Sweet Violet and a Time for Love (11 page)

“I knew that my not returning to school would concern you.” Roman directed this to me although Leon had been doing the questioning. “And although a college degree is not necessarily needed to work in the tech field—look at Bill Gates—I know that is important; so I'm looking into some online programs that will allow me to finish my degree. One day. Changuna is helping me sort through my options.”

Eighteen years.

Eighteen years of working, crying, wishing, praying, hoping, ramen noodle nights, evening classes, master's program, part-time this, full-time that, believing, sweating.

Eighteen years.

That was the time span that covered the years between birthing Roman and then enrolling him into college. The sacrifices. The dreams. The expectations. And now? Only one word came to my head; only one word had the power to unloose my tongue.

“RiChard.” The name slithered out of my mouth, opening up enough room in my oral cavity for a host of emotions I'd long buried to enter in, get lodged in my throat, and send waves of nausea through my gut.

“I knew you were going to bring RiChard St. James into this.” Roman actually looked mad. He glared at me. “I am not my father, and for the record, I am not you, either. I knew you would see this like me doing what you did in dropping out of school to chase someone else around the world, but there are major differences. For one, I know for sure who Changuna is and I know for sure that she has a good heart with good motives and intentions. We've spent longer than a semester together, unlike you and RiChard, who you ran off with barely into your first semester as a freshman. Changuna and I have made our plans mutually. She is not just telling me what to do for me to simply follow her like a lost sheep. Her kids are already halfway grown, so when we find them, I will not be raising any small children while at the same time trying to work or finish school. This is different from you. I'm laying out reasonable and logical plans.”

The cement grabbed a hold of my tongue again and trickled down to my chest, down to my stomach. Felt like heavy rocks were settling in my gut.

“You leave tomorrow?” Leon's voice was a whisper.

“Yes,” Roman affirmed. “And I didn't tell you sooner because I knew there would be resistance. I'm grown now, and you have to accept my decision, my well thought-out and researched decision. And yes, she may be a little older than me, but remember her teen and young adult years were stolen from her. I think, if anything, my age, my youth compared to hers, helps her gain those years back.” He paused for a moment before continuing. “You should know, I'm planning to propose to her so we can get married in India on New Year's Day where, from what she's told me, there will be massive New Year celebrations even bigger than the ones here in the States. I wanted to wait for five, maybe ten years, but it might be easier moving forward with the business if our relationship is a legal entity.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but words were not what came out. My stomach swirled. Within seconds, a new mess splattered to the floor. Now there was more than mashed potatoes and utensils to clean.

“Really, Ma? I tell you I'm getting married, and you throw up?”

“Your mother's pregnant,” Leon barked. His tone was almost at the level of the Sunday morning yell he'd had when we first argued about Sweet Violet.

Almost.

“Pregnant? You turn forty next month. Why are you starting over with another child? Pregnant? Really? Oh, wait. You're just joking. You gotta be.”

“No.”

Roman looked from me to Leon and back. Then: “Well, congratulations, I guess. I don't know what else to say. I thought I was going to see everyone tonight, and I still want to. I need to go over Grandma's house. I thought she was having dinner tonight. I wanted to come here first and early so that I could introduce Changuna to you and then explain everything over Grandma's table. I swear, when you meet her, you'll really like her.

“Introduce her?” I repeated the only words that I heard come out of his mouth.

“Yeah.” He beckoned toward the door. “She's here, waiting in my car. I told her that I would check things out in here first before I brought her in, and I'm glad I did, because you responded just like I thought you would. But now that you know everything, I might as well bring her in.”

“She's here?” Again, the only words I heard.

“Ma, you'll like her. She's just like you.”

I saw the hope in his eyes, was aware that he completely glossed over the big announcement that Leon busted.

I knew then that Roman had it bad. His focus was only on this girl, I mean old woman, and not on school, a coming new sibling, or even plain common sense.

This was really happening.

“I'll go get her now.” He turned toward the front door, a half smile on his face.

Christmas had been six months ago. I stared at the flat-screen television in the fourteenth floor waiting room of Metropolitan Community Hospital, wondering what Leon and Roman were discussing just down the hall with the door closed and me way on the other side.

“Erik, you are the father of two-year-old Dinesha.” The TV audience roared in cheers and applause. I wanted to shut it off, the nonsense interrupting my thoughts. Instead, I swallowed hard, trying to shut out the memories of our failed holiday dinner.

Changuna.

I shut my eyes again at the mental image of the dark-haired beauty with intelligent eyes who showed up for our Christmas Eve dinner.

“Girl, why you sitting out here? Shouldn't you be in the room praying for my nephew? Oh my God, Sienna, you and yours just can't seem to stay out of trouble.”

My sister, Yvette, clopped into the room in neon orange high-heeled sneakers and a yellow and orange sundress. It was almost two-forty but she looked like the high noon sun. Her youngest child, a daughter, trailed behind her crunching through a bag of cheese curls. She was six years old but had the eyes of an old soul and she rarely smiled.

I thought of Delmon Frank, the defendant in the triple murder trial, and recalled the first conversation I'd had with him, the cigarette that he'd flicked between his fingers, the eyes that looked old and young all at once.

“Fiona, sit here,” Yvette barked as she pointed to a seat and then she turned back to me with tears in her eyes. “Is Roman okay?”

“He'll be okay,” I managed to whisper though I had no idea how she defined “okay.” My definition covered ground beyond the physical into the territory of the mental and spiritual. When had my son turned against prayer? I wondered again. I thought again of Changuna and my mood darkened.

“So are we visiting him or not? You don't know what it took for me to get those people at the front desk to allow Fiona past the main lobby.”

With her oldest son, my nephew Skee-Gee, currently incarcerated and her other two kids on equally shaky paths, Yvette had taken to keeping her youngest with her at all times.

“Leon's in the room. The two wanted to talk alone.”

“You want me to send Demari in there? He's on a mission to find a free parking space, even after I reminded him we are downtown. I can call him so he can hurry up and join the fellows in prayer.”

Like me, Yvette was a newlywed, beating me to the altar by just a couple of months. Her husband, Demari, had a past as dark as his future was bright. In addition to starting a landscaping company, he along with several males from his church, my old church, had formed a nonprofit using basketball as an outreach and mentoring program for teen males. He'd wanted to approach Leon about serving on the board, I knew from talks with Yvette, but avoided the topic while Leon focused on turning his business around.

My involvement with this trial was not helping anything.

“No, you don't have to send Demari in to help with prayer,” I answered Yvette's question. “Roman is acting funny about it, about prayer, that is.”

“Is he still messing around with that girl, I mean woman?”

“I don't know what's going on.” It was the truth. Roman and I had barely talked since the morning of Christmas Day. I shut my eyes and inhaled, remembering the disaster that was his sendoff at the airport. I had very little idea of what had happened in his life since then.

When he'd phoned to say he was coming into town for the start of my turn on the witness stand, I'd assumed he was ready to finally talk.

Clearly, I'd been wrong.

“Do you think it was an accident? Do you really think that what happened to Roman was really random?” Yvette spoke out loud the nagging fear that had been eating away at me. I'd never even told her about Sweet Violet.
But Sweet Violet has no ties to any of this,
I assured myself.

“There are a lot of coincidences,” was my only reply.

“Yeah, you think?” Yvette shook her head. “You were associated with all three crime scenes, and while we all know that's mostly because of what you were doing professionally as a social worker, it's a wonder nobody's considered you to be a suspect.”

“The common theme is Delmon Frank,” I reminded Yvette of the prosecutor's oft-repeated phrase, which had been stated throughout the trial. “And you can connect the dots. The first woman, Ms. Marta, was the robbery victim who was killed outside of the shelter; the second was a former shelter resident.”

“Frank's pregnant girlfriend, right?”

I thought about the girl, Amber, who had called me from the bushes at the first scene. She'd given me Sweet Violet's purse. Amber's body was discovered in a vacant row home a month after Ms. Marta was killed. The girl had been dead for about that long, the autopsy confirmed.

She was a woman-child with trouble and secrets written all over and in her eyes. I wondered what trouble and secrets she'd carried to her grave. They said she and her unborn baby were buried in a pauper's field, no one claiming her. The only “loved one” she'd had was the boyfriend accused of killing her, Delmon Frank.

Drug addiction.

That's what was believed to be at the heart of the killings: Ms. Marta robbed of her money to fund his drug habit; the young girl Amber robbed of her life by her boyfriend who attacked her in a drug-induced hallucinatory rage. She'd had bite marks on her hands and arms as she'd apparently tried to defend herself against his attack.

“The messed-up thing is that nobody would have given these cases a second look if it had just been that worker and the homeless girl who were killed. It was that last victim who got everyone's attention; that, and the fact that you were involved. You keep getting mixed up in the craziest of cases.”

“Believe me, I'm not trying. I would much rather have a quiet life to myself, see my clients, and love on Leon.”
And this baby.
I rubbed my belly. Though I felt an occasional kick, the new life entering mine didn't feel all the way real.

“You still don't want to find out what you're having?” Yvette smiled, nodded toward my stomach.

“Maybe I need to. Maybe that would make it all seem real once and for all.”

Yvette smoothed down one of Fiona's long braids. “Girl, ain't nothing fake about having these children. They come and they stay, no matter where any of our lives take us.”

Where any of our lives take us.

I thought about the last victim, the one whose tragic killing thrust the entire triple murders into the spotlight. Wrong place, wrong time. Now, that murder may have been random, I considered.

But, Roman and the attack he'd endured? Five dollars and eleven cents was all that was left on him.

The questions nagged me. The potential answers disturbed me more.

“The police seem pretty certain that what happened to Roman today was a robbery. You know everything associated with me is being watched like a hawk by everyone these days. It was a fluke, the assault. Roman hasn't been part of this whole fiasco. He hasn't even been in town. Those boys would have had no idea who he is.”

“Are you trying to convince me or you?” Yvette looked at me from the corner of her eyes. “I'm not saying that prosecuting team is not on its job, but I personally would need more than promises of protection from the media in a hotel room that will only last as long as the trial.”

“I think Leon carries a gun.”

Yvette considered this and settled back in her seat. “Girl, you might need to learn how to use one yourself. That's all I'm saying.” She laughed at the horror on my face. “Seriously, Sienna, I'm just kidding. We know that the blood of Jesus will protect you from the plans of the devil. There is power in the blood and in His name.”

“Listen to you, all spiritualitized.” I shook my head and tried to laugh despite the twisting unsettledness the talk of guns had thrust into my stomach.

“Girl, at this point in my life, Jesus is all I've got. Jesus, Demari, and Fiona.” She kissed her daughter's forehead.

“And me.” Our eyes locked. “You've got me, Yvette.”

She looked away first. “Sienna, you've got enough going on. I just don't want you, or Roman, or any of y'all to end up like that last victim.

Wrong place. Wrong time. Coincidence or not?
The questions I had about my own safety, what happened to Roman, and Sweet Violet's words and timing continued to swirl around in my head.

“Death. Someone always has to die. Okay, sugar. Thank you. Good night.”
Her last words to me when I'd dropped her off at the shelter a few hours before Ms. Marta was found there dead. However, she didn't have a weapon on her when I dropped her off. She'd been naked under that housecoat she wore to the emergency room, and I had the bag that held her belongings.

And there was nothing that tied Delmon Frank to her, I reminded myself. Nothing, that is, except his dead girlfriend, Amber, who was a former resident at the shelter where Sweet Violet had stayed for just a few weeks.

Ms. Marta had seemed to be the only staff member familiar with this woman, Sweet Violet, and she knew her as Frankie Jean. I recalled our single phone conversation.

The lines all felt connected, but that didn't mean they meant anything. That didn't mean that they formed a sensible shape. I thought about those connect-the-dots puzzles I used to help Roman with when he was a toddler. I used it as a tool to teach him the ABCs, drawing neat lines between the letters in alphabetical order resulting in well-defined pictures. No matter how hard I tried, Roman would inevitably grab a crayon and connect the dots in whatever way made sense to him.

Out of order. Random shapes.

I had a lot of lines in my life right now. I had to figure out the order to them and then step back to see what shape was taking hold. Maybe then it would all make sense.

“We'll all be okay,” I assured Yvette. She held tightly to Fiona's little hand.

“Sienna,” Leon's deep voice echoed through the room from the doorway. “Roman wants to talk to you.”