Sweet Violet and a Time for Love (18 page)

“Your brother-in-law told us about this group meeting today when we met at the hospital. From what we just heard you say, I'm glad we came. We got your back with this one, girlfriend.” Shavona looked mad as she stormed to the dining room to put down a covered pot that smelled of garlic and basil.

The room sprung into action as the television was flicked on, phones were brought out, new rounds of prayer began. Yvette fixed me a plate of food, threatened to spoon-feed me if I didn't eat it, then pulled up a chair close to me and held my hand.

“Though I have had the experience of seeing a significant other carted off to jail, I know that this situation is a little different, so I won't say that I can fully relate.” Yvette sighed. “But this too shall pass, big sis.”

The roller coaster in my stomach, the questions that flooded my brain hadn't changed one bit; but knowing that I wasn't alone in this trial did help me feel a little better. Most of the people in the room didn't know me, but they all had stopped what they were doing to send up petitions to heaven on my and Leon's behalf.

Leon's baby inside of me was kicking away; the sign of strength in those little feet gave me enough reason to keep going forward.

Even if my other child was still refusing to enter the house.

“Where's Roman?” I tried to push myself up.

“Oh, he got into a car when we were coming in,” Mike answered.

“He was driving?”

“No, he got in the passenger seat. I didn't think much of it at the time, so I couldn't tell you any other details.”

I was so confused with my son, what he was up to, how he was getting around. I didn't even know what questions to ask, what questions to avoid. Our relationship was too delicate to mess around asking something that would set him off or shut him up from talking to me again.

I shut my eyes to send up a petition, but then realized that I felt too numb to pray. Good thing I was surrounded by so many others who could put my pleas into words.

When I opened my eyes, I saw that Mike Grant was studying my face. He must have seen my despair.

“Please don't worry, Sienna.” Mike sat down across from me. “I will personally do all I can to make sure this gets resolved quickly. I'll make some calls to my connections in the department. You know I got Leon's back. I won't let things get too out of control. Don't worry. Everything will work out.”

His words were meant to comfort me, and for a moment they did.

Until he winked at me.

The fourth time that day.

“Happy birthday, wife of mine.”

I opened my eyes and looked into the dark brown eyes of my soul's love. Tangled in the sheets after a near sleepless night, I tried to straighten myself out and smooth my hair back down under my satin night scarf.

Waking up forty years old for the first time brought a host of mixed emotions.

“You should call out of work today.” Leon smiled at me from his pillow. He ran his toes over my legs under the sheets I'd just untangled.

“Can't call out when you are the work.” I yawned, then wished I could start over. Those were my first words uttered as a forty-year-old woman.

“Yeah, I understand. I need to get to the bakery myself today.” He smiled as he sat up and pulled me up to him with one easy move of his arms. “But you can join me this morning for breakfast. It's waiting on the table.” He kissed my lips, stroked my ear.

“Wait, you've already been up?” I forced myself to awaken more fully and realized that the savory aroma of bacon, blueberry pancakes, and hot coffee filled my nostrils.

“Of course I've been up. I had to plan your big day; that is, if you can listen to me and take off. Your clients can reschedule. They've done it before.”

“Leon, thanks for breakfast.” I stood, stretched. “I don't know if I can get all of my clients moved. Some of them have been waiting for over two months for their appointments. Ever since the news coverage last year, you know my waitlist has boomed.” I looked back at him. He still sat on the bed. “Besides, like you said, you have your business to get to.”

“Turns out that I made arrangements. Mike is standing in for me today. He's using his day off to make sure that I can cater to you.”

“That's sweet.” I bent back over the bed to kiss his lips one more time. “Thing is, even if I did cancel all my appointments, I still have to get some work done on that book. I'm surprised they're still offering me a contract for as long as it's taking me to figure out what to write.”

“Take some time off today, even half the day, a couple of hours, and I will gladly sit down with you to help you develop your outline.” Leon's eyes pleaded. “I just want to spend some time with you. I want to celebrate you today.”

“Leon . . .”

“Baby . . .”

We stared at each other.

My eyes followed the veins in his arm muscles, studied the outline of his lips. Everything about him was perfect, and this would be the first birthday I'd be celebrating as a perfect man's wife.

Mmmmm.

A loud buzz vibrated through the room. My cell phone.

“Don't get it,” Leon whispered as I reached for it anyway. The caller ID indicated that it was Darci. She never called me this early; this could not be good.

“Sienna,” she spoke before I even said hello. “I know it's early, but Monifa who's supposed to be providing morning coverage has a family emergency and there are three clients coming in starting at seven with urgent matters she was supposed to see. Can you come in a couple of hours earlier than your usual to see them? I'm not sure what else to do because Jackie and Soo Yee are booked solid too and these three clients have been waiting for appointments for over six weeks.”

“It's my birthday.” I kept my eyes on Leon who kept shaking his head no. “I—”

“Oh, that's right. I forgot it is your birthday. Happy b-day, Sienna. Let's see, I will . . .” She paused. I heard papers flipping.

I shut my eyes. Leon would just have to understand. I had a business to run, and, even more importantly, clients who had mental and emotional concerns that could not be ignored.

“I'll be in to see them,” I announced. What else could I do?

Leon groaned and collapsed back into the tangled sheets as I hung up and proceeded to get ready for the work day.

“I'm going to have to make my breakfast to go, honey. Thank you. Maybe we can meet for lunch. Definitely dinner.” I headed to the master bathroom to shower, but turned back to him just before opening the door. “Leon, I don't know what else to do.”

He didn't say anything, just got up and left the room.

“Oh my,” I whispered as I stepped into the kitchen a little while later, fully dressed and showered. Flowers, balloons, fruit, and homemade cookies filled the island, the breakfast bar, every corner, shelf, and countertop, in addition to the bacon and blueberry pancakes. A large banner was draped across the cabinets: H
APPY
40
TH
B
IRTHDAY
!

“And this is just what I had planned for the morning.” Leon gave a weak smile.

I can spare fifteen minutes,
I thought as pangs of guilt rippled through me; but he was already piling a paper plate high with his good home cooking, grabbing foil. “Take this with you.” He licked some chocolate frosting from one of the cookies off his finger. “But promise me that you will meet up with me for lunch. The birthday girl deserves at least an hour or two off.”

“Leon, thank you so much. I am truly touched. You are the best ever. You know I want to stay, but I don't know what to do. I am ethically responsible for the clients at my clinic, and I'm in charge of its operation. I can't just call out.”

He shrugged and didn't hide the disappointment from his eyes. “Just meet me for lunch.”

“I promise to,” I replied, though I knew that there were no guarantees in the workday when it came to mental health and counseling.

So of course the day was nothing but crisis interventions: suicidal patients; one client discovering that her husband had a mistress; an issue with our billing service.

“I promised Leon that I would meet him,” I explained to Darci at a quarter to twelve. He wanted us to meet at a halfway point between our jobs at a diner in Charles Village.

“Go ahead, Sienna. I can take care of the billing problem.” She waved me off.

But then a walk-in came in, her eyes dripping tears as she screamed uncontrollably. What was I supposed to do?

I'll be there as soon as I can, I texted. He didn't text back.

Over two hours later I entered the pink and purple–painted diner that had velvet-covered benches for seats. A couple of patrons sat chatting in the booths and a single waitress joined in gossip as she floated from table to table.

No Leon.

“Cancel my appointments for the afternoon,” I told Darci over the phone. There were only two clients left, old customers who had a history of being no-shows anyway.

I drove downtown to his bakery and saw through the window that he was serving platters of his finest pastries and cakes. A little larger crowd than usual filled the space as what appeared to be a busload of Inner Harbor tourists had discovered his bakery, hooked in by the tray of samples being passed out at the front door.

He couldn't leave work now, I knew.

And I understood. I appreciated what he did, how he had to be present to run his business. Why couldn't he give me the same courtesy without trying to make me feel guilty? I could not stop the question from forming in my head. I could not stop the sudden irritation that jolted through my system.

I took my business seriously and he needed to respect that. There were no easy decisions, even when those decisions had to be made on my birthday.

With an unexpected free afternoon and nobody to share it with, I decided to park my car near a street vendor not far from the courthouse. Hot dog and soda in hand, that's how I ended up in the War Memorial Plaza.

That's how I ended up running into Sweet Violet.

It would be the first of our several run-ins in the wide grassy plaza that sat between Baltimore City Hall and the War Memorial building.

 

 

“That ain't much of a lunch right there.”

I recognized the voice, the smell, even before I turned around. “It's better than no lunch at all,” I mumbled.

Leaning against the gray half wall that bordered the plaza, I looked down at the greasy hot dog I balanced in my hands.
Could have had a sit
-
down meal with my husband.
I swallowed down the piercing thought with a swig of soda and looked up at the elderly woman who now stood in front of me. Today she had on a familiar outfit: the pink running suit I'd given her to change into the night I drove her from the hospital to the shelter.

“Where are you staying these days?” I asked, taking a bite out of the hot dog, taking a chance with a question.

I had nothing better to do.

The woman didn't answer, just stared at me with an unreadable expression on her face.

“Are you hungry? Have you eaten today? I can get you something if you like,” I tried.

Still silent.

“Is your name Frankie Jean or is it Sweet Violet?”

A dark glimmer washed over her eyes.

“Well?” I asked, wiping some mustard from my lips with a tip of a napkin. That one bite was enough to make me feel nauseous. I quickly took another sip of soda with the hopes that it would calm my churning stomach down. Or maybe it was the smell that was making me feel nauseated. The woman smelled worse than spoiled pig's feet on a hot summer day.

She mumbled something I could not make out and turned away.

“Wait,” I called after her, tossing the half-eaten hot dog in a nearby receptacle. “I'm just asking your name, but if that upsets you, no worries. Let me get you lunch.”

The woman kept mumbling. Her step quickened as she looked over her shoulder at me. I decided not to follow her, went back to my spot on the wall. The woman stopped walking, her back still to me.

Then she turned around and scurried back in front of me. “Why you asking me so many questions? Are you a cop or something?”

You a cop?
The question jumped out at me, reminding me of the young boy child with old eyes who'd asked me the same thing the morning Ms. Marta was found shot dead.

“I'm a social worker. Remember we met at Metro Community? I gave you the outfit you're wearing now and dropped you off in front of A New Beginning House shelter.”

The woman looked down at her pink outfit, looked back up at me. “I remember you.” She smiled. “Forgive my manners. Sometimes I forget things. Life ain't nothing but constant details to remember.” She stared off into the sky, shut her eyes, smiled, and started humming. Then frowned.

“What time is it, sugar?”

I checked my phone. “Four-nineteen.”

“Less than an hour,” she mumbled.

“What's less than an hour?”

“What time is it, sugar?” she asked again.

Alzheimer's? Dementia? Liquor? Drugs? Some kind of game?
I wanted to make sense of this woman. Maybe that's why I could not just let this go.

“Do you need a watch? I found your pocket watch, remember? In your purse?”

Her eyes narrowed and I had the sudden urge to take a step backward, but I was already leaning against the wall. Nowhere to go.

“What did you do?” she hissed.

“What did I do? You mean with your purse or the watch?” I took a step to the left, as another dark wave rolled through her eyes.
Mental illness?
There were so many possibilities with this one. “I tried to give it back to you on New Year's Day, remember? You said you didn't want it, so I left it by that rose you planted, by that bottle of Old Grand-Dad you left in the dirt.”

She smiled and began humming again. I watched as she closed her eyes and raised her arms as if she was going to start dancing.

“You like music. Did you used to be a singer? A performer?”

She ignored my question as she stepped from side to side, did an exaggerated plié. “Let me give you a tip for life, sugar.” Her movement and tone changed instantly as she stood still and glared at me. “Don't ever try to mix business with pleasure. People say that phrase but don't understand what it means.”

She began breathing hard, as if smoke would come out of her nostrils, steam out of her ears. I took another small step to the left.

“It won't work. It will leave you. It will just leave you.” She shook her head, looked saddened. “There's a time for everything. That's what people don't understand. I learned that the hard way. There's time; and then it's gone. Poof.” She clapped her hands and then wiggled her fingers.

I tried to understand her words, tried to find meaning in her statements; but I didn't know what was flashing through her head. I didn't know if she knew what was flashing through her head. She wasn't finished.

“It was a gift.” The woman shook her head, sorrow in her voice.

“What was a gift? Time? Business? Pleasure?” I tried to keep up.

“That watch, stupid.” She glared at me again, and then smiled. “It wasn't supposed to be, but it was a gift.” She lowered her voice. “A very scary gift.” She began dancing again.

“Who? Who gave you the watch?”

I knew there would be no answer. I watched as she continued dancing, swaying in the January sun. She swirled and spun, taking broad steps away from me. At one point, she stopped and looked up at the sky and laughed. Then she frowned again and walked away. I watched as she picked up a discarded bag of chips from the grass. She shook it, stuck her fingers in to grab some crumbs, and then went back to dancing.

“I'll look for you whenever I come by here,” I called after her. “I'll get you lunch next time.” If she heard me, she gave no indication, alternating between dancing and glaring up at the sky. She settled eventually on some wall space across the grassy expanse. I noticed a large plastic bag near where she sat.