Secret Place

by Leslie J. Sherrod

Genres: African American; African American Urban; Christian Fiction

Synopsis

Charisma has the perfect life, with a doctor husband, Gideon, whom she adores, a secure home in suburban Baltimore and a wonderful daughter, April. But there's a secret part of Gideon that's about to unravel as it threatens to ruin all their lives. Gideon suffers from depression and his subsequent leave from his job and the loss of income uproots them to a less desirable neighborhood where the family begins to deteriorate. Gideon's not getting the help he needs, and there aren't enough prayers Charisma can say to get things back on track. When an encounter with a neighboring family, also struggling with the mental health of one of its members, results in a horrifying crisis, will they at last come to terms with the real problem?

Release date: June 8, 2011

Publisher: Urban Christian

Print pages: 496

Sample

“Have fun.” Charisma pecked her daughter on the cheek as the eleven-year-old slipped out of the passenger’s side. Charisma did not miss the rolling eyes. “At least try to have fun.”

She watched April drag up the walkway to the waiting porch light before gearing her old Grand Am back in drive. Charisma was grateful for the sleepover, grateful that the mother of April’s classmate insisted that all the girls in Homeroom 6-14 be invited, not just friends.

As she turned off the narrow street in the heart of East Baltimore, Charisma tried to remember the last time she’d had a Saturday night free.

Free.

He was waiting at home.

A CD played in the portable CD player she had hooked up to her car stereo. A wire was loose but with a quick tweak to the right and then a pull to the left, one of the speakers in the back of the car played loud enough for her to hear the compilation of Kirk Franklin, Yolanda Adams, Fred Hammond, and another gospel singer, a local girl. She couldn’t remember the name.

Charisma stopped at a traffic light, looked to the right and down Marigold Street to house 319. The lights were off, the door was closed, and the shades were drawn shut.

Darkness in the middle of an otherwise busy inner city block.

Children played in the street—jump ropes, bicycles, laughing, yelling. Teenagers lined the red brick walls of the row homes’ exteriors. Boys were trying to look like the men they knew, swagger and unease in their stances. Girls, both sheepish and loud, grinned around them, teasing and taunting one another, each a showcase of elaborate hair and brand-name clothes. The elders looked on from their front steps, watching, aware, joining in the pre-night rituals of inner city community life. Hustle, activity. Life. Everywhere. Even Madelyn Windemere next door was outside, busy sweeping down her front steps. Charisma looked back at the house, her own house, 319. The lights were off, the door closed, the shades drawn shut.

He was waiting at home.

The light turned green. Without a second thought, Charisma snapped off the CD and kept straight down Orleans Street. Her heart beat faster with each passing light. She knew where she was going but did not want to let her mind acknowledge it.

She held her breath and pulled into the parking lot off of a side alley. There was one space remaining right next to the door. She parked then cut off the motor. The one-story building did not look as fancy as she expected, especially at night. There was chipped paint at the foundation and holes in the awning that she’d never noticed the other nights she’d driven by. None of the fancy frilliness she’d expected based on the flyers she’d seen posted around her block.

I don’t have to go in. Charisma kept both hands on the steering wheel, waiting for her heart to settle. She’d imagined this outing the moment she found out about April’s sleepover. Exactly when the daydream had turned into a plan, she was not sure.

She looked down at her leather coat, a hand-me-down from a church sister. A shorter-than-her-usual-style black skirt revealed plump but perfectly proportioned legs. A fresh coat of spicy raisin polish covered her trimmed nails, a dark contrast against her medium-brown skin. Shimmering lip gloss waited in her purse, and sequined shoes peeked from where she’d placed them under the driver’s seat. She’d bought the shoes on a whim three years earlier, spotting them on a bottom shelf at Nordstrom’s Rack, but she’d never had the courage to wear them until now. Courage. Somehow that did not feel like what this was. She tried to make herself not care.

He did not even notice what she was wearing when she left home, or at least he did not say anything.

Charisma snatched up her purse and carefully applied the lip gloss. She smacked her lips and teased the ends of her shoulder-length hair.

“Look at you, good lookin’.”

The voice came from a man passing by her window. He wore a denim jacket, jeans, and rugged boots and looked all of fifty-five years old.

Charisma flashed a quick smile, tried to figure out something cute to say back, but no words came. Just as well, she figured, seeing that the man was already halfway inside. Music, laughter, dancing, alcohol peeked through the closing metal door. Screaming, cheering women with dollar bills in their hands were circled near a corner stage. There were men in there, too. And a lot of them. All she had to do was find a table in the back, sit, watch, listen, smile. Pretend.

She was almost ready to put on her shoes, almost ready to go inside when a passing headlight illuminated the inside of her car, lighting up her foot, her right foot. The scar on top.

I just don’t want both of us to get burned ’cause you don’t want to wait on Jesus. Words from a lifetime ago, the scar a constant reminder.

Charisma slung the shoes to the backseat, pulled her leather oxfords back on, shoved the key into the ignition, and put the car in reverse. Within seconds, the sign for Chocolate Heaven grew smaller in her rearview mirror. “Ladies’ Night With G” soon disappeared completely from view.

“What was I thinking?” Charisma wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead. “I’ve got Sunday school tomorrow.”



But that was last night, and tomorrow was now here. Charisma parted another section of her hair and listened as the thick strands sizzled between the plates of her flat iron. She’d been doing hair all morning, it seemed. After picking up a sullen April from the sleepover, Charisma purposely took extra time while straightening the girl’s hair for church. She wanted her daughter to talk, to tell her how the party went, to tell her if she’d made any new friends, had fun, something, anything. But April’s only words to her were, “What did you do last night?”

The sign from Chocolate Heaven flashed in Charisma’s mind, and neither she nor April said anything else while Charisma finished heating down April’s bangs. Now her own hair sizzled under the heat of her iron. Wait. Had she already done this section? Charisma tried to get her head out of yesterday, focus on the task at hand, and get ready to teach the stories.

She told her students the stories the same way they were told to her. With pictures. Maybe a flannel board. Videos and DVDs were nice. The Sunday school stories, the safe stories, those were the ones she told.

Charisma unplugged the iron and fastened the last button on her lemon yellow suit. The skirt flared out slightly at her knees. Yeah, even with the slight stain at the hem, the size fourteen suit did fit better than the blue one from that bag of hand-me-downs Pepperdine Waters gave her. Yellow was a cheery color against Charisma’s sparrow-brown skin. The suit almost looked new. She smiled. Good, no runs in these stockings. Oops, missed that one.

“April! Bring me up a pair of stockings from the line in the basement!” She should not have yelled so loudly. It was early Sunday morning and most of her neighbors were still asleep. Surely Mrs. Windemere would lecture her before the day was over about how loud it was “over there.” She was probably out sweeping her front sidewalk now, waiting for them to come out so she could start her daily barrage of complaints.

Charisma pulled a cotton curtain to the side to get a quick peek of the quiet street. A hidden broom was busy whisking clean a sidewalk somewhere, Mrs. Windemere at work, of course. She let the curtain go just as Madelyn Windemere surfaced in front of her row home, broom, dustpan, and green lawn bag in hand. It had been too late, anyway. The woman had seen her, Charisma could tell from the way the corners of her mouth turned downward as she turned her back to the house.

“We’re good neighbors,” Charisma murmured to herself as she clipped a pearl earring to her ear. “Just not good enough for her.” But even as she spoke, her eyes graced a frayed black notebook stuffed with mementos and old greeting cards. The letters and journal entries were in it too.

And the invitation.

She shook slightly at the sight and forced her attention back to the stained wood oval mirror on the back of the bedroom door. She swirled around, letting the lemon yellow chiffon overlay of the skirt dance around her knees. A slight smile.

“I’m done. No, wait.” She went to the cedar wardrobe in her room and pulled out an old hat box. She rubbed the bumpy cardboard, living a million different memories before shaking off the lid.

“Finally, I have something to go with you,” she beamed. “Momma would be so proud to see her old hat matched up with a real suit from Macy’s.” She pulled out the single content and unwrapped the delicate tissue paper like a porcelain doll was waiting inside. No, a hat, a soft yellow hat with a sprig of felt flowers tied to the side. She put it on top of her head, making sure her shoulder-length brown hair, smoothed down in a slightly curled bob, fit perfectly under the short brim.

“Perfect,” she nodded, pleased with the image in the mirror. The image. She did not want to study her eyes. There were too many stories in them, stories passed down, handed to her, chained to her like the pearl choker on her neck from Momma’s jewelry box. Momma. Momma and now Gideon. The stories never ended. Charisma squeezed her eyes shut and inhaled.

“I’ll tell them the same stories they told me,” she closed the clasp on her beaded bag and grabbed a book labeled “Teacher’s Guide” from her nightstand. The cover was a vibrant illustration of a white man in a blue toga-looking garment standing in a boat with his hands outstretched in the air. A crowd of people stood nearby on a patch of land, listening, waiting, hoping. The words “Kingdom Kidz: Part I—The Miracles of Jesus” were inscribed on the top and sides. She looked at the man in the picture and the faces in the crowd before putting the book, several handouts, and a puppet into a large tote bag. She straightened the small collection of bottles and perfumes on her dresser. Dying flowers sat next to them. She tossed them in the trash. All was ready. Except for the stockings.

“Mommy, here.” April came from nowhere and thrust a pair of taupe pantyhose in her hands.

“Perfect timing.” Charisma winked at her eleven-soon-to-be-twelve-year-old, smoothing down the puffy hair that topped her pudgy brown face. The girl had been begging for a relaxer since second grade, but Charisma refused to give in. Not until thirteen, when she would officially be a teenager. Charisma pulled at the thick hair, which was already kinking back up after the hot comb run-through she’d given it earlier that morning. April’s eyes pierced into her mother’s as she stood stiff, just a few inches off from being eye level.

“What is it, baby?” Charisma asked, but she already knew the answer, already knew April would never say. “Him?” It was all Charisma could ask before the lump in her throat threatened to break. A single eye held back rivers. April nodded, an incomplete nod that looked somewhere between a shrug and a question.

“Baby, it’s okay. It will be okay.” Charisma bent down to her daughter and drew her close in her arms, quickly burying the girl’s face in her shoulder before her own face gave another story.

Stories. She would tell them the same stories that were told to her, the safe stories. Just follow the lesson plan, ask the follow-up questions, and guide the children in the simple take-home craft. And when it was all over, she had the flyer from Chocolate Heaven to stir her imagination, and a couple of steamy novels to keep out the stories on which she did not want to dwell.

Charisma stood tall, straightened her hat, and put on her best smile. “All right, baby girl, are you ready to go to Sunday School? I’d be honored to have you in my class.” She made her voice sound cheerier than usual, sensing that he was somewhere nearby. She felt his presence in the shadows, in the corners of the room. She never could shake the feeling.

“Mommy, I am in your class.” It was the same joke, same rolled eyes, same routine every Sunday morning.

“Was he still downstairs when you came up?” Charisma tried to make the question sound light and not loaded.

April gave a slow nod.

“Well, don’t worry. We can go out the kitchen door.” Charisma kept the smile on her face as she gripped her tote bag tighter in her hands.

“Mrs. Windemere’s going to be waiting. I saw her already outside hosing down her backyard.”

“Well, Mrs. Windemere can wait all she wants. She don’t need to know all our business, and neither do all your little friends in Sunday School.” Charisma started out, but April remained firmly planted on the blue carpet in the small bedroom.

“Mommy, I don’t want to go. We go every Sunday. God ain’t gonna be mad if we miss just one Sunday. Just tell Him it was a sick day, like you be tellin’ your boss at work.”

“Now April—”

“Mommy, let’s just go somewhere else today. Why we gotta go there anyway?”

Charisma sucked in a deep sigh and kept the smile planted on her face. She knew the reason April did not want to go. Sometimes she didn’t want to go herself. Too many people with too many questions. How is your husband? Where is your husband? Simple questions. Complicated answers.

“Now you know that we go to Sunday School to learn all the stories of Jesus.”

“Why? For what? What’s the point?”

Charisma studied her daughter, standing there in a green jumper and a white shirt with a Peter Pan collar. It was her school uniform, the one recently required by the Baltimore City public middle school she attended and the only church outfit available for April to wear this week. The hand-me-downs that came for April never quite fit right. They were always just a little too small. Or was April just a little too big? Charisma let go of the thought and stared at her daughter, remembering when she was the one standing in her mother’s bedroom, asking why she had to learn all those Sunday School stories. Only back then, her mother never had to rummage through bags of old clothes collected by an old church mother. “You’ll see why going to church is so important one day,” had been her mother’s constant reply.

“April, you’ll see why going to Sunday School is so important one day,” Charisma breathed out, a smile hiding all she wanted hidden. It had gotten easier over the years. Hiding.

“Now come on, girl. I hear him snoring on the sofa down there. Let’s go before he wakes up.”

Passing by him, who couldn’t help but gag at the sight? A pile of skin, bones, ash, smell. Nothing she wanted to wrap her arms around. Nothing she wanted wrapped around her.

They walked to the car in silence, Charisma’s secondhand high-heels clicking on the stone pathway as she and April cut through the arched brick gateway that separated their row home from the one next door. No sign of Mrs. Windemere, Charisma felt her muscles relax as she slammed the car door shut. The engine of the 1993 Pontiac Grand Am roared to life.

Stick to the stories, the safe ones, she reminded herself, looking back at her tote bag full of Sunday School supplies. She kept the invitation in there too, taking it out of her black composition notebook every time she left the house. She didn’t want him to see it. It was addressed to both of them, but he would never know, as far as she was concerned. Dr. and Mrs. Gideon Joel. She kept the invitation with her at all times.

It was an elaborate piece of cardstock with fancy letters, ribbons, and engravings. Good money was spent on it obviously. Charisma swallowed hard, thinking of how she would turn them down. Politely? Sternly? With an explanation? A lie?

“Tell me your name again?”

His question—his intention—had been more in his eyes than in his smile when we first met, I remember. I answered him back, of course, wondering if my smile was giving away just as much personal information as his was. It was his first smile, that crooked one he had when he was feeling especially happy or excited or optimistic, that smile that sent my heart pounding. I remember seeing earnest hope, anticipation, and desperation all wrapped up into one big bundle that showed off white teeth, full lips, and a freshly trimmed, perfect moustache. The hair over his upper lip, the hair on his head looked so soft I remember wanting to touch it and praying that it would feel the way I imagined black feathers on a raven’s chest would feel—smooth, warm.

“Charisma.” He’d said my name the way it was meant to be said, each syllable alive on his tongue. He said my name the way my mother must have thought it should be said when she let the word fall from her lips to the official document that would record the title I would have the burden of carrying the rest of my life.

I remember looking at his jacket—starched, white with deep pockets—and seeing for the first time the name badge it showcased across a broad chest. A name with a comma, and plenty of letters and periods after it. A doctor. A name with status, a name with answers attached to it.

That’s really what I had come looking for that day. Answers. My mother sat waiting, I remember, looking lonely, blank, closed, waiting silently in that green chair. Green. I could never forget the color. It was everywhere in that unit.

“Don’t worry, we’ll talk again soon. I’ll make sure you get that interview.” I remember thanking him with a shy grin as I turned to leave. I had come there for answers. Not a job. Not him. But it was all one and the same to me. Despite my vow never to find another reason to enter those doors or stand between those green walls again, I had accepted that maybe that was all there would be to my life: those doors, those green walls. I accepted that the day he accepted me.

“Please, Jesus,” I remembered praying silently, “Let him be the answer.” I was unprepared for the sudden longing I felt, unprepared despite the many times I had imagined a moment like this.

Momma was waiting. I could still feel the metal, cold on my hands as I shunned the orderly’s help and grasped the wheelchair handles myself to roll Momma along. The quiet whir of the elevator that required a pass code, the locks that clinked open and closed behind me with a thud, the staff who silently studied us from behind a clear plastic encasement as we passed, the lounge area with other patients watching TV, knitting, staring blankly, moaning softly—all sights and sounds that left me feeling nauseated, trapped, ashamed, embarrassed. But that would become a tortuous routine only as my mother would become a regular on the unit.

My mother didn’t belong here, I wanted to scream that first time, that first walk down the green hallway. This was my mother. My mother: one of the first women in our neighborhood to own her own business, a popular beauty salon on West North Avenue. She was a rarity, a jewel, a prize among many.

How I wanted to scream. I remember looking back to see if he was still there and he was, his jacket white and crisp, his name badge long in letters. It was quiet in that long hallway as I pushed the metal chair to the room that would become my mother’s home for the next three weeks. Caroline Jackson, Momma, sat stoic in the bed as I trembled outside the closed door. The doctor, Gideon Joel, came to my rescue with a tissue and a chair. And then a slight embrace. He stood tall beside me, but his face hung low. I did not see the stories in his eyes. If I had, maybe I would not have been so eager to follow my longings—longings stemmed from daydreams of first loves and first kisses.

Another chapter was beginning.

Madelyn Windemere shut the blinds on her window after watching the mother and daughter get into their car. Charisma Joel had on a new suit, she noted. A new suit for her and the girl was still wearing that old jumper. She shook her head and offered up a prayer. It wasn’t right, the way that Joel woman always looked like she was sneaking in and out of her own house. And to think she didn’t have the mind to wrap that little girl in a warmer jacket. It’s the beginning of March, not the end, for goodness’ sake.

Madelyn sat back down at her kitchen table with a heavy thud, her china plate and teacup rattling with the impact. She was nearly finished with her usual breakfast—sliced cantaloupe and toast, tea with honey and lemons—so that meant it was time to get ready for church. Her morning routine was nearly complete, including sweeping then washing the pavement around her house, replacing the kitchen and bathroom towels, and starting the day’s dinner in the slow cooker. It was Sunday, the Lord’s Day, so order and routine were especially important. That’s how she’d done it all these years, how she’d maintained, kept house, and raised four children. Routine.

That Joel woman needed to take a lesson from her. Something weird and downright crazy was going on over there, Madelyn was sure of it. She’d tried to fish it out in the early days, when the family first moved into the small brick row home next door almost a year ago. But she knew from the first conversation, when Charisma Joel avoided disclosing where they came from or what she or her husband did for a living, that anything to be known about that family would come only from careful observation.

And the things Madelyn did see—the lawn that grew just a little too high in the summer, the snow that stayed unshoveled just a little too long in the winter, the closed window shades, the bags and cartons of carry-out junk food in their trash all the time—did little to improve her opinion of that woman and the way she ran her home. Young mothers these days. There was no routine over there, couldn’t be. What kind of woman would serve mashed potatoes out of a box and gravy from a can?

It disgusted her, trying to figure out what was going on over there. In Madelyn’s decades on Marigold Street, the neighborhood had attempted to keep its integrity despite the crumbling blocks surrounding it. The Joels had to come and stink it all up, with their dead garden, humble-looking child, and especially the music. The music to Madelyn was the worse. One day she was just going to go ahead and call the police. All times, all hours of the day and night, music would be blasting out of that small home. Gospel, jazz, rock, country, even polka. Mrs. Windemere was sure she heard it once.

“They are going to make me go deaf with all that noise.”

Madelyn finished ironing a slip to put on under her new church dress, which was a tasteful pale green, without too much shimmer and shine. The green was a good contrast against her maple-brown skin. Flashiness was not appropriate for church. That went for both appearances and actions. As much as she paid for the ensemble, she could not imagine going to one of those churches where people got up and down, and up and down, and danced in the aisles until sweat threatened to mess up their hair-dos and stain their underarms. That’s just nasty and unnecessary; Madelyn shook her head at the idea.

Charisma Joel went to one of those churches. Madelyn tried to talk her out of it, give the woman at least some hope of dignity. When Charisma insisted on joining Greater Glory Worship Center, Madelyn washed her hands clean. There was nothing else she could do for the woman. Her religion was as disorderly as her home. But what could one expect?

Madelyn had nothing against that type of congregation, if that’s what they wanted to do. She just preferred a more orderly service and had taught her children the same. Even her late husband, Harold, agreed with her on that part. Worship was a private affair, a quiet affair. She knew Jesus and He knew her. No need to yell and scream to get His attention. Order. Routine.

It was almost 10:33 A.M. She would leave in six minutes to get to her favorite seat at the eleven o’clock service at Christ Cathedral on time. Six minutes and twenty-three seconds. That was enough time to repolish her left shoe and clear out the voice messages.

As the black patent leather dried to a shiny gleam, Madelyn adjusted her reading glasses on the bridge of her nose and sat down at the old secretary’s desk in the foyer. The black walnut desk was her favorite antique in the house, and she held her breath as she rolled up the delicate wood. Stationery, organized by theme and holiday, was revealed underneath, as well as small shelves filled with paper clips, rubber bands, postage stamps, and two phone books. A telephone and an outdated answering machine were tucked to one side of the writing surface.

Madelyn checked her watch before pressing play on the machine. There was only one message, a call from the day before. Obviously a telemarketer or another stranger, she reasoned before the message picked up. Anyone who knew her would know that she would not have been at home 3:17 P.M. yesterday. Saturday afternoon grocery shopping was a routine she’d only broken five times in forty-two years. The times she’d missed had been due to childbirth.

She arched a finger to press erase before the message came on, but it was too late. The familiar voice that pierced through the speaker froze Madelyn’s finger in mid-air. A scowl wiped over her face, and she pulled the plug on the machine before a second word from the caller could come through. She slammed the top of the antique desk down before she could catch herself. It was not until after she’d pulled the belt of her overcoat too tight around her waist that she took two deep breaths and felt her heartbeat slow down to its normal pace.

“I will not let you get to me today.” Madelyn spoke to the machine as if the caller who left the message could hear. She took another deep breath and checked her watch. “10:39 A.M. Time to go to church.” Madelyn locked both locks on the front door and tucked her handbag under her arm. Her white Lincoln, parked exactly six inches from the curb, was waiting.

Order. Routine. It was necessary.



Pepperdine Waters grabbed the desk in front of her and eased back o. . .