What? Huh? I felt my eyes blinking as I tried to keep up and attempted to stay a step ahead.
“Don’t heroes save people? You forgot that aspect in your definition earlier.” Should I even bother with reality testing? The man had said he didn’t want treatment so what good would any of this talking do? He hadn’t said anything remotely suicidal or homicidal, so maybe it was safe just to leave him alone and let well enough be. He most likely had nothing to do with the explosion or an evil-filled plot, but a rescue, an understanding, a deliverance of some nature, were needed in the worst way. My thoughts from the early morning hours resurfaced. Rescue. Deliverance. And here he was talking about heroism.
Perhaps this wasn’t all just coincidence.
“You’re right, Ms. St. James. Heroes do save people, and that’s what you have done, are doing, and will do. Your heroism is fascinating to me.”
Fascinating.
The word jumped out and startled me and I knew exactly why. The two e-mails from the sender Everybody Anybody or whoever it was had had that word in each of its headers.
It’s just a coincidence, Sienna. I told myself to calm down. “Fascinating” is a common word. His word choice meant nothing. I’m just being overly sensitive and analytical. Even if it was in an e-mail sent over the Internet, the very thing he’d just spent time talking about, explaining his view that the world was self-absorbed, wanting to share every mundane fact about ourselves . . . Five Fascinating Things About Me. Five Fascinating Things About You.
Was it all really a coincidence? I had to talk to Laz about this again, I knew.
The man finished his cup of water. My fruit smoothie was nothing more than a tall glass of melting slush.
“I’ve enjoyed our conversation today.” He set his glass down with a loud thud. “I’ll be back tomorrow so we can continue.” Without another word, he got up and left.
I watched as he crossed the parking lot to a yellow Jeep. It had tags from West Virginia. I jotted down the license plate number before he pulled off the lot.
Then I grabbed my things and hightailed it out of there.
Chapter 20
I dialed Laz’s number as I ran back up the staircase, but hung up just before his phone started ringing. What was I supposed to say to him? That I’d figured out that strange man’s name may or may not be Bennett and that he used the word “fascinating” so he must be an Internet stalker, or worse, a terrorist?
Even I heard the foolishness in those claims.
The front door of my suite was unlocked.
“There you are.” Darci’s sing-song greeting met me as soon as I came in. She was emptying wastebaskets, tidying up the waiting room magazines, preparing for a full day of clients.
“Look at you.” I smiled. “Are you working today or do you have other plans?” I raised an eyebrow at the clingy, yellow wrap dress she wore, black high heels, and yellow and black jewelry.
“Nope, no other plans. Just thought I’d spruce myself up for a change. It’s amazing what you can find when you actually go through your closet.”
Her smile was bigger than usual. She seemed bright, glowing, and not only because she wore a sunbeam-shade dress.
Had she heard that man say he was coming back today? I thought about how her eyes had lit up when she’d announced his presence yesterday. Was her outfit in any way related to him? It was a wild thought, but even thinking it made me uneasy.
No, Darci! Don’t get caught up with him, no matter how gorgeous you think he is. I screamed this in my head, but knew I’d have to say it out loud if there was any hint of my suspicions being true. But there was no need to embarrass her and make myself look like an idiot, I decided.
When and why had I become so paranoid? I guess I suffered from my own delusions, I concluded.
“Your son called.” Darci was back at her desk. “He wants you to call him back as soon as possible.”
Roman.
With all the craziness that defined my life these days, my son was the one constant, the one person who made sense.
And yet I had failed him by never fully seeking complete answers about his father and by rejecting the idea of a relationship with the siblings he called family.
“Thanks, Darci.” I hurried to my office and shut the door behind me.
The need to talk to someone “normal” was nearly overwhelming me. I tried to shake off the convoluted feelings that Bennett, or whatever his name was, left me, and dialed my son. He picked up on the second ring.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Hi, Roman. How are you?” My heart always melted when I heard my son’s voice on the phone, like it did the first time I’d held him in my arms. He was the only positive to RiChard’s negative.
“I’m fine. Just wanted to check on you.”
“I’m fine, Roman.” There was a long pause. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t think I’m coming back here next school year.”
“Wait. What? Why?” I heard the gasp in my voice and questioned it. Weren’t these the words I’d been longing to hear come from his mouth?
“I can’t deal with it anymore. I’m too far away from my family.”
I’d said the same thing when he first applied, ignoring his assertions that he had family, brothers and a sister, with whom he wanted to connect.
“Roman, you can’t . . .” My voice faded as I searched for the right words to say. “You can’t let whatever is happening between you and . . . them keep you from finishing your degree out there. Keep your eyes on the bigger picture. Didn’t you say your program is nationally ranked?” I felt dizzy as my mouth said the complete opposite of what I felt like saying.
“It’s not working. I don’t want to be here. They don’t . . . feel like family. I just want to come home. For good.”
I did not know what was happening. I hadn’t been there for him, to listen, to understand the way that I should have been (and I was a therapist!) so I knew I had to get this right. I didn’t want my son giving up on the relationships that meant so much to him. As much ambivalence as I felt about Mbali and her children, I knew it was right for Roman to keep fighting for the family connections he dreamed of having.
“Listen, I’m coming back out there on Thursday. Don’t make any firm decisions right now. Let’s talk some more then, and I will support you in your efforts to fix whatever is going on with you and your brothers and sister. Don’t run across the country away from them; otherwise, it will never be resolved and you’ll have those relationships hanging over your head like a weight.”
“Mom, I’m a grown man. I don’t need you flying back out here to rescue me.”
Rescue.
The word jumped out at me and I remembered the uneasiness I’d felt moments early.
“It’s not a rescue, Roman. I already had plans. Something I need to do.”
In the several seconds of silence that ensued, I could almost hear his brain struggling to figure out what I was up to. He gave up trying and didn’t bother trying to ask me questions, seemingly knowing that I would have already given him answers if that was my intent.
“Mom, you have never wanted a relationship with them yourself and you never really wanted me to come out here in the first place. Why the sudden change of heart?”
“Because this isn’t about me; it’s about you. I don’t want you making the same mistakes I did and end up spending a lifetime overshadowed by loose ends from broken relationships.” I let the words settle before continuing. “We’ll talk more on Thursday. Maybe we can have that dinner we missed on Saturday. Or better yet, lunch.” Kisu’s seminar was in the evening. I didn’t want to take any chances of having to explain to Roman where I was going.
He was in the situation he was in now because I hadn’t found out the answers I’d needed for both of us years ago.
No more loose ends.
But no telling him about it until those ends were tied. I didn’t want to prolong the pain, for either him or me, any longer.
We hung up after a bit of small talk about his projects and exams. I resumed my workday, floating through individual and family therapy sessions; catching up on notes; thinking about family, love, and relationships. I’d made a living out of helping people sort through complex feelings, communication failures, and the choices that affected them all.
By seven-thirty that evening, I’d helped a woman talk through the bitterness she felt over an abusive ex, listened to a teenage girl plead with her mother to stop ignoring her crying, and guided a grieving widower through a healing exercise to address his deep feelings of loss. I helped them and many more clients, both scheduled and walk-ins, before I headed home. I finally took care of the rental car return and then I collapsed onto my bed.
And I’d also made a decision about Laz.
Four hours, thirty-three minutes.
16,380 seconds.
I was calculating time again, my old standby, a safe constant.
That’s how long it had been since I’d made up my mind about Laz. Now I just had to tell him.
Curled up on my bed with my comforter wrapped tight around me, I’d turned on the eleven o’clock news, knowing that in the midst of the harrowing stories about the terror attack and its aftermath, Laz would come on at some point. Though there’d be no telling exactly where he’d be when the live shot came, it was guaranteed that he’d find some new angle, some unexposed facet of the story on which to report.
Laz looked for and reported controversy.
His story came on at 11:07, early in the broadcast. He must have good information. I turned up the volume and waited for him to start speaking.
And waited to see if, when I saw him on the screen, my heart would confirm what my head had decided.
“Even as authorities are trying to better understand how the suspect, Jamal Abdul, was able to plan and initiate the attack, many are just trying to understand the suspect. From close family members to longtime friends to neighbors, coworkers, and former little league coaches, those who crossed paths with Abdul are grappling with what made the suspect turn on his own country and wreak havoc, injury, and death to his fellow citizens.” Laz looked in the camera solemnly, his hat fixed straight on his head.
“Investigators are looking at potential ties through his father that may connect him to radical groups. Those who know him best are looking back over the days, weeks, and years they’ve spent with him, trying to see if and how they missed any warning signs of this current disaster.”
“Jamal used to come to our center and play board and card games with us.” A taped interview began playing and an elderly man sitting at a table spoke as several other seniors surrounded him, nodding their heads and looking forlorn. “Spades, pinochle, checkers; he even helped run some bingo nights.”
“His wife would bring pound cake and lemonade to share with us, and his two young children were a real hoot,” a woman wearing a crooked wig chimed in. “We are shocked, flabbergasted, and in total disbelief. There has to be some kind of mistake. I just can’t believe it.”
The screenshot dissolved into a collection of photographs of the suspect at various community and charitable events. One picture showed him in a white tuxedo at what looked like a fundraising ball for cancer research. In another snapshot, he wore denim overalls and stood alongside several youths in an urban community garden. As the pictures continued, Laz’s voice rejoined the report.
“While those who know Jamal Abdul are trying to come to terms with the allegations against him, the rest of the country, indeed the world, is seeking an explanation for how a monster could be hiding inside someone who appeared to be a hero to many. This is Laz, live from another ground zero, if you will, at BWI. Back to you, George.”
Hero.
The word cut through me, grabbed my attention, and made me forget what it was that I’d been looking for when I’d first turned on the nightly news. I sat there for a few minutes, unaware of the remaining broadcast as I reflected on the conversation I’d had with the Bennett man earlier that morning.
And then I laughed at myself for being so darn paranoid, working myself into a tizzy over the word “hero.” Or am I?
As soon as the news went off, I dialed Laz. When I can’t shake nagging feelings, I have to do something about it until it’s clear to let them go.
As much as I wanted to deny it, the nagging feeling in my gut that I had missed something, that we all had missed something, still ate away at me.
“Hey, pending fiancée,” he greeted me on the fifth ring.
“Hi, Laz, I have a question.”
“I was hoping you had an answer.”
“I do, but I can’t get into that yet.” I heard his sigh, but I kept talking anyway. “I saw your report on the eleven o’clock news. Where did all those pictures of the suspect come from?” I held my breath, not sure why it felt so important to me to know how the station had obtained the photos.
“You mean the photos of Jamal Abdul seeming to save the world before he went and turned it upside down? My crew and I found them online.”
“On Facebook? On Twitter?” I exhaled, then inhaled sharply again.
“Yeah, but not on his accounts. They were photos posted on different people’s pages, organizational Web sites, that sort of thing. It doesn’t appear that he had any social media accounts beside his professional networking ones.”
“Oh,” I replied, wondering what I was supposed to think or do about that new bit of information.
“Why do you ask?” Laz asked, then paused. “Wait, does this have anything to do with that man you’re worried about?”
“No. Well, yes. It looks like I’ll be treating him on a regular basis. We met this morning and had a really bizarre conversation about the Internet and social media sites and eternity and existence and, well, it was weird. He had a lot of opinions about Facebook and that sort of thing.”
“So, you are thinking that because this man talked about Facebook and some pictures of the suspect pre–terror attack came from Facebook, the man you spoke with should be questioned?”
“No, that’s silly. That’s not what I’m saying. I don’t know what I am saying.”
“You need to be saying that you’ve agreed to become my wife.” He chuckled. “I’ve got to go in a moment, Sienna. You said you had an answer for me. Can you tell me something, please?”
“Let’s meet for dinner tomorrow night. We’ll talk then.” I didn’t think answering a wedding proposition was an appropriate topic for a hurried phone call.
Laz groaned but agreed. “Okay, I’ll give you a call sometime tomorrow when I’m free. We’ll figure out where to meet and when. I’m gone, Sienna.”
He disconnected and I was left alone again to wade through the murkiness of my own thoughts and imaginations.
A billion people use Facebook. A quadrillion pictures are posted online every day. Why was I worried about the peculiar ruminations of a man possibly named Bennett?
Chapter 21
Wednesday morning.
I’d set my phone alarm early so that I could get a quick workout in before dawn. After doing some crunches and riding the exercise bike I kept in my spare bedroom, and getting showered and dressed, I sat down at the kitchen table to plan my day. I had a lot to accomplish and little direction except for my questionable instincts and my weary heart.
And you have me.
It was a still small voice that spoke to my consciousness, one that I rarely heard these days. I glanced over at a worn Bible I kept near my kitchen table on a rack by the pantry. It had been my grandmother’s. And like her, it felt like a distant, but warm memory of better times, love, and soul food.
When was the last time that I had picked up that Bible, any Bible? I strained to remember. There was a time in my life when I’d read scriptures for daily nourishment. Like breakfast, lunch, or dinner, I would sit down in the armchair in the living room of my old house—the one I lived in before I’d learned the truth about RiChard—and study passages, meditate on th
e meanings, and digest the truths that I knew were changing my life, giving me direction.
I truly could not remember when I’d stopped having my daily spiritual meals. I would read and listen and pray, sometimes cry, then smile, hum or sing.
And worship.
What was that really about anyway? I mean, it had been so long since I’d really taken time to talk to God, to genuinely thank Him, to contemplate His character and the safety of my life in Him, that the idea of worship felt distant, foreign.
Nearly out of my reach.
As I sat in my kitchen, staring at my grandmother’s Bible on the shelf near my cookbooks, I recalled late nights years ago when I’d pondered verses and prayed intense prayers. This must be what a relationship that’s grown cold feels like. Blazing fires of love and total infatuation had somehow been reduced to mere glowing embers, a roaring waterfall into a hollow drip, a melodious string symphony into a single out-of-tune violin.
What had changed?
It wasn’t God. The same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, a Bible verse about God stated.
That only left one party at fault in our two-party relationship.
Me.
I’d stopped going to church regularly nearly three years ago, but I knew that was not the root issue, just a superficial symptom. Not going to church was like avoiding a favorite café at lunchtime because you knew an old flame would be there. This wasn’t about me missing church. This was about me missing Him.
I’d stopped spending regular time in the Word, praying, waiting, reading, listening, ages ago. I mean, ages.
Sacrifices of Joy Page 11
