Sweet Violet and a Time for Love (17 page)

Leon had told me not to overthink then, so I told myself not to overthink now.

There were a lot of black cars in Baltimore, and, unfortunately, some of those drivers ran red lights.

Stop getting spooked by every little thing,
I reprimanded myself as I broke into a slight jog, determined to get on the train pulling into the station at that very moment.

As the doors shut behind me and I stumbled into an empty seat, I could not help but wonder if the only reason I was not in a panic over the black car that had suddenly taken off as I entered the subway station was because I had not seen Sweet Violet or anything that belonged to her.

Seemed like the only time someone got hurt or killed was when she was nearby.

I exhaled, sat back in my seat. Tried to ignore the stares of the passengers on the partially filled train until I realized why they were looking at me with eyebrows raised.

Some of Leon's blood had stained my clothes.

Fortunately, his blood was only on my suit jacket. I took it off and crumpled the black jacket onto my lap. The nosy stares turned away.

“What did you do?” Roman's frown greeted me as I walked up Yvette's manicured walkway at a quarter of eight. He sat on the porch steps, his legs massive pillars on the stone stairway, a baseball cap balanced on his knee. The mug on his face, the glare in his eyes, looked lethal.

He was bandaged and bruised, but still able to make me feel worse than he looked.

I wanted to ask what he was doing here, how he'd gotten there, but his question made me forget the ones I wanted to ask.

“What are you talking about?” I wiped both my eyes with my hands, pulled back on my hair. Sighed loudly.

“It's on all the news stations, even cable. Breaking news. They are trying to say that the man you married and I look up to tried to kill you, took shots at you. I know that is not true. What is true is that you were there and you are good at getting a crowd of police involved in a situation that requires none.”

“Roman, you may have turned twenty-one in March, but you are still my child and I am still your mother. Respect that.” I turned away, ready to head to the porch, too tired, too everything, to deal with him at the moment. What happened to my son?

I didn't have time for that thought chain either.

“Ma.” His voice cracked. “Can you please tell me what's going on? Leon told me that you keep getting involved in dangerous situations. What happened? I know Leon didn't shoot at you. Is this related to that trial he didn't want you getting mixed up with?”

“So Leon is talking to you about our disagreements now?” I paused on my way up the steps. But only for a moment.

“Ma, Leon is a good guy. He's only looking out for you,” he called after me.

“You need to focus on making sure that you are taking care of yourself, making good choices.” I paused again, looked at his bandages. “And getting better.” I sighed. “Roman, I love you, and we still need to talk. Can we please call a truce for the moment, at least until I can figure out how to best help Leon and keep all of us safe? Please, Roman? We need to work together right now. Isn't that what we've always done? Before there was Leon . . . or Changuna.” I bit my lip as he cut his eyes away from me. “Before there was anybody else, there was me and you. We've been through worse, Roman. Work with me, not against me.”

He didn't respond. I saw a flicker in his eyes and it saddened me even more.

A flicker of pure pain.

This child of mine was hurting and something told me that whatever I'd done or hadn't done didn't even scratch the root of the source of his bitterness.

He looked up at me, knew that I saw the rawness. Shrugged.

“Let's go inside, Roman. Let's work as a family to figure everything out.” I held out a hand.

He shook his head. “I'm not going in there.”

“Why?”

“Aunt Vet has guests. I got a ride over here looking for answers, but I'm not dealing with those people she has inside.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Not my kind of people anymore.”

I narrowed my eyes, looked away.

What had happened to my son? I shook my head as I finished climbing the steps. I had a feeling I knew what kind of people had filled my sister's house. I opened the screen door and my suspicions stood correct.

“Father, we know that no weapon formed against us shall prosper. Every plan of the enemy must come down in defeat. We are your people, oh Lord, and you will not abandon us. You hear our cries when we have come to a broken place, and you mend and you heal and give strength when we have lost all power to stand on our own.”

Several years ago, I had accidentally stepped into a prayer circle in the pastor's office of the church I now attended. Back then, I had only visited the large edifice while on a fact-finding mission to dig up the truth behind a foster care client's claim of a missing sister. The church at that time was in the middle of a citywide scandal based on lies, but the earthquake of prayer in that room seemed strong enough to topple down the entire deceit-filled scheme.

It was hard to believe that stepping into the cool living room of my sister's home, the one leading a prayer of similar magnitude was her. Yvette's voice roared and whispered, demanded and declared, moved like mist and fire through the room where about fifteen people were assembled.

I recognized some of the faces from my old church, the one I attended for most of my life before Leon and I joined where we were now. Most of the faces were new to me, different ages, both males and females. Some were obvious couples, some singles. Young women. Old men.

Children's laughter and a pile of toys and books poured from the nearby family room. One gray-eyed girl of about five or six years old with two thick plaits peeked out from behind the French doors of the family room before a woman, her mother presumably, shooed her back to play with the other youngsters.

“Glad you are here, Sienna.” Yvette had finished her prayer. She sat down in one of the plush white couches that made up her formal living room. The guests in her home all joined in sitting down with her. Chairs from her dining room, some stools from the breakfast bar, a couple of metal folding chairs from the basement, were arranged in a rough circle from the foyer to the stone fireplace in the living room. No television was on, no cell phones out; I realized that they wouldn't know the headlines about my current situation.

“Girl, where did you get that wooden vase from? That's pretty.” A woman with a teeny gold afro pointed to a knickknack on the mantle, her small talk confirming my suspicions that they weren't aware of my current situation which Roman said was being publicized on the news. If I put my bloodstained suit jacket back on, I'd get immediate attention, but I felt too frozen to think, too frozen to know what to do next. I needed to have a big talk with my little sister, but I didn't want everybody in my business.

“My mother brought that vase back from her cruise to the Bahamas, and I claimed it.” Yvette munched on a plate of Swedish meatballs Demari had brought to her. A plate piled high with fried chicken and collard greens sat on a tray by where he sat.

“Thanks, baby.” Yvette smiled at him, a bashful smile.

“Aww, that's cute, the way he got her food for her.” Another woman, this one with long hair pinned back into a ponytail, giggled. She nudged the knee of the man next to her. He rolled his eyes.

Everyone in the room had a plate of food on their laps or on trays; red cups full of iced tea, a slice of pound cake, or cherry pie.

“Grab a plate, Sienna.” Yvette pointed to her dining room where the feast was spread out on a plastic blue tablecloth. “Or at least grab a seat.”

My feet, my mouth stayed frozen, locked as I continued to stand by the front door. As all eyes stayed on me, I slithered into a velvet high-back chair by the foyer's umbrella stand. I didn't want the attention. I just wanted to talk to my sister.

“Okay, so we finished with the formalities.” A man about forty years old with square black eyeglasses spoke up from the opposite corner. A Bible sat open on his lap. “Are we ready to move on to tonight's topic? This week we're talking about relationships. Why some work—”

“And why most don't,” the man sitting next to the long-haired woman interrupted.

“Charlie!” she squealed and narrowed her eyes at him while everyone else broke into laughter.

Yvette looked up at me between the laughs then held out her hand to silence the room. “Hold on, y'all. My sister looks confused. I need to explain to her what's going on.”

“Small group session,” Demari chimed in. “Pastor started this thing where we rotate houses to talk about real life, real issues. Can't usually get this type of discussion going during Sunday services, so we meet up once a week to fellowship, debate, chitchat about life and the elements in it, in a safe place. We agree at the outset of each meeting that whatever is talked about stays in the room and that we hold each other accountable—”

“And that we eat,” another young man interrupted, holding up his red cup for a toast.

“Yeah, that too.” Demari chuckled. “And we focus on building real relationships that aren't church phony or tradition driven. The Bible is our textbook as we come together to talk it out. We keep it real here.”

“And you better believe it gets
real
real up in here, especially when Demari and Yvette are the hosts.” The woman with the gold afro shook her head slowly. “Your sister a trip, but she speaks the truth.”

“I've been through some things,” Yvette murmured, her eyes on a distant place.

“We pray together, eat together, laugh, and cry together. And we are all better Christians, better people, because of it.” Demari spoke again and rubbed Yvette's back. She looked at him and they both smiled at each other.

I nodded, gave a small smile.
How do I pull Yvette aside to talk to her?

“So tonight we are talking about relationships.” The man with the Bible in his lap spoke up again. “And I wanted to bring to everybody's attention that the wisest man who ever walked the planet, Solomon, devoted an entire book on passion and intimacy. Solomon, the same man who wrote that there is a time for every purpose under the sun, took the time to write an entire book in the Bible about the excitement of love. That man and his bride spend time in graphic detail talking about how they can't wait to get with each other and give very detailed descriptions about what they like about each other. That shows they spent time, energy, and effort to adore each other.”

“The key word in what you just said is ‘bride,'” another man spoke up. “The kind of passion you talking about was only there because they were newlyweds. They're still fresh and ignorant in their relationship. Show me the
Song of Solomon
part two, five years and two kids later, and I bet some of that mushiness will have cooled down. Now that's real talk.”

“Charlie,” the man's wife hollered again as the room roared with laughter.

“Let me ask you a question, Charlie.” Demari leaned forward in his seat. “When does your wife stop being your bride?” The room grew silent. Demari continued. “When do you stop being her groom? Maybe that's the whole point of the book. I don't know. I'm not a Bible scholar; but maybe that's just it. I hope that's it. Maybe a secret to keeping marriage alive is to keep seeing your woman as the bride you were lusting after on your wedding night.”

“Ooh, you said ‘lust.'” A girl around Roman's age spoke up from one of the breakfast stools in the foyer. She had two long braids, dyed dark red. “Are you trying to tell me that the Bible got a sex manual in it?”

“It's got a marriage manual in it. Sex, passion, intimacy, all those things are so important that an entire book in the Bible is dedicated to talking about it all. Like Deac said, the wisest man who ever lived wrote it and that book made it into the Good Book.”

“I read that book, the
Song of Solomon,
girl.” Another woman, this one a bit older spoke up. “All those two did was talk about their time together, and when they weren't together, they talked to others about how they wanted to spend their time together.”

“More power to them.” Charlie shook his head. “Solomon was wise enough to know what kind of woman should take up his time. I'm just kidding, Teresa!” he added quickly as the woman next to him playfully balled up her fist and narrowed her eyes.

“What do you like about your wife?” Demari asked Charlie who was still chuckling. “No, I'm serious. What do you like about your wife? I'm looking at the principles in the book. All Solomon did was talk about the features he liked about his bride. Maybe that's another secret to a healthy, happy, passion-filled marriage. Telling her, telling others what it is that you love about her. Try it, man. What do you like about Teresa?

“Keep it G-rated please,” a woman in her fifties spoke by the fireplace, her hands over her ears.

“Speak for yourself, Sister Randy,” a woman who could have been around eighty years old directed. “I love to hear a man praise his woman and a woman praise her man. Go ahead, both of you. Share what you like about each other.”

Charlie and Teresa both groaned, both shook their heads, but I noticed that they turned to look each other in the eyes. No words were said, at least none that any of us understood, but at the end of their unspoken conversation, they hugged.

“Is this how y'all church services are?” The girl with the red braids looked confused.

“No, baby,” Sister Randy answered. “This is how
we
are. And we
are
the church.”

“Alive and in person,” Yvette joined in. “Ain't that right, Sienna? We're talking the truth in here. Aren't these the same principles you've shared in therapy sessions? The truth is the truth. Whether it's coming from a preacher's mouth or a counselor's self-help book, the principles are still the same. Keeping passion alive. Focusing on your mate's finer qualities. Open, honest, or otherwise naked communication.” She chuckled. “I bet Leon would agree. Where is he, anyway?”

“You don't know?” I couldn't hold it in anymore, crowd or not. “Leon's . . . in custody. He was set up to look like he did something crazy, and I think it's because of my role in this trial. I need your help.”

“Oh, we got this, honey. We got this.” A voice from behind me caught me off guard as the front door opened and closed. I hadn't even seen them come in as I'd finally spilled the beans about my situation.

Shavona and Mike Grant.