Losing Hope (6 page)

His name was Kisu, and he had been the eldest son of a village chief. His skin was dark as night, and his spirit bright as day. With a warrior's heart and a philosopher's soul, he was a close friend of RiChard. I met him once, the one time I ventured into the rich, heavenly land that had once made up the Zulu Empire. In this corner of the world, the earth, the water, and the skies spoke beauty in a language not captured by words. I saw things in nature there that to this day leave me speechless, breathless. RiChard was there on a mission trip—his own mission trip—determined to help the political cause of the Inkatha Freedom Party. It was the late nineties in South Africa, the end of apartheid, and the Zulu people were making their voices heard loud and clear. RiChard wanted to join in the shout.

The lion's head ring had originally been Kisu's.

 

 

Two o'clock in the morning and a flood of memories had made my sleep barren. Tired of tossing and turning in the bed, I reached for my bedroom telephone. I had the number memorized. I'd already tried it several times after coming home from church—before brushing my teeth, after wrapping my hair, while watching the numbers on my lighted digital alarm clock go from double digits to the single ones of the wee morning hours.

I dialed the international phone number again.

Still no answer.

The phone just rang and rang and rang, and I was so sick of not knowing what else to do. Where was RiChard?

I was about to enter the number into the handset again when a loud ring startled me. My cell phone.

Breathless, I clicked it on. “RiChard?”

“Ms. St. James?” a raspy voice nearly whispered through the phone.

I did not recognize the woman on the other end. Or at least I did not want to. Had I really just asked for him? Was I really hoping that he was still alive? What would it mean if he was?

“Ms. St. James?” the voice asked again.

“Yes? This is me. Who's this? Do you know where he is?” My heart was pounding so hard, I felt like a mob of wild horses would break out of my chest.

There was a long pause, then “It's me, Dayonna.”

I sat straight up in my bed, quickly pushing down the disappointment that wanted to swallow me, quickly pulling up my social work hat.

I knew I didn't give that girl my cell phone number. Shoot, after my dealings with my other problem case, Keisha King and the Benson family, I didn't give any of my clients my cell phone number. The number listed on my business cards actually led to a computerized message system that sent a text transcription to my cell of any voice mail messages. Ava was old school and did not necessarily like my technology-based phone call screening system, but it worked for me.

Until now.

“Dayonna? Is everything okay?”

“Yes,” the raspy voice replied. I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked down at the receiver, as if all of a sudden I would see the person on the other end of the line. The phone number had been blocked.

“Dayonna? Are you sure?” What I really wanted to ask was, “Are you sure this is you?” I'd heard only a few words from the girl's mouth, and I knew she had a somewhat raspy voice, but this caller's vocals were all out husky. Grown womanish–sounding. Maybe she was just half asleep. I knew I was. Maybe that was the problem.

“Dayonna?” I quizzed again.

“It's me!” the voice growled.

“What's going on?” I could not stop blinking, trying to stretch my heavy eyelids enough to focus again on my clock. Two seventeen.

“Don't look for Hope.”

“Wha? How did you get my number?”

The line went dead.

“So . . . let me get this straight. You've had this case less than twenty-four hours and already you want out? This isn't like you, Sienna. What's really going on?” Ava's gold wire frames were perched on the tip of her nose, giving her more the appearance of a studious teacher or librarian than that of the director of a therapeutic foster care agency. There was a frown tugging down the corners of her wine-colored lips, but I knew she was not disappointed with me. Just concerned.

“It's not just the case, Ava,” I answered honestly. “The past twenty-four hours have been a little crazy, and . . . and Dayonna and her issues—which normally I could handle—are a bit much right now.”

Her piercing gaze seemed to look right through me, as if she could see the outlines of my crying soul. I was exhausted, having never fallen asleep the night before. Seconds passed before she spoke again.

“Something going on with Roman?”

I closed my eyes and shook my head no, silently praising God that as far as I knew, nothing out of the ordinary was happening with him.

There was only so much drama a woman could take. This week was not Roman's turn.

“Ava, I appreciate your concern. I do. But like I told you yesterday, this is something I have to handle myself.”

“I can't let you off the case, Sienna.” Ava stuck both of her hands under her glasses, rubbed her eyes, and then used her fingers to push her large, loose golden curls off her caramel-colored face. “If I give you another case, there will be something crazy with that one, as well, and you will not have moved any farther than where you're sitting right now. I gave you Dayonna because I know you can handle her. This is a good opportunity for you to learn how to balance your personal crises and your self-care with the demanding needs of our clients. You're just starting your social work career. There will be a million Dayonna files waiting on your desk and a million more issues waiting for you at home.”

She was not fussing. She was simply stating the truth.

“Dayonna called me at home last night.”

“Then set boundaries with her immediately.” Ava picked up a stack of folders and straightened them, no longer looking at me.

“What about this Hope Diamond business?” I couldn't let it go.

She looked back up at me over the rims of her glasses. Her frown deepened as she sat in silence.

“Ava, I'm not trying to back out of this case,” I explained. “I'm just trying to make sense of it.”

“I've been through her chart myself, Sienna. I've gotten the whole story directly from several of her workers over at social services. There's been at least five of them. I can assure you, Sienna, there is no missing sister. There is no sister at all. Just an older brother who left the system years ago. Dayonna has serious issues, mental chains and emotional scars. I would look into getting her a psychiatrist as soon as possible so that this placement will work.”

“The Monroes are certainly acting like there are no problems.”

“At the moment, yes. But if their
caseworker
”—she looked at me pointedly—“keeps trying to snoop around and convince everyone that there
is
something wrong, things will fall apart quickly. I can't believe that you followed them to church, Sienna. Are you
trying
to sabotage this placement?”

The accusation from my mentor hurt. I could not help but return with my own finger pointing.

“Of course not, but I think it's pretty obvious why you want this placement to work so badly. Mrs. Monroe is giving you all the profits from the dolls she sells.”

I tried to sound mean, but we both ended up laughing.

“Honey, you think I'm willing to put you through all of this to keep getting ten dollars from Elsie Monroe's crazy-looking dolls?” Ava laughed so hard, she began clapping. “Now, don't get me wrong. I am open to any and all donations, but that is not why I have you working this case.” Her smile slowly faded away. She stood and walked to the huge corner window, which was the single luxurious feature of her entire office.

Holding Hands Agency was housed on the fourteenth floor of an older building on the outskirts of downtown Baltimore. The panoramic view encompassed newly constructed high-end condos near Federal Hill on one end and dismal, neglected avenues of abandoned buildings and row homes on the other.

A city gone full circle.

I knew Ava's office choice had been intentional.

“I'll be honest with you,” she suddenly blurted out, still facing the window. “There
is
money involved. But not from the Monroes. When I started this agency twenty years ago, times were different. People's hearts and priorities were in a different place. Now, in this day and age of cutbacks and setbacks, I'm struggling, Sienna, to keep this place afloat. I don't want to lay anyone off or turn any child away. Holding Hands has been recognized so many times as a successful therapeutic foster care program of final chances and last resorts. Dayonna's success with the Monroes will only solidify our chances of funding. I've gotten a guarantee on that.”

She turned around to face me. Her lips were quivering. “Sienna, I need you to make sure this placement works. I don't care what oddities you hear or see, don't rock the boat if the water ain't troubled.”

“I don't think I can do this.” There. It was out. I'd been working with troubled children for years in many settings, but Dayonna seemed troubled on a whole different level. That child seemed too off and creepy for me to be messing with right now. “You know I have worked with challenging cases before, but if you are depending on me to help this foster family to keep the agency afloat, I don't think I'm the right person for the job.”

“And that is why you must do it. If you were so confident you could change everybody and everything, I would have never asked you to work for me.”

I tried to absorb her words, but one thing didn't make sense. “With all due respect, Ava, since this case is so important, and so much hinges upon it, why aren't you handling it yourself?”

Ava sat back down and finished signing off on some paperwork before looking back up at me.

“Honey,” she said with great gusto, “I'm tired. If Dayonna doesn't make it, I'm retiring. I've had about enough of this.”

We looked at each other a few moments, then burst into laughter. We were still laughing when I realized that I'd missed a call. My cell phone had been on silent mode, and the short voice mail message had been transcribed and sent as a text message.

Three simple words filled my cell phone screen.

Get here now.

The call was from the Monroes' home, my complicated voice mail system revealed. I looked up at Ava, whose pen was frozen in midair.

“Is everything okay, Sienna?”

I already knew where Ava stood on the case, and I did not want to keep “rocking the boat,” as she had put it. I threw a smile on my face, betraying the fingers of dread crawling up my back.

“It's all good, Ava. I'm going to go now.” I smiled.

She nodded, and I hightailed it out of there, checking the voice mail message as I headed down the elevator.

The caller had whispered into the phone. I could not make out the voice.

 

 

When I pulled up to the Monroes' home fifteen minutes later, the first thing I noticed was the front porch was no longer blue and yellow. All the cushioned wicker furniture, the planters, and even the doormat and floral wreath were now in shades of lavender and teal.

Odd.

I knocked on the door, and Mrs. Monroe opened it with a startle.

“Oh, Ms. St. James.”

I could not tell if it was a question, an exclamation, or just a statement of the obvious.

“Yes, it's me.”

“Okay . . . Did you need something? I did not know you were coming today. ” She stood in the doorway, smiling while blocking my view of the living room behind her.

Somebody was yelling inside. I could not make out the words, but the voice certainly sounded like Dayonna's.

“Is everything okay?” I moved my head around to try to see past her, but she continued to block my view.

“Uh . . . yes. Uh, Dayonna is just having a bad moment, but Horace is helping her calm down.”

“I think I really need to come in.” I realized I was shuffling from foot to foot, itching for a view. I didn't want to knock the elder lady down, but, seriously, this was all really starting to get on my nerves.

“We didn't know you were coming.” She kept smiling and blinking, as if nobody was screaming in her house.

“Someone called from here and asked me to come.”

“Oh?” The smile left, and she looked genuinely surprised. “I don't know why—”

“Mrs. Monroe, I'm coming in. If Dayonna is having a crisis, it is my job to help handle it.” I stepped up to the doorway, and all she could do was move to let me in.

The living room was demolished.

Broken ceramic figures filled the floor. The sofa cushions were upturned; the pillows scattered. The floral centerpiece lay in shreds. A mirror that hung over an armchair had a long crack down the middle of it.

The screaming was coming from upstairs. I headed to the steps but had to quickly back up and duck for cover as dirty clothes and trash suddenly came flying down.

“Don't kill me! Don't kill me! Don't kill me!” Dayonna's voice sounded five octaves higher as she repeated those words nonstop from the landing above. I looked back at Mrs. Monroe and saw tears streaming down her face.

“I'm sorry.” The petite-sized woman's lip quivered, and then her words gushed out like sloshing water. “I guess it's good that you are here. I did not want to call you, because it's so embarrassing. We normally can handle all the children that come through here, but Dayonna is . . . is . . . different. She keeps saying that we're going to kill her and cut her up for cabbage stew. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Horace is trying to calm her down. I'm so sorry. We really can handle her. Don't take her from us. We can handle her. Please don't take her from us. She needs our help more than anyone.” Mrs. Monroe was shaking and wringing her hands.

Dayonna was still screaming.

I looked from Mrs. Monroe back to the staircase, where more clothes and trash were tumbling down. “Wait here, Mrs. Monroe.”

I turned toward the steps, not sure what I was going to do, but knowing I had to do something. Clothes were flying everywhere, and I saw Dayonna at the top of the steps, trying to empty a hamper. A wastebasket lay sideways at her feet, its contents already scattered all over the staircase.

“Dayonna!” I yelled as I stepped carefully up the cluttered staircase. She appeared to be completely unaware of my presence, her mouth and screams seemingly stuck on a repeat button with the volume turned up, her eyes a vacant, hollow stare. Horace Monroe stood to the side of her, frozen in an awkward stance, as if about to grab her, but not sure how. He, too, seemed completely oblivious to my presence on the steps.

“Don't kill me! Don't kill me! Don't kill me!” Dayonna's screams continued to pierce my ears, and the laundry continued to fall. She was about to toss the entire wicker basket down when I reached her side.

“Dayonna,” I said firmly and grabbed the girl in a tight restraint, something I had been taught to do during one of my social work internships at a special needs school. Though she still seemed oblivious to my presence, her body flailed in resistance to my hold on her. Her yelled words became lost in gurgling screams as she began fighting to bite my arms and bang her head into my chest. The cries coming from her thin frame did not sound human.

I held on to her, locking my arms and legs around her the way I had been taught, the way I had done only once before, when a child at the school where I interned had a meltdown that threatened the safety of his classmates. As I held on to her, rocking her slowly, Mr. Monroe snapped back to life. In silence he helped me move her away from the dangerously narrow staircase landing to the relative safety of the empty upper hallway. Slowly and steadily, her gurgled screams turned into heavy whimpers, her wild flailing became more subdued, and her eyes began to close. After minutes that felt like hours, I felt her body become like deadweight in my arms. Her breathing, though still heavy and forced, slowed down into a calm rhythm.

She was asleep.

For a second I could hear the workshop leader the night before guiding us into the visualization of being in the arms of Jesus. I remembered again the short moment of peace I'd felt before fine Brother Scott bumped me out of my serene space. I almost let my own eyes close.
Is that what I needed? Jesus to restrain me in the midst of my silent screaming?

But I was not Jesus. And Dayonna was not me.

“She's all right now?”

I was not sure when Mrs. Monroe had joined her husband's side, but there she was, her hand shaking, covering her open mouth.

“For the moment she's okay.” I loosened my grip on the young girl's body. Her head and thin limbs collapsed onto me. “What happened?” I looked back up at both Monroes. They looked at each other, and then Horace answered.

“Elsie tried to give her one of her crocheted dolls.”