Without Faith (15 page)

“I thought we were going to work together.”

“I get my best work done alone.

“Laz—”

“Let me do my thing, Sienna. I promise I'm good. I mean, really good.” His grin at the moment reminded me of the Cheshire cat.

“Okay, yeah, you do need to go.”

He winked as he put his fedora back on his head. “I'll be in touch very soon.”

As I closed the door behind him, a new wave of exhaustion threatened to break my momentum. I'd never told anyone even a quarter of what I had shared with him. Talking about it all had worn me out. Though it was only early morning, I felt like I'd already lived through the whole day and was ready to go to bed.

But too much had been triggered in me to stop now.

Pieces.

That's what my heart felt like. What my life looked like. What my understanding of what was going on was. Bits and pieces, no coherent whole.

I changed into a more presentable outfit, grabbed my keys, and stepped outside.

The night's chill was still in the air. My breath crystallized in front of me and I was glad I had on my leather gloves. I got in my car, and sat in it until the sun finally finished its daily climb to the top of the morning sky. As the morning's temperature began rising, I started my car, not sure exactly where I was going, but putting it in reverse just the same to back out of my parking space.

I needed answers, directions.

Peace.

A sound mind.

Sadie Spriggs had shared a verse about power, love, and a sound mind being the opposite of fear.

I was afraid.

For my son.

For myself.

Heck, I was scared for Silver and her mother because something was clearly off and wrong and desperate, but I did not know what to do for them. I didn't even know if I was supposed to go to the police. Leon had said something about the detective moving on to some other lead.

Tears burned my eyelids, but I blinked them away.

I was halfway to my destination before I realized where I was going.

There was a public garden in the city off of Northern Parkway that had acres of greenery, open space, and walkways. Every now and then, when I was exceptionally stressed, or sad, or otherwise out of sync, I would go there to meander through the landscaped grounds, to sit on the cement benches. To think. Pray. Cry. Meditate.

I hadn't been there in a few years. Actually, now that I thought about it, I had not been there since the day after Roman's thirteenth birthday.

The day after the last time RiChard called us.

I guess I'd subconsciously known even then that something significant had just happened in our lives.

The gates to the gardens had opened only minutes earlier. It was the near the beginning of spring, a Saturday, and the first day of the season that I could recall that the early temperature was already over fifty degrees. Despite the chill from earlier, I believed the forecasters who'd called for a dry, sunny day with a high in the sixties.

It would only be a matter of time before other people starting walking through the arboretum's manicured gardens.

I parked my car on a lot near a modern-looking glass visitor's center that had not been there the last time I'd visited. Right beyond this building sat the stately Victorian mansion that had graced the grounds since the 1800s. Lion statues that framed the porch seemed to watch me as I walked by. I stopped at the first garden and sat down on a bench nearly hidden by shrubs and bright flowers. Crickets, birds, and other wildlife competing for attention at the start of the day serenaded me. I inhaled and the scent of sweet flowers calmed me.

“Jesus.”

It was the best prayer, the only prayer I could get out. With all the questions, confusion, and turmoil I faced, one thing I knew for certain. God would get what I could not say. I was certain of this, realizing that as my sanity threatened to break from under the pressure of the past few days, the only thing keeping it from doing so was a smidgeon of faith that held on to the belief that somehow, someway, everything would turn out okay.

I recalled driving by a church marquee once that had a phrase that stuck with me: T
HE
O
PPOSITE OF
F
AITH IS
F
EAR.
I wondered why I had not remembered this the other night when I asked Sadie Spriggs what the opposite of fear was.

Power.

Love.

A sound mind.

Wasn't faith needed for those three things to take root, to grow, to thrive? It would take faith for my mind not to break; faith to believe that I could experience true love; faith to have the power to address the situation with my son, to figure out what to do about the circumstance surrounding Silver.

Without faith, it is impossible to please God.
I remembered a verse my pastor had shared with me once.

Without faith, I would have every reason to be afraid.

“God, I trust you.” I whispered as a slight breeze rustled through the leaves. “Even if I can't see you, or understand what is happening, or know for sure what will happen next, I am confident that my life and times are in your hands and this too shall pass.”

I thought of Ava's flowers and realized why I had not been in this garden for so long. For the past few years, when I faced disaster, I usually ran to her. A smile filled my face even as tears filled my eyes. Ava would be proud to know I had grown up enough to run to my source. A peace I could not explain took hold of me. Peace and strength.

I was ready to face the day and whatever it held.

I stood and decided to take the long way back to my car. The serenity of the moment was too precious and rare to rush through. As I passed a couple of smaller gardens on the pathway back to the lot, a sudden flurry of color caught my eyes, startled me, and then made me chuckle.

The butterfly garden.

I paused at a small area of butterfly-loving flowers and bushes, finding a youthful pleasure in the fluttering of black, purple, orange, yellow, and white wings. One of my three paintings that hung on the walls of my house was based on a snapshot I'd taken at this very spot during a nature walk with Roman when he was a wee little thing: the purple, orange, and black-spotted butterfly. It warmed my heart both then and now to see the carefree beauty of the insects flittering over the flowers. I stared in admiration at them a few seconds more before turning back to my car.

That is when it hit me.

I'd been instinctively bothered about something ever since Silver had given me the necklace with the broken butterfly charm.

The woman in the police footage of the kidnapping had a butterfly tattoo on her neck. It had caught my eye when I reviewed and paused the news story on my computer the other night. I had met the woman allegedly kidnapped just yesterday and
she did not have any tattoos.
She had been wearing a barely there black halter top with plenty of open room to see her neck.

Nada. No butterfly.

“So either the woman I met was not Silver . . .” I said out loud as my pace quickened to get to my car. “Or”—I gasped—“the kidnapped woman was someone else.” I dug in my purse for the necklace, pulled it out and studied it anew. I looked at the broken inscription on the back: W
ITH
F
AITH
A
LL.
I wondered what the rest of it said—where the rest of it was. There had to be another person involved.

“I need you to keep this in case something happens to me. I was holding on to it for a reason, to give it to someone, but I am not sure I will get a chance. When it all makes sense, you'll know what to do with it.”
These had been the words of Silver, or whoever she was, as she had pressed the necklace into my palm. As I reflected on it all, I was convinced that someone else was involved.

I was winded again as I plopped down in the driver's seat, unsure of what to make of this revelation, uncertain of what to do, where to go with this thought.

He had given me his name and number. Perhaps I could call him and talk to him about my concerns. However, I wanted more information before I approached him. I was tired of sounding like a bumbling fool and did not want to open the door to looking like a person of interest again. I was going to get some answers and then present my suspicions to the authorities. A plan of action began fashioning in my mind.

Skee-Gee and Tridell should be back from Las Vegas by now, I realized. Perhaps they would know something more about Roman. I pulled out my cell phone and dialed the first few numbers for Yvette before thinking better of it. I started over and dialed the first few numbers of my mother's home. As her phone began ringing, I remembered the crowd of church members who had been sitting there, and wondered if any of them were still there. I hung up immediately and settled with dialing my mother's cell phone. She answered on the first ring.

“Well, it's about time you decided to check in with your family.” Her tone sizzled and popped like hot oil over the phone.

“Mom,” was all I could say as I thought quickly of how to respond to all she was saying and insinuating. But there was no sly talking or soothing my momma.

“Do you have any word on the whereabouts of my grandson? I have been worried sick and you have not returned any messages or given me any updates.”

“I was hoping that you had some updates, or rather, Skee-Gee did, if he's back. Is he there?”

“Is he where?” Her diction was sharp and direct. Never a good sign.

“At your house?”

There was a long pause and when she did respond, the air had gone out of her voice. “We're all at Yvette's.”

I nearly gasped. My mother, as a rule, never went over to Yvette's house. When Yvette began the series of her purposeful choices that left her living in a rundown row home in the middle of an abandoned block in Lower Park Heights, my mother did all she could to avoid the dwelling; just as Yvette did all she could to prove some point she'd been trying to make since she first got pregnant by a low-level drug dealer, Skee-Gee's late father, at the age of sixteen. What either one of their points was was anybody's guess.

What I did know at the moment was that I was stepping on foreign and dangerous territory if I ventured to explore why my mother was over there. The sizzling steam in her tone told me she did not want me to suspect or ask. Only to come join them.

“I'm on my way,” I replied and we both hung up.

Our entire conversation had consisted of only a few sentences, but so much more had been said. Seems like that's how all my deep conversations with my mother were spoken: in the emotion-filled pauses in between.

I pulled up to Yvette's house around 8:30 a.m. and knew immediately that Skee-Gee's homecoming of sorts was in full swing. The porch was filled with his friends, wannabe gangster-looking types with baggy pants, bandanas, profanity, and sneers that were meant to scare away the timid, all sitting and standing around the covered cement stoop. Whatever lessons Leon had drilled in him along with Roman over the past two years seemed to have been thrown out of the window.

The effects of Leon's absence from my life were being felt already.

I stepped through the mass of directionless young men who barely budged as I pushed through to get to the front door. As a rule, one or two of them were destined to make it. The right configuration of outside help and inside will would somehow join forces to set in motion an escape route for a couple of them from the trappings of the hood. The rest of them would probably disappear into the short news articles, the not-so-shocking-anymore headlines, the negative statistics that seemed to loom over the success of too many young black men. As a social worker by training, I knew that context was everything, and the context, the setting where these young boys' lives were playing out, did not give them the best odds from day one.

I prayed to God that Skee-Gee would be one of the ones who made it out.

“There she is!” Yvette's loud voice blared as I crossed the threshold into her living room. “How you doin', sis? Come on in. We're eating breakfast.” She flashed a smile before heading back into her kitchen. My mother, Skee-Gee, and Yvette's other four children were sitting around her dining room table, platters of pancakes, bacon, and scrambled eggs before them.

I froze in my steps. Yvette never called me “sis.” Shoot, I could not remember the last time I'd seen her even smiling.

“Good morning, everyone. Welcome back, Skee-Gee.” I plastered a smile on my face and headed to the kitchen, fully knowing what I would find in there.

And I was right.

A man.

As Yvette giggled and carried on over the simple task of getting a bag of oranges out of her refrigerator, a man stood at her sink, washing out a glass pitcher and tall glasses.

“Nothing like fresh orange juice on a Saturday morning.” He smiled at her, a straight-tooth, bright white smile that sparkled like the diamond solitaires I noticed in Yvette's ears.

“Oh, Sienna, this is my friend, Damari.” She patted his arm and they both smiled at each other.

“Nice to meet you.” I offered a half-smile back, trying my best not to roll my eyes. I was used to the parade of men Yvette seemed to have in and out of her house; but as Damari led us both back to the table and began a genuine prayer of thanksgiving for the food that had been prepared and for Skee-Gee's safe return, my slight disgust turned into slivers of sorrow.

Yvette had a good man there.

And from the way she fussed over his plate and patted his shoulders every time she passed by him, she was making sure that he knew that she knew it.

Everyone at the table was laughing, smiling, sharing jokes and stories of good humor—including my mother, who I realized had probably sought shelter at Yvette's for the same reason I had avoided calling her house phone. Too many people were over there waiting to tell us how screwed up our family was.

I looked at my screwed-up family: my nephews and baby nieces making a mess of their food and bickering back and forth with each other; my mother doing her best to put up a front like she actually was accepting Yvette's life disasters; Yvette laughing as loud as a chainsaw; the new man at the head of the table who clearly didn't realize what he was getting himself into. I looked at the family who surrounded me and I never felt more clearly both the absence of Roman and the void left empty by Leon.

“I have to go,” I whispered. Nobody heard me. Nobody even looked my way as I stood and headed to the kitchen to scrape my uneaten plate. I was opening the front door to leave when my mother called after me.

“We're going over Mother Spriggs's home for dinner this evening.”

I started to say something back, but she had already returned her attention to the table, laughing at another story, this one being shared by Damari. I stepped out on the porch, pushed through the throng of Skee-Gee's friends, and was almost at my car when a voice stopped me.

“Aunt See! Hold up! Wait!”

It was Skee-Gee. I waited for him to finish high-fiving his boys on the porch before coming to talk with me. I could not get any words together, but I didn't have to. He was the only one with anything to say.

“I didn't tell anyone this, but I thought you should know. I saw a plane ticket to California in Roman's bags. That's all.” He turned around before I could explore any more with him. I watched as he fist-pounded a few more friends before disappearing back into the house.

When I got back in my car, I had only one thought, one destination in mind.

But I had to make one stop first.