Sacrifices of Joy

Book 3: Sienna St. James

by Leslie J. Sherrod

Genres: African American; African American Christian

Synopsis

In her most chilling challenge yet, Sienna St. James believes she has come face to face with the terrorist responsible for the carnage in her hometown. Taking him on as a client in her therapy practice may be the only way to prove to herself and authorities that her time-tested instincts are right. Complicating matters are her damaged dreams and broken heart and the need to finally confront the one person whose absence from her life changed everything. The time of reckoning has come, and for Sienna, finding healing and happiness-and the savvy needed to stay alive-hang in the balance. Leslie J. Sherrod, the recipient of the SORMAG Readers Choice Award for Christian Author of the Year (2012), has a master's degree in social work and has worked as a therapist, just like her current protagonist, Sienna St. James. Her novels, Losing Hope, Secret Place, and Like Sheep Gone Astray have been featured in Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library Writer's LIVE! Series, as well as local CBS and NBC affiliates, and on AOL's Black Voices. She has received a starred review from Booklist and is a contributor to the bestselling A Cup of Comfort devotional series. A graduate of the University of Maryland, Leslie lives in Baltimore, Maryland with her husband and three children.

Release date: May 1, 2014

Publisher: Urban Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

1,067 days.

152 weeks.

25,612 hours.

92,203,200 seconds.

No matter which way you calculated it, that’s how long it had been since I’d seen or spoken to Leon Sanderson.

He’d left on a Wednesday in May, three years ago next month, his truck piled high with all his earthly belongings, mostly clothes and kitchen gadgets. His long-lost niece sat smiling in the passenger seat, her infant daughter strapped down in the back. I’d cancelled my clients’ appointments to be there to see him off and had baked some homemade chocolate chip cookies for them to take on the twenty-three hour drive to Houston.

Of course my cookies didn’t taste as sweet as the ones he’d made for me during our two-year non-relationship.

The “non” part was my fault.

He’d wanted more, but I had not gotten myself together in time; hadn’t gotten myself over the absence of RiChard.

RiChard.

Even now, the mere thought of my estranged, missing liar of a husband brought such a violent reaction to my body, I shuddered in my seat. The cold, hard plastic in which I sat at the moment fit more than me and my carry-on. It fit my mood.

“We’ll be boarding for flight 109 to sunny San Diego in about fifteen minutes. Please have your boarding passes ready.” The scratchy voice through the airport intercom did little to soothe my nerves.

I’d been dreading this day since I’d received the message last week from Roman. A bad, sick feeling lurked in the walls and corners of my stomach as I imagined anew the potential reasons behind his request.

What is Roman up to? He had just been home not long ago for spring break and the semester ended next month. I had not called back to ask my son any questions when he’d left a message for me last Friday, asking—no, begging—me to come out to see him today. And today only, he’d directed. Not before, not after. And to bring his mola blanket.

Nineteen years old, in college, and still a big baby.

I wanted to smile, but my nerves wouldn’t let me. Too many other emotions whirled inside of me like chunky vegetables in a blender on pulse mode.

Sick to my stomach. That’s what I felt. The sausage and egg sandwich I’d eaten on the way to the airport didn’t help.

“You look like you’re deep in thought.” A man, a young white man, of about twenty-four or twenty-five years old studied me from the seat facing mine.

And you look like you need to mind your business, I wanted to say, but I put on a polite smile instead. I was off, I knew it. I was not in a mood for conversation. Looking away, I started digging through my purse and then pulled out my cell phone. I dialed my voice mail for the umpteenth time that morning and listened to Roman’s message again. I felt the same wave of fear, worry, and nausea that had overtaken me the first time I’d heard it.

“Ma, I need you to come out here on Saturday.”

It was a normal request, a casual demand.

But Roman’s college was in San Diego and I lived on the East Coast in Baltimore. He’d stopped returning my calls during the fall semester and was supposed to be coming home for summer break in a matter of weeks. Why the urgent need for me to come out now? Why no explanation? And why had he been avoiding me?

1,067 days.

152 weeks.

Three years.

When I could not figure out anything else, I could calculate my sorrow. Leon’s absence from my life was measurable.

He had not called.

I had not called him.

A flight to Houston began boarding at the next gate. My mind jumped into daydream mode as I imagined flying there instead of to San Diego; but my stomach twisted in knots. What if Leon wasn’t even in Houston anymore? What if he was back in Baltimore? The thought horrified me, what it would mean; what was already meant?

The flight to San Diego was due to start boarding in half an hour. Maybe I had time to grab a soda to settle my stomach, settle my nerves; but I was flying solo and I did not feel like lugging my bag around or risk losing my seat by the gate window.

I needed the window to see what was going on around me.

I needed to know what was going on.

I listened to Roman’s message on my voice mail one last time before shutting my phone off completely and squeezing my eyes shut. Everything is okay, I assured myself, fully aware of the reasons behind my fears.

I’d initially dropped out of college my freshman year to follow my first love, RiChard, around the world. My son, Roman, was finishing up his own freshman year with eager plans to study abroad in the fall, so I did not have to hold on to the worry that he was about to drop out like I had. And he’d given up the idea of searching for his father a few years ago, satisfied with the family connection he’d made with his half brother in California.

They were roommates at the same university.

I squeezed my eyes even tighter, as if that would shut out the searing pain that burned at the thought of Croix and the other three siblings who were evidence of RiChard’s double life.

“I did not know you were still married. I did not know he had given you a son. I am so sorry. RiChard lied to all of us.” The children’s mother, Mbali, had blinked at me with beautiful, innocent eyes. Yes, RiChard had built a legacy of lies. He’d lied about his friend Kisu’s death and the actions he’d taken to purportedly avenge it. He’d lied about his travels throughout the world over the course of Roman’s life.

He’d lied and told me he loved me.

I never imagined that I’d ever hate someone, but there was no denying the feeling that came to me at the thought, the memories. The lies, the deception.

Hate.

As much as I wanted to push it away, as much as I wanted to cling to the love that’s supposed to characterize a child of God, I knew that hate was the only thing pumping out of my heart, flowing through my veins, energizing my muscles, infiltrating my mind. Hatred of RiChard. Hatred of myself for allowing what he had done to me.

“Ma’am, are you okay?”

The voice startled me, brought me back. I opened my eyes and gave another assuring smile to the young man who sat across from me.

“I’m fine. Thanks. Just tired.” That had become my answer over the past couple of years or so when anyone asked me what was wrong. Laz Tyson, the supposed new man in my life, had taken to asking me that question nearly every day. He didn’t know that he was part of the problem.

One issue at at a time, I reminded myself, forcing my thoughts away from Laz and his never-ending drama and back to Roman and why he had me flying across the country with no explanation. I never should have gotten myself tied to a diva. That’s what Laz was. A diva in a fedora hat.

The young man sitting across from me still stared. His eyes were a clear, bright shade of blue, like translucent crystals. His golden blond hair was short and slightly wavy, trimmed perfectly as if he had just gotten out of a barber’s chair.

“Traveling to San Diego for business or pleasure?” His smile was gorgeous with deep double dimples. Hollywood. Vegas. There was charm, confidence, masculinity to his mannerisms. The quality of his short-sleeved light blue polo shirt and tan chinos spoke to old money, prep school, Wall Street. Wealth.

“I’m not sure yet.” I exhaled. An honest answer. “What about you?”

He looked away, didn’t answer. Deep thought flooded his face and took away his dimple.

I’d never dated a white man.

RiChard, my missing, estranged husband (should I even call him that?) had sometimes been mistaken as a well-tanned one. His mother was Italian, but his father was from the French Caribbean, making him the perfect blend of chocolate liqueur and vanilla bean. His thick black curls had nearly covered his peridot-green eyes. He’d had the longest possible eyelashes that I had ever seen on a man.

Roman favored his father, and at nineteen years old, I knew I’d be naïve to think he wasn’t getting the attention of some California girl on his campus.

My face grimaced at the thought.

That was my baby, and I didn’t want some fast-moving trick of a girl to get him off track from his international business degree and his plans to become the founder of a global conglomerate. That was his stated dream. And he was going to reach it.

I’d sacrificed too much for him not to. I’d worked my way from college dropout to a mental health clinic owner with a master’s degree, all to take care of his behind.

And to make my life make sense to me.

“There you go, looking upset again.” The man across from me smiled again. He looked like he was in his late twenties, not early, I decided.

Still way too young for me. ’Bout ten years too young. However, the intrigue of flirting with a stranger who I would never see again was enough of a distraction to keep my stomach from bending back into pretzel shapes.

“You like to study people.” I smiled back. “Is that a hobby for you, or something you need to do to stay one step ahead of it all?” Okay, I was bad at flirting. Even when I tried to keep it light and easy, the therapist in me always found a way to pop out its psychoanalytical head. He caught on to the seriousness of my question. I could tell because his smile slightly dimmed.

Slightly.

“To say that I’m trying to stay a step ahead implies that we’re all moving, and moving forward at that. That’s a huge assumption.” His voice was suddenly flat, monotone.

“You majored in philosophy at your Ivy League school.” I took a chance.

“Theology.” He narrowed his eyes. “And I went to a state college.”

“Theology? A man of the cloth. I didn’t see that coming.” I raised an eyebrow, pretending to be interested.

“No. I’m no man of anyone’s cloth. I’m an atheist. Not really an atheist. I don’t believe in belief itself. Atheists believe that they are right.”

A door was opening with him that I did not want to enter.

I just wanted to get on the plane to San Diego and find out why my son wanted me there a few weeks before the end of the semester. I’d wandered through mental minefields before and knew that I needed to step carefully to avoid explosion.

“The state school was against your parents’ wishes,” I pried gingerly. “They wanted you to go to some big-name university with a six-figure price tag and you did otherwise to prove a point to them, to yourself, to anyone who cared to pay attention.” I was telling my sister’s story, I knew—the upper-class version of it, anyway.

My sister, Yvette, was in a whole different league when it came to proving a point.

The man in the seat relaxed. He believed that I was on his side, or at least was trying to understand him, I reasoned.

“My life is a lot more complicated than that.” His eyes bore through mine as he spoke.

I believed him. There was a level of complexity to the tone of his voice, to the blank stare of his blue eyes that told me that I had dug enough into this stranger’s life, had sampled enough of his world to get that there were parts to this man’s soul, stages of this man’s history nobody would ever fully comprehend. I didn’t like his flavor. His last statement would normally be the opening lines of someone who was just starting to tell their story, but I knew that he had no intention of telling me more about his complicated life.

I settled back into my seat, pulled my cell phone back out, fought the urge to turn it back on to listen to Roman’s message one more time. There was nothing else for us to talk about, but apparently he thought differently.

“You’re a therapist.”

Did I have the word written on my forehead? Was there a sign on my person that let him know I was in the business of mental healing?

“I’m a social worker by training.” I wanted to leave it at that, without explaining that yes, I was a clinical social worker with a private practice that had taken off unusually well following a shaky start in a chlorine-smelling, frayed carpet–looking, cheap-lease, and flickering-lights office building. I’d moved up to a bigger and better office space since and my current clinic offered tranquil views of woodlands and rolling hills in the Dulaney Valley area of Baltimore County.

But I had no interest in telling him all that.

“That’s your center, isn’t it?” He pointed to the tote bag leaning against my foot.

THE WHOLE SOUL CENTER, SIENNA ST. JAMES, LCSW-C, FOUNDER & CEO was written in gold letters on the maroon bag.

I guess I did have a sign on me.

“Yes, that’s me.” I gave a weak smile, trying to figure out how to straddle the ethical fine line between providing needed services and shooing away a potential new client who made me feel unusually uncomfortable.

“Do you have a card?” His smile was completely gone. His blue eyes, which before reminded me of precious gems, now felt and looked as cold and hard as ice crystals.

“Sure.” I plastered on a smile big enough for the both of us and fished through my bag until I found one of the business cards I’d proudly designed myself. My artistic abilities had expanded into the graphic design realm and I was pretty darn good at it, if I said so myself. “Here.” I extended the card toward him.

He did not budge or reach for it. “I did not say that I wanted your card. I just asked if you had one.”

As I tried to figure out how to respond, he stood to his feet, glanced out the terminal window. He pulled out a cell phone, held it up like he was taking a picture. A selfie? I wondered as he appeared to have the lens pointed backward. I could see myself and my bags on the corner of his screen.

“It’s a pretty nice day for a flight.” He turned back toward me with a smile. Whatever iciness had been in his eyes moments earlier had thawed back into bright, sunny blue. “Have a nice trip.” He turned to leave.

“Wait,” I blurted. “They are about to start calling rows to board. You’re not going?”

“Naw, not to San Diego.” He shook his head, a distant look on his face. “I’m heading out to Chicago this morning.” He pointed to a nearby gate. “I just wanted to sit next to the window over here for a moment. I like to know what’s going on around me, same as you.” He winked. He turned to leave, but then abruptly doubled back. “Actually, I do want your card. It might come in handy.”

My stomach wrapped into tighter knots as he took the card from my fingertips and thrust it deep into his pockets.

“Do . . . do you have a card?” What was I supposed to say?

“You’ll know my name soon enough.” He walked away and settled into a seat at the opposite gate.

I was missing something about him. I felt it. Knew it.

My flight was halfway across the country over green and brown patches of farmland when the plane became a flurry of worried whispers and then full-blown chatter. Someone who had not shut off a cell phone as required had gotten word.

A bomb had exploded at Baltimore/Washington Airport.

That’s all anyone knew. No further information was available.

A bomb.

A bomb!

I’ve learned through the years to trust my gut and, despite the lack of information and evidence otherwise, there was only one message my gut was telling me at the moment.

That man I talked to had something to do with the bombing, everything in me screamed.

And he had my business card in his pocket.

I’d come face to face with a terrorist.

The thought ran over and under and through my mind as I prayed and hoped that it was not true. Lord, please let my gut feelings be wrong just this once! I could see those piercing eyes, feel the chill that had gone through me when he’d said that I would know his name soon enough. What was I supposed to do? All I had was a hunch, no more. I was moving, breathing, thinking on autopilot. A familiar voice jolted me back to awareness.

“Mom!” Roman half cried in horror, half shouted in glee as he tackled me just outside the baggage claim area at San Diego International Airport. “I couldn’t get through to your cell and I didn’t know your flight number or if you were near that explosion back in Baltimore. I heard about what happened. I’m glad you’re okay.”

The knots in my stomach had quadrupled. I felt dizzy, weak, and queasy in my intestines.

God, what is going to happen next? My entire body, inside and out, quivered.

“I know you’re tired after all that waiting.” He pointed back to the lines; everyone who’d flown in from Baltimore had to wait through to have their luggage and IDs rechecked, an extra precaution among many extra precautions that were in play at airports across the country.

Yet again, America was on lockdown.

And this time I had been close—too close—to the scene of destruction. I heard myself think of the threat toward my safety in the past tense, feeling, knowing, that the danger I felt was still very present.

Tired did not even begin to explain my emotional state.

I was not ready to ask if Roman knew if there had been any casualties.

Or if the perpetrator had been identified.

I shut my eyes, seeing again those icy blue ones that had pierced mine mere hours ago. I had no proof and no sane reason to think that young blond male had a role in it. We’d only talked for a few moments and the conversation had made me uncomfortable. Nothing about our exchange pointed to “terrorist,” but everything in me screamed that I’d missed something.

“This way, Ma.”

I tried to hide my shaking as I followed Roman to a short-term parking lot. He stopped and unlocked an older-model blue Mazda.

“So you went with the hatchback you told me about?” I collapsed into the front seat, trying to make life seem normal.

The immediate consequences of a terrorist attack: normalcy goes out the window. Roman played along.

“Yeah.” He nodded. “It has a lot of miles on it, but the price was right. I’m saving up the rest of my money to send you and Ms. Ava on a Mediterranean cruise next year.”

Ava Diggs. She was my mentor, my career coach and my former supervisor before she’d retired a few years back. I had not talked to her in a while. As much as she had been a cheerleader for me, I guess she’d also had an impact on my son’s life as well.

Leon had an impact on him, too. I swallowed hard, fighting to stay afloat in the churning sea of emotions that were threatening to take me under.

“A cruise? Yeah, right.” I managed to let out a small laugh. “You know full well that I would not expect or accept such a gift from you.”

“You deserve it. Plus, you’ll be turning forty.”

“Don’t remind me.”

God, please don’t let there be any victims. My mind was still at the airport in Baltimore, my heart in panic mode. God, please be with everyone who is in the disaster zone right now!

I felt like an agitator in a washing machine, spinning around in prayers, worry, and angst that my gut was right.

“Put your phone down, Ma.” Roman did not look over at me as he drove, but he knew exactly what I was doing as I reached for my smart phone. I was ready to finally look at the news reports, ready to get the gory details, ready to feel the shared national pain.

Ready to confirm my horrific suspicions.

“Don’t deal with it just yet, Ma. You can’t change anything. You can’t fix it. Let’s just get through this evening, and then you can figure out how to heal the world.”

I did not miss the bitter note in my son’s tone.

I also did not fully understand it.

It took all I had in me, but I turned my phone off. He was right, I guess. I could not change anything that had happened. I would only sink into a sick despair when I got the details, which I would read and watch, and read and watch over again. And, though Roman didn’t know my fears about my possible interaction with the suspect, my son would probably think I was overreacting, overreaching in my suspicions. Just hearing myself think that, possible interaction with the suspect, sounded ridiculous. Here I was a therapist, having grand delusions and panic attacks over a suspicion that was not even logical. I didn’t even know what part of the airport had been targeted. I had suspicions about a stranger I met at a gate, and the explosion could have been anywhere at the airport: the baggage claim, a dining area, maybe even on a plane taxiing down a runway. I needed to take the suggestions I gave to my many clients, and exhale and relax.

After making sure my phone was completely off, I pushed it into the bottom of my purse. I tried to tell my shoulders to ease down, even if just for a few moments, but the swirling taste of bile in my mouth made it hard for my muscles to feel anything less than tense.

“So.” I exhaled, determined to ignore all that I felt. “Why am I here? Why did you want me to come today? Where are we going and why do you need the mola blanket?”

When he didn’t respond immediately and instead started licking his lips, I knew I was not going to like any of his answers. We drove for ten minutes in complete silence, and then I could take no more.

“Well?”

He’d stopped licking his lips.

“It’s my sister’s birthday. She is turning sixteen and having a party. I wanted you to come.”

Really? His sister? This is why I came all the way to the West Coast? Just hearing him even acknowledge that he had a sister felt like a stab wound to my heart. It was hard enough knowing that he and his half brother Croix were roommates. I had helped Roman move into his dorm last fall before Croix arrived with his mother, Mbali, his sister, and twin little brothers.

I’d only met them all that one time at the airport when Roman ran away at age sixteen. He’d been determined to find RiChard but found the truth and them instead.

“You wanted me to come all the way out here for a . . . sweet sixteen party? I don’t even remember her name,” I lied, “and I doubt that she would want the other other woman who was also married to her father at her party.”

Absolutely ridiculous.

There was much more I wanted to say, especially as I had changed my week around and flown out to the other side of the country at his request. And for a birthday party for a girl I barely knew?

And didn’t really want to know?

I held my tongue, trying to understand Roman’s reasoning.

“Mom.” Roman’s voice was barely audible. “What Dad did was real. He lied to all of us; he lied to them just like he lied to the two of us. Mbali, Croix, Abigail, Denzi, and Dillon are not liars. They are not responsible for what happened. They were betrayed just like we were. We all have to come together, Mom, so that we can all move forward. They are real, and they are a part of my life. They are my sister, my brothers, my blood.”

His last line had all the markings of Mbali. I was sure I had read those exact words from her in a Christmas card she’d mailed to us two years ago. I didn’t mail out any Christmas cards last year on account of the one she’d sent. It was easier to say I had not sent greetings to anyone than to feel like I had singled her out on purpose.

At heart, I knew Roman was right; but at heart, I also knew I was not ready.

“Mom, you have to do this.” Roman’s voice, still low, was firm.

“This isn’t a good day. This isn’t the right time.” I shook my head.

“You’re right. It isn’t,” he agreed as he parallel parked in front of a cupcake bakery. “Because of the terrorist attack, Abigail wanted to cancel the party, but her mother already booked and paid for the party room here. She scaled it back to a small event. It’s only going to be us—family—and a couple of her closest friends. We’re just going to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ and eat. That’s it, Ma. You can handle this.”

He hopped out of the car and headed to the colorfully canopied cupcakery entrance, leaving me alone for a moment to reflect on his words.

Over the past few years, I’d han. . .