“I’ve only been gone a few hours and already you’ve forgotten my voice,” he teased. “Of course it’s me.”
“Well, I wasn’t sure. The caller ID said unavailable, and I usually don’t bother answering those calls because most of the time it’s a telemarketer. But because your sister told me about your phone battery, and that you decided to risk your life for . . . um, well, I just had a feeling it might be you.”
Phillip knew she’d caught herself just shy of saying he was out chasing a piece of ass, but her genteel manners would never allow her to mouth something so bold. But even though she’d exercised her typical diplomacy, he could tell by his mother’s tone that she wasn’t pleased. “Yeah, I didn’t pack my charger. I’m at my friend’s house and I’m using her phone.” He looked over at Donetta, who was now straightening the magazines in the basket next to the couch. He could tell she was trying to appear as if she wasn’t listening, but he knew she was taking in every syllable he uttered.
“Your friend has a blocked number?”
“I guess so.”
“Hmmmm.”
He shifted in his seat. “You were asleep when I left, otherwise I would’ve let you know I was going out.”
“You could’ve woken me up, Phillip.”
“You had a rough day yesterday and a rough night. Plus after the blowup this afternoon, I figured you needed your sleep. How are you feeling?”
She sighed. “I’m better now that I know you’re alive.”
“Yes, Mom. I’m fine. It’s just snow.”
“Just snow?” she balked. “Have you been watching the news?”
“I’ve been out in it.”
“Then you know it’s the worst snowstorm we’ve had in fifty years. They’ve been reporting accidents all afternoon. I didn’t know if you’d been injured. I’ve been worried sick.”
“No need to worry, I’m fine.”
“Where are you, son?”
He looked over at Donetta, who had now taken a seat on the opposite end of the couch and was thumbing through an Essence magazine. “I told you, I’m at my friend’s house. We just finished dinner and it was delicious. She can throw down.” He knew for sure that she was listening because she smiled.
“Umm-hmm . . . I bet she can.”
“So, you guys are okay?”
“We’re fine. Your sister’s upstairs in the shower, and I’m in the kitchen taking out some of the food you bought last night so I can start cooking our Thanksgiving meal.”
“That’s right, tomorrow’s Turkey Day.”
“Sure is. We’ll be here celebrating and you’ll be with whomever you’re with, wherever you are. Are you even in town?”
“Yes, I’m in Amber, Mom.”
“I’m not trying to get in your business, I just want to make sure you’re all right.”
“I’m better than all right. I’m great.” He winked at Donetta, and she smiled again.
“I guess you’ll be spending the holiday with her?” his mother asked, even though the answer was obvious.
“Looks like it.” Phillip looked out the living room window at the snow that was continuing to fall. “I barely got here when there was about seven or eight inches on the ground, and now that there’s nearly a foot out there, I doubt if I’ll be able to get out for at least another day or two.”
She sighed again. “Well, okay. As long as you’re safe, and as you said, you’re great, that’s all that matters.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow to check in on you guys. You know, I have to make sure that you and that bullheaded sister of mine are all right. By the way, how is she?”
His mother’s sigh grew heavier. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you when you come home.”
“Mom, what’s wrong?” Phillip leaned forward to the edge of the couch and rubbed his chin. His mother’s voice sounded painfully distressed, and he knew whatever was going on couldn’t be good. He could see that Donetta felt the same thing because she’d stopped pretending to read her magazine and was staring at him.
“I’ll tell you when you come home,” his mother said again. “It’s too much to get into over the phone.”
“You can’t say something like that and then not tell me. If she’s in trouble or something has happened, I need to know.”
“Lauren’s pregnant. That’s why she dropped out of school.”
Phillip closed his eyes and shook his head. “Is that clown she mentioned the father?”
“Yes, but they’re not together anymore.”
“When did this happen? This afternoon she said he was the only one who understood her.”
“She lied. The short part of this long story is that once he found out she was pregnant, he told her she was on her own. But she’s not, and she and I have already started planning what her next move is going to be.”
Phillip exhaled deeply. He knew that the road Lauren was getting ready to travel wouldn’t be easy, but if anyone could take a bad situation and turn it into something good, it was his mother, and for that reason he felt a little relief.
“Phillip, are you still there?” his mother asked.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay, just thinking.”
“That’s all I’ve been doing all evening. Like I said, we’ll talk more about it when you come home.”
“Definitely.”
“Speaking of you coming home, am I going to get a chance to meet this one?”
This one! His mother’s words stung, but Phillip knew she was well within her rights to phrase her question the way she did. He looked over at Donetta and smiled, knowing she wasn’t this one, she was “the one.” She was the first woman he wasn’t skeptical about introducing to his mother, and, in fact, he was excited about it because he knew they’d hit it off. “I’m not sure. The weather’s going to make it a challenge. But if not now, definitely in the near future.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really,” he said with confidence.
“I have so many questions. But we’ll table them until I see you.”
“Okay. Love you, Mom, and I’ll call you tomorrow.”
After Phillip hung up, he set Donetta’s phone on the coffee table and let out a deep breath.
“I couldn’t help but hear,” Donetta said. “Is your sister okay?”
“She’s pregnant.”
“I guess that’s not a good thing, huh?”
Phillip turned to her. “She dropped out of school, and the father of her baby dumped her.”
Donetta shook her head. “Wow, I’m sorry to hear that.”
“My mom’s putting up a strong face, but I know she’s so disappointed. My sister had a full scholarship to med school, and now it’s down the drain, not to mention she’s got to face being a single parent.”
“Your sister was in med school?”
Phillip nodded. “Johns Hopkins.” He looked into Donetta’s eyes and knew something was wrong. “Are you okay?”
Donetta put her hand to her mouth. “Is your sister’s name Lauren?”
“Yes, how did you know that?” Now Phillip looked just as startled as Donetta was. “Do you know my sister?”
“No, but I think I know your mother.” Slowly, she set her magazine on the table and swallowed hard. “Is your mom Councilwoman Harris?”
Phillip nodded. “Yes, I don’t advertise it because when people find out, they always want me to ask her for favors for one thing or another.”
“Sweet baby Jesus in heaven. I can’t believe this! I just can’t believe this!”
“You’re starting to make me nervous,” Phillip said with concern. “What’s the deal between you and my mom?”
Donetta rose from the couch and started pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace. “I can’t believe I didn’t put two and two together before now. You live in DC, you’re a lawyer, you obviously come from money, and you’re home for the holidays. Why didn’t I realize who you were before now?”
&nbs
p; Phillip stood to his feet and walked over to Donetta. He reached for her hand, but she pulled away and it jarred him. “Who I am is obviously a problem for you, so tell me why—”
“It’s not who you are, it’s who I am . . . or at least, who I used to be.”
“What are you talking about?”
She took a deep breath. “Let’s have a seat. We need to talk.”
Chapter 27
GENEVA
Geneva’s day had started off with a nightmare before the crack of dawn, followed by a fistfight between her husband and his brother shortly after breakfast, which ushered in a stressful afternoon because not only had it started snowing, Joe had told his parents he was thinking about pressing assault charges against Samuel. Herbert and Sarah had spent over an hour on the phone trying to convince their oldest son not to press charges against his little brother. And although that minor catastrophe had been averted, it had been stressful nonetheless.
Now it was nighttime, and the house was calm. Geneva had just put Gabrielle down ten minutes ago, and her in-laws had been in bed for an hour. Samuel was taking a shower, preparing to end his day, and Geneva was in the kitchen. Although all she wanted to do was go upstairs, lie down in her bed, and sleep through the holiday, she knew she couldn’t do that, and, if anything, she needed to do just the opposite. Her happy family holiday had morphed into antics fit for reality TV, and Geneva knew she needed to turn things around. So she began to do the one thing she knew was guaranteed to uplift everyone: She began to cook.
She knew she had to work fast, while they still had electricity. The wicked snowstorm that had snuck up on the area had not only caused dozens of accidents in Amber and left thousands of holiday travelers stranded in airports throughout the Southeast, it had left entire neighborhoods dark from widespread power outages. As it stood, the lights in Geneva’s kitchen had been flickering on and off for the last thirty minutes and she knew she couldn’t afford to waste time because she might find herself in the dark, too.
Geneva worked quickly as she cleaned and chopped a sink full of collard greens, washed and peeled a bag of sweet potatoes, and put the perfectly brined, twenty-pound turkey in the oven. She was cracking the eggs to make her specialty five-flavor pound cake when she heard Samuel enter the kitchen.
“It smells delicious in here,” Samuel said as he walked up to Geneva, stood behind her, and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Can I lick the bowl once you finish?”
“You’re worse than a child,” she teased.
“I take that as a yes.”
“Of course. How’s your hand feeling?”
Samuel stood back and stretched the fingers on his swollen hand. “It’s okay,” he said as he shook his head. “This will heal quicker than the rift between Joe and me.”
“Honey, I’m so sorry about what happened.”
“It’s not your fault, and as a matter of fact, he should actually be thanking you because if it hadn’t been for the fact that I didn’t want to upset you, I would’ve called him out about what he did when I first found out. And to think, he was going to try to have me arrested today. Every time I think about it . . .”
The only other person Geneva had ever seen Samuel show this kind of frustration toward had been Johnny, and she knew that in order to be thrown into the same category as her deceitful late husband, the person had to be a real snake. “Hopefully Joe’s in his hotel room thinking about the mistakes he’s made and how he can make them right.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Yes, as a matter of fact I am. For all you know, Joe might develop a conscience and apologize to you before he leaves town.”
“Do you really believe he’ll do that? Remember, we’re talking about my brother.”
“I don’t believe in Joe, but I do believe in the power of redemption, and I have hope.”
Samuel smiled and kissed Geneva’s cheek. “That’s why I love you. You always try to find the best in people.”
“You never know, honey. Sometimes people can change in ways you’d never imagine.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I guess it can happen, but you’re talking about changing someone’s mind-set, which means changing their attitude.”
“It can happen.”
Samuel shook his head. “It usually takes something really drastic to make a person change, like experiencing a life-altering event, or something that’s nearly catastrophic, and even that might not be enough.”
Geneva thought about what he’d just said, and she had to admit he had a very good point. Johnny had been a perfect example of that. He’d lost his marriage, his relationship with his best friend, and his real estate business, and even then he’d still been up to the same old tricks. It wasn’t until the very end, when he was about to lose his life, that Johnny had tried to put forth a change. As Geneva thought about Johnny, it made her remember her dream.
She shook her head and shivered as her mind took her back to the image of Johnny’s dead body lying on the kitchen floor, and his real killer—a shadowy figure draped in black—calmly walking from the scene and out the kitchen door. She closed her eyes and tried to push the image out of her mind, but she couldn’t. It was as vivid and real as if she was standing right there. Then, out of the blue, a new detail came to her that she hadn’t paid attention to in her dream. As the killer walked away, Geneva had noticed that the woman was wearing a hat. She couldn’t tell what kind of hat it was, just that it was small and black. Geneva tried to concentrate so the image would come in clearer, but just as soon as the vision had come to her, it was gone. Geneva was so startled her knees became wobbly.
“Baby, are you okay?” Samuel reached for her elbow and slowly led her over to the bar stool. “The stress from yesterday and the chaos from today has taken its toll on you,” he said. “Now you’re cooking, but baby, you need to relax.” He walked over to the refrigerator and poured her a glass of water. “Here, drink this.”
Geneva took small sips, trying to make sense of what had just happened and what she’d seen. “Could it be real?” she whispered aloud.
“Could what be real?”
“Samuel, I’m not imagining things, I was there.”
“Baby, you’re not making sense. Are you all right?”
“No, I’m not. There’s something I need to tell you.”
The cake batter that Geneva had been mixing sat untouched as she began to tell Samuel about the dream she’d had, and then about the vision that had just come to her and nearly knocked her off her feet. “It can’t be a dream because I’m fully awake,” she said. “I don’t know how or why this is happening, but I do know it’s real.”
Samuel was quiet, and Geneva could tell he was processing every word she was saying. If there was one thing she knew about her husband, it was that he never made a judgment about something until thoroughly thinking it over, and once he did, the questions would begin. “What do you think about what I just told you?” she asked. “I know I’ve been under some stress, but what I saw was real.”
Samuel rubbed his hand over his closely cropped hair and cleared his throat. “I believe that everything you saw is quite possible.”
“You do?”
“Yes, I do. The mind, and particularly the subconscious, is very powerful. There’s lots of mysterious, otherworldly things that happen that can’t be explained. Just because we don’t have a rational or scientific answer for something, it doesn’t discount that it’s possible. I don’t remember, but did you have any dreams like this after Johnny’s murder?”
“No, I didn’t. The nightmare I just told you about was the first time.”
“Maybe the fact that there’s possible evidence that may prove Vivana’s innocence, is the reason this is happening to you.”
What Samuel had just said made complete sense to her, and she believed his theory was on point. Geneva was amazed by how calm Samuel’s reaction was. She knew he was levelheaded and introspective, but what she’d just told him would be hard
for anyone to believe, let alone rationalize into the probability that it was real. She had to ask him. “Honey, how can you be so calm about what I just told you?”
“Because I’ve heard about things like this happening before.”
“You have?”
Samuel nodded. “My first job in elementary education was as a teacher at a private school in DC. There was a very nice woman who worked there named Emily Baldwin, who was originally from the South. She and I became good friends, and her husband and I used to golf together on the weekends. Anyway, there was a student whom we both taught who exhibited what could only be categorized as ‘otherworldly’ behavior. He’d do things that were completely unexplainable. One morning he told a girl in the class that she needed to be careful because she was going to fall and hurt herself during recess. Sure enough, the girl fell off the monkey bars and broke her arm.”
Geneva scratched her head. “That sounds a lot like the power of suggestive thinking. You know, when you say or suggest something and it happens.”
“That’s what I thought, until it happened over and over again. It bothered me so much that I talked to Emily about it, and she told me something I’d never heard before. She said the boy had what people in the South call the ‘gift’.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s basically the ability to see things before they happen. But the gift can manifest itself in different ways. Some people can see into the future, some can read minds, and some can have out-of-body experiences, where they can go outside of themselves and see things as they happen, whether it’s in the past or the present. I think the latter is what happened to you.”
Just then the lights flickered again. Geneva looked into Samuel’s eyes and could see that he was gravely serious. “Do you think I have the ‘gift’?”
Samuel hunched his shoulders. “I don’t know. It could just be an isolated episode, but whatever is happening to you, it’s real.”
“When I saw Johnny sitting on the living room couch, drinking, I could actually smell the liquor in his glass, and when I saw his body lying on the floor . . .” Geneva’s voice trailed off into a faint whisper. “I could see the blood oozing out of his body. It was just as real as the conversation I’m having with you right now.”
Deadly Satisfaction Page 22
