that went something like that, I remembered—God perfecting that which concerned me. I sat up in my bed, rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, and reached for my nightstand drawer.

“Where is my Bible?” I muttered, slightly irritated and embarrassed at myself that I could not remember where I'd put the precious Word of the Most High.

All over the place.

That was how my life felt.

That was what my house looked like, except my wildflower-themed bedroom.

That was what my nerves looked like. I was sure of it, imagining all the axons and dendrites running through my body looking like frayed wires, smoking at the ends.

I fished through my nightstand and found what I was looking for: a scuffed-up paperback Bible I'd brought home from my first trip with RiChard. It was to a little village in South America. I could not even remember the village's name, but I remembered the church service we attended at a mission run by a Protestant charity. I remembered rocking along to the music, laughing along with the children, even weeping along with the women as the elderly preacher from Scotland took us through an old-fashioned tent meeting service held Colombian style. I remembered being moved to tears at the beauty, the pureness, the simplicity of the gospel being celebrated in the outdoor camp.

And then RiChard, who'd sat unusually quiet during the whole thing, complained and criticized the simple service the entire walk back to our sleeping quarters.

“The white man always comes to destroy the culture and traditions of the world's most indigenous people. Why not let them be? Why not let them worship their own gods in their own way?”

I'd nodded my head, though an unease had filled my heart. While history had many stories of crusaders destroying entire lives and livelihoods in the name of righteousness, what I had witnessed at that simple camp meeting felt like something different.

Liberation.

Acceptance.

For all who believed.

I found it odd now, when I thought about it, that out of all the Bibles I'd been given, all the ones I'd bought over the years, the one from my first trip abroad with RiChard, the one that stood like the zero point between all that was positive and negative in our tumultuous bind, that was the one I kept in my nightstand.

Despite all my training, all my travels, and all my travails, I still wrestled with the meaning of social justice.

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope
.

That was not the verse I was looking for, but the words from Jeremiah 29:11 were the ones to which my Bible opened.

The verse jumped from the pages in a way it never had before.

A hope.

There is a Hope.

I needed it rekindled in my heart. Hope for my future. With or without RiChard.

God knew I needed it, and He let me find it that morning. In His Word.

I admit I hadn't sat down to read the Bible in a while. Okay, I could not even remember the last time I'd cracked open a page.

But as I read that verse that Sunday morning, I declare, I felt a small bit of something flicker inside of me.

Hope.

She wasn't lost. She was in me.

Now I just had to unveil her for the rest of the world to see.

Maybe that was the meaning of social justice. Giving people—all people—Hope.

Hope for a future.

“Amen.” The only word I could get out. The most sincere prayer I think I ever prayed.

 

 

“It's about time you got here. And why is Roman wearing jeans?” My mother frowned her disapproval as she studied us up and down from behind her church fan.

I read the calligraphy on the back of her fan and noted the stern-looking black-and-white photo of, I guessed, Morgan and his son. I knew the picture of the two men in black suits standing next to a large flower arrangement was meant to offer an appropriate amount of somberness to such a weighty matter, but did they really have to look so solemn?

My mind was. All. Over. The. Place.

Roman and I had just joined in the eleven o'clock service at New Eden Baptist Church, the house of worship I'd been a member of, along with my family, since I was three years old. It was a small congregation of about three hundred people, and most of the congregants came from one of five families. My mother, Isabel Davis, had been one of the only stand-alones when she joined decades ago. My father attended the church twice a year: Easter sunrise service and New Year's Eve.

I'd been pretty active with my church family for most of my life, singing with the children's, then the teens', then the young adults' choirs; ushering; helping out with the monthly fried fish dinners for the building fund; and volunteering to chaperone the youth summer retreat camping trips—mostly because I did not trust those little girls around Roman out in the wild. I showed up every Sunday, paid my tithes biweekly, and helped organize the annual vacation Bible school that outreached to the children in our Woodlawn neighborhood.

Basically, I'd done everything there was to do with and at my church. I'm not saying that I was bored with it. Pastor McKinney gave a rousing word from the pulpit most weeks, and a few people in the choir could really sing. It was just that . . . Well, I didn't know. I didn't feel settled with going there anymore. Not like I used to.

Then again, very few things in my life felt like they used to. This week had been living proof of that, as I had been searching for something or someone as evasive as the contentment and peace I realized had been missing from my days for as long as I could remember.

I was tired of where I was in my life.

Roman, for his part, tapped his fingers on my shoulder.

“Look, Ma.” He pointed.

Officer Leon Sanderson was walking down the center aisle, trying to find a seat in the packed sanctuary. He spotted us and headed toward our pew. Roman reluctantly moved his knees to let Leon slide by and sit next to me. Between the sneer on Roman's face and the curiosity on my mother's, I knew Sunday dinner was bound to be interesting.

It had been years since anyone had seen a member of the male species besides my son intentionally sit next to me in church. Did I say years? Maybe the correct word was
never.

“Hope you don't mind me coming here today, but since I was coming to Sunday dinner at your mom's house, thought I'd join you for church too. Would have felt a little strange to have Sunday dinner without Sunday service.”

When Leon leaned in to talk to me, I picked up the scent of soap and spice, the smell of fresh, clean man. I was afraid to inhale too deeply as I was already light-headed from the mixture of emotions twisting my stomach into knots.

“No problem. Good to see you,” I whispered with too big of a smile. I knew it was too big because he immediately looked uncomfortable.

“I really just want to help with Roman. He's got so much going for him, and I feel like he's in a dangerous life position. Too close to the edge. I don't want to see another young man fall off under my watch.”

“I'm glad you're here. And you'll be glad you are too when you taste my mother's chicken and dumplings.”

He gave a polite smile and focused again on the service. My mother patted the back of my hand and then stood to join along with the choir's song, her soprano voice ringing out louder than anyone's.

People were singing and shouting and praising the Lord. I just wanted the day to end with my life and my son and my future and my hope back on track.

And, I realized, I also wanted Leon to feel comfortable around me again.

That realization scared me, and I was not quite sure why.

“And this right here is an authentic Roy Campanella autographed baseball bat. You know who he was, right? The legendary catcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Started out in the Negro Leagues.”

“This is fascinating. You have quite a collection here.” Comfort was the last thing showing on Leon's face.

My father was giving Leon a tour of his extensive sports memorabilia collection, housed in the basement of my parents' Randallstown split-level home. Usually on Sunday afternoons Alvin Davis budged from his recliner only when my mother finished putting all the serving platters filled with piping hot delicacies on their dining room table. Today, however, he had immediately sprung into action when Leon showed up behind me at their front door.

He had followed me to their home. My mother, who usually lingered after church to talk to her friends and finish whatever plans were needed for whatever function she was working on, had rushed home before us and appeared to be fixing two more dishes to go along with her chicken and dumplings, cabbage, and hot buttered rolls feast.

“Smells r—really good in here,” Leon stammered and smiled at my mother, who had suddenly appeared next to my father.

“Oh, I hope you'll like the brown-sugared carrots and the apple pie I whipped up to go along with the chicken and dumplings. They're my mother's recipes with my own special twists.” She winked. She was wearing my grandmother's apron, something she wore only on Thanksgiving and Grandma Lucy's birthday.

Inviting Leon over had been a mistake.

I knew it the moment my father began telling Leon the story about how he'd gotten his job as a delivery truck driver for a local bakery.

“I drive a truck for old man Antonello's bakery down in Little Italy,” my father had begun not even three minutes after Leon stepped into the den. “And he told me on my first day that he was going to fire me when I finished my shift 'cause he did not want no coloreds near his bread. He'd only hired me to prove to his wife that he wasn't racist.” My father chuckled. “Been there thirty years now, and we play poker every third Thursday. I usually win.”

The last time I'd heard the story was when I made the mistake of inviting my classmate Terrance Goodwin over for a Friday game night at my parents' home. I was sixteen at the time and desperate to secure a senior prom date.

You would have thought I had told my parents that I had found the love of my life back then, that Terrance was a millionaire, and he was about to move the entire family to a villa in the Virgin Islands, the way my parents gushed and drooled over him.

Even after Terrance failed to ask me to the prom, my mother had still insisted that we have his parents over for dinner.

They declined.

“This right here is a signed boxing glove from Evander Holyfield. If you look real close, you can make out teeth marks from Mike Tyson.” It was the same corny joke I'd heard when my parents told me to come over for dinner, only for me to find out that Mom's best friend's nephew “happened” to be coming over to help her fix a cabinet.

Roman had been four years old at the time. RiChard's name was never mentioned. And the nephew turned out to be married.

I was too, I reminded my parents that night, and my father disappeared again into his recliner.

The only time my father had been quiet at dinner with a man sitting next to me was that Thanksgiving RiChard sat at our dining room table. My father had only grunted while gnawing on a roasted turkey drumstick and then had sat in silence in the den with the television off and the lights on dim.

That was worse than him talking.

Men and dinners at my parents' house never mixed. I wanted to kick myself for not remembering this basic fact.

But this is for Roman,
I told myself. Leon asked to be a part of this. To help Roman.

I looked over at my son, who was staring at me like I had set fire to his Wii and poured acid on his iPod. I didn't think I'd ever seen Roman look so angry.

It was disturbing.

Yvette and Skee-Gee had not yet arrived.

“Leon, what are you doing for Thanksgiving?” My mother beamed as all of us headed back up the steps. I wanted to lie down on them.

“I, um, usually spend it with my grandmother.” He was not even smiling anymore.

I was actually glad to hear a knock on the door.

“Oh, good. That should be Yvette and Sylvester,” my mother squealed and grabbed her oven mitts. “Go get the door, See-See, and I'll get the food out of the oven.”

I didn't know what disturbed me more, my mother calling me by my childhood nickname or Leon following me to the door. I almost expected him to run out and not look back the moment I swung it open.

Based on what happened next, I wished he had.

I knew it was a mistake for him to come, but I was not prepared for the magnitude of the error.