Sing a New Song

by Michelle Lindo-Rice

Genres: African American Christian; African American Women's Fiction

Synopsis

Book One of the Song of the Heart series If you found out you were dying, would you suddenly confess all your past sins? When former chart-topper Tiffany Knightly learns that she's dying from cancer, she leaves behind her plush California lifestyle to return to Hempstead, New York, with Karlie, her reluctant teenaged daughter. Her fans think she has simply gone home to die, but Tiffany has another mission. She desperately wishes she could leave her past in the past, but in order to secure her daughter's future, she must tear open past wounds. Life wasn't always easy for Tiffany. With a stepfather who abused her and a mother who didn't believe her, she acted out by becoming promiscuous. Fifteen years later, she's back to reveal to her ex-husband that he might not be Karlie's biological father. In fact, there are four men who could have fathered Karlie--four that she's willing to acknowledge, anyway. As Tiffany reveals her truth and searches for Karlie's father, she reconnects with old friends and old lovers. Some reunions are happy, but some innocent lives are torn apart, leaving Tiffany to wonder if she's doing the right thing. Through it all, she will have to learn to rely on the healing power of God's unfathomable love.

Release date: February 1, 2013

Publisher: Urban Christian

Print pages: 304

Sample

“I’m sorry, Tiffany. We’ve done all that we can do.” Dr. Ettelman spoke those words with great dread.

Tiffany Knightly leaned back in the plush black chair across from Dr. Ettelman’s wide mahogany desk. The sun beamed on her honey-blond curls and heightened her hazel-colored eyes. From her vantage point of three floors up, she could look out the window behind him and make out the business-clad people scurrying like ants to keep appointments.

Tiffany blinked in slow motion. How could the world go on when she had just received the most devastating news of her life?

Dr. Ettelman must have moved from behind his chair, though Tiffany did not recall seeing him move. But the next thing she felt were his hands gently squeezing her shoulders. Instinctively she shrank away from him. He was the monster at that moment.

“Whoosh.” Tiffany finally exhaled the breath she had been holding. Vehemently, she shook her head. “No, Dr. Ettelman, I must not have heard you correctly,” she croaked in a voice she hardly even recognized. She panted hard, feeling as if she was about to pass out from the magnitude of emotions hitting her all at once.

Dr. Ettelman’s face reflected empathy. He was still talking about something. What was he even saying?

“We’ve done all that we could do, Ms. Knightly. Is there someone that you can call?” She heard the hopeful inquiry but robotically shook her head. She needed some alone time to process the news she’d just received, and did not feel like calling anyone.

Tiffany opened her mouth, but it just hung open. Words were stuck in her throat. Vestiges of all coherent thought left her body. It was as if her mind had disintegrated, leaving her powerless to stop the feeling of losing sanity. She screamed on the inside to regain some semblance of control.

Tiffany could barely process the doctor’s words, but he had said it. He had said that she was dying.

No. He must be mistaken—he was talking about someone else.

Tiffany frantically looked around the room, scarcely seeing the pictures on the wall. Her eyes rested on his medical degree prominently displaying his specialty. Her eyes zoomed in on the calendar behind her. Today was March 17 . . . March 17 . . . March 17. . . . March 17 was the day she received her death sentence.

Almost subconsciously, Tiffany picked up a picture frame on his desk. There was a girl smiling back at her. In slow motion, she replaced the silver-encrusted frame before finally looking into Dr. Ettelman’s sympathetic face. Her tall, lithe frame drooped, and she sank even lower in her chair.

She could not be . . . No, she could not be dying. Tiffany absolutely refused to accept that, emphatically shaking her head in abject denial. Death was too . . . final.

She looked to Dr. Ettelman to provide some measure of comfort. In her heyday, she had been a national icon, but at this moment, Tiffany Knightly was just a patient, like any other who was the recipient of terrible news. “In my twenty-odd years of practice, it has never gotten any easier to tell any of my patients such devastating news, but I cannot give false hope. I have to tell the truth.” Tiffany’s initial shock turned into disbelief, and an unmistakable anger started to form. She keenly listened as he spoke.

“You are wrong,” Tiffany shouted. Her long curly hair slapped across her face as she sprung to her feet. Tiffany’s hazel-green eyes looked almost red with her palpitating fury. She had finally found her voice, and it reverberated like a crescendo off the walls. She bent her five-foot-nine frame over the doctor’s desk and demanded, “You did something wrong. Test it again.”

Dr. Ettelman remained calm and professional. Her demand was one he faced almost daily, and it was expected. He quickly assured her. “I have tested and retested the specimen carefully, Ms. Knightly. I would not give you this kind of news if I were not absolutely certain. However, you can get a second opinion—if you would like. I know someone I can recommend.”

As if they were a lifeline, Tiffany zeroed in on his comments. Slowly, the reality of his words registered. Rationale was returning. She was dying. She had lung cancer, and the worst part was Tiffany did not even know how she had developed the disease. It wasn’t like she was a smoker.

The symptoms had been inconsequential at first. Tiffany had been on tour and had started coughing a little. The coughing made her voice hoarse, but she was not overly concerned. Then, before she knew it, her little cough had escalated into bronchitis and eventually pneumonia. Just when she thought that she was well, the coughing returned suddenly and with a vengeance.

That was when Dr. Ettelman had checked for the possibility of lung cancer. He had found the lump on her lungs, had biopsied it, and had begun chemotherapy almost immediately. Tiffany had not been a viable candidate for surgery because of where the tumor was growing. Even removing the small specimen for testing had been a serious undertaking.

Evidently, all the treatments had been to no avail. Tiffany grappled with that thought. The chemotherapy had not proven an effective remedy. All the radiation, losing most of her hair, and feeling ghastly sick had all been in vain. The cancer had returned and had spread rapidly through her body. She did not know how long she had before the pain and agony would set in or before she looked sick and frail.

Dr. Ettelman prescribed some strong painkillers for her, but they made her feel nauseous or they put her to sleep, and radiation was not an option. She needed to have all her strength because her life was going to get increasingly difficult, and she had to be able to withstand it to the very end.

Time was all she had left.

Tiffany placed her hands in her hair, feeling the extensions she had put in to blend with her own natural curls—her immediate cure for hair loss. It was time to take them out, she mused.

Swallowing deeply, Tiffany gathered her courage and asked the question uppermost on her mind. “How long do I have?”

Her heart hammered so loudly in her chest that she could hear the beats resound like a drum. It felt like her heart was literally about to explode and splatter across the room. Unabashed, Tiffany allowed the tears welling in her eyes to fall. She felt a moment of helplessness and utter defeat.

With gritted teeth, Dr. Ettelman handed Tiffany a box of tissues, which she gratefully accepted with a resigned look on her face.

“I do not know for sure. It could be months. The human body has been known to show resilience that remains a miracle and a mystery. But from my experience, I would say about no more than a year. Do you need to talk to someone?” Dr. Ettelman offered.

“No,” Tiffany assured him. “I will be all right.”

Dr. Ettelman refrained from responding, but they both knew that was a lie. She was not going to be all right. She was going to be six feet under. Under the ground, not breathing, not seeing the sunshine. What was death like? How could anybody know?

Dazed, Tiffany stood to her feet, found her balance, and walked out of the doctor’s office. When she got to the elevator, she vaguely heard someone calling her name.

Tiffany stopped and turned around with stiff, controlled movements. It was Dr. Ettelman’s nurse, and it took everything in Tiffany’s willpower to listen to what the nurse was telling her.

“Your purse,” the nurse huffed, slightly out of breath. She extended the purse toward Tiffany. “You left it in Dr. Ettelman’s office.”

“Thank you,” Tiffany politely responded and took the bag out of the waiting hands. She entered the elevator and gave a slight wave, but she did not want to be so civilized. She wanted to scream or yell like a banshee. Yet here she was, exchanging mere pleasantries about a bag that she could replace with hundreds more.

Tiffany let out a huge breath of air and knew she had to get out of the doctor’s office. She needed some alone time to vent.

Just let everything out.

Her driver, Marlon, opened the town car door when he saw her exit the building, but Tiffany shook her head. She needed to walk and clear her head.

As Tiffany walked, she reflected on her life.

She had unfinished business to take care of before she . . .

Tiffany gulped, unable to complete that thought. She needed to make sure Karlie would be all right once she was . . . gone.

Karlie.

How was Tiffany going to tell her daughter she was dying?

Buzz . . . buzz . . .

Tiffany felt the vibration against her hip, and her brain slowly registered that it was a call from her cell phone. One she needed to answer.

Tiffany dug into her purse and grabbed the device, cringing when she saw who was calling. “Hi, Winona.”

“Marlon called.”

Winona Franks was a woman of few words. Highly efficient to a fault, she had been Tiffany’s manager from the days of her “one-hit wonders” from her six albums. Tiffany met Winona by accident when she was preparing to do a spread with Cosmopolitan. With her long blond tresses, svelte shape, and sparkly blue eyes, Winona, then Winona Young, had been on her way to becoming a highly sought-after fashion model. When the two met, they became fast friends. The only problem was that Winona hated modeling. She wanted to use her brains and not her body to get ahead. Using her earnings, Winona dropped from the modeling scene and went to the NYU Stern School of Business. Tiffany later became her top client.

With her business acumen and expertise, Winona had amassed such a huge fortune for Tiffany that she could live quite comfortably for two, even three lifetimes. Throughout Tiffany’s cancer nightmare, Winona had been a rock and a fortress to her. There was only one other person who Tiffany could rely on—a special friend—who not even Winona knew about, but she was not ready to call just yet.

“The news isn’t . . . ,” Tiffany trailed off.

“Tiffany? Are you saying what I think you’re saying? Tiffany, please answer me.” Winona’s worry screamed through the phone. Winona knew about Tiffany’s appointment with Dr. Ettelman and had waited anxiously for Tiffany to tell her she now had a clean bill of health.

Tiffany exhaled, hearing Winona breathing deeply on the other line. “I just needed a minute.” Actually, she needed a lifetime to come to grips with her imminent death. Tiffany shuddered but continued. “I—I—I have a year, Winona. One measly year to . . . How am I going to tell Karlie?”

“Get in the car and go home, Tiffany. I am coming,” Winona directed.

Tiffany belatedly realized that Marlon was creeping alongside her. She could see the worry etched across his face as his head turned back and forth from the road to where she was now standing.

Tiffany swung her bag back and forth in her arms like a pendulum while she debated. She felt like just running off into the sunset and disappearing for parts unknown.

“Tiffany,” Winona called out, her urgency evident through the line. “Please I am thousands of miles away. Please just get—”

“I’m going.” Tiffany dragged her feet toward her car. Marlon put on the hazard lights and quickly got out and opened the rear door for her. Like a dutiful child, Tiffany entered the car. She told Winona, “Don’t come. I’ll be in touch,” then ended the call.

As they drove toward her huge L.A. mansion, Tiffany took in the sights before her. Was it just her imagination or did the world suddenly seem brighter? The water from the beach sparkled and shone brightly. The leaves on the trees appeared greener. The sun beamed with unequaled brilliance.

“I can’t look anymore,” Tiffany whispered before closing her eyes and leaning back into the comfortable leather seats.

“Did you say something, miss?” Marlon asked.

“No,” Tiffany replied and turned her head away from his piercing eyes. Tears rolled down her face. Silently they fell. Tiffany placed her fist in her mouth to keep from crying aloud. There was so much she had to do, and how much time she had to do it, only God knew.

How could she tell Karlie she was dying? How could she not? Tiffany asked herself.

A week had passed since her devastating news, and Tiffany had been ensconced in her room in a self-imposed exile. She still had not generated a good lead-in for telling her daughter the cancer had returned.

Winona had called several times, but Tiffany had needed space. She sent a terse text message to Winona, telling her to book her round-trip passage to New York.

When Tiffany got up this morning, she knew she could not let another day pass without telling her daughter the truth. Today, March 24, was the day she would tell her daughter that she was dying. Karlie had given her space, assuming she had a cold or something and was simply recuperating. Now Tiffany was about to shatter that thought.

Tiffany paced back and forth, trying to compose the right words. That had been about a half hour ago, and Tiffany was still hemming and hawing. Her living room, decorated in varying shades of yellow, was sunny and cheerful. Tiffany would read in this room and look out the window to view the spacious backyard, which housed the pool and a man-made pond complete with ducks and fish. But the brightness of the room couldn’t make what she had to tell Karlie any better.

“Mom,” Karlie said softly. “You’re going to wear a hole in the rug. Just tell me what’s going on.”

Instinctively, Tiffany lifted her heel to peek. Her Prada shoes did look a little worn. She shrugged. There was a closet full of replacements.

Tiffany stopped pacing and finally looked into the face so like her own. Karlie had the same skin tone, hair, and body type. She was a mini-replica of Tiffany herself, except for her honey-brown eyes and slightly fuller lips. Tiffany could see Karlie preparing herself, instinctively knowing that whatever it was, she would not like it.

My own gift from heaven—so beautiful and so precious, Tiffany thought. A single tear pricked her eye and ran down the side of her face.

The antithesis of Tiffany at that age, Karlie was smart as a whip and never gave an ounce of trouble. Her teachers doted on her. Tiffany knew that she had lucked out when it came to Karlie.

She just had to do it.

Tiffany steeled herself and collected her thoughts. “Okay, there is no easy way to say this.” She had to give Karlie the straight facts. Wiping her hands on her cream-colored linen slacks, Tiffany sat down and took her daughter’s hands in hers. Karlie trembled beneath her touch.

“Karlie,” Tiffany began, “you know how for the past couple of years I have been fighting this cancer. You know all about the chemo and everything.”

Karlie nodded her head. Fear slowly crept up her spine and chilled her to the core. Karlie broke into tears.

Tiffany started crying at the sight of her daughter’s pain. She hugged her daughter tightly and whispered in her hair, “I am sorry, honey. The doctors tried. They’ve done all they could—”

“No!” Karlie wailed. “You cannot be dying. Do not leave me, Mommy. What did I do to deserve this?” She grabbed her mother, crumpling her linen shirt. “I’m not going to let you go, Mom.”

Tiffany wailed in earnest then. She cried and cried. This was the worst pain she could inflict on a fifteen-year-old. However, Tiffany knew she had to be forthright with her daughter. She needed to prepare Karlie somehow for her impending death.

Karlie pulled out of her mother’s arms and ran into her bedroom. Tiffany let her daughter go, knowing that she herself needed time. She had some tough decisions to make and some dirty linens to dredge up.

Tiffany pulled out her cell phone and quickly speed dialed the one person she knew she could call. When she heard the voice on the other end, Tiffany’s composure cracked. “I need to see you.”

“Five months?” Winona’s mouth sprung open with disbelief. “You expect me to settle your affairs and your vast estate and share holdings in merely five months?”

Tiffany nodded.

“Impossible.” Winona dragged her hands through her hair. “Tiffany, forgive me, but this is just too much. I’m telling you right now it’s not doable. I can’t get this all done by September.”

“Make it happen,” Tiffany shot back. “I don’t have time. Time is one luxury I do not have. I have to get my affairs in order in an extraordinarily short amount of time. Winona, I need you to be on this, like, yesterday. I need to be settled here in New York by the end of August, early September.”

Leaving Karlie behind while she made this trip had been painful because her daughter was still in the throes of coming to grips with losing her mother. But Tiffany had no choice. She had flown to New York to meet with up with Winona. Winona had moved to New York when she met and married her third husband, Harvey Franks. The distance had not affected Winona’s capability or their relationship.

Tiffany also had another discreet matter that necessitated her trip to New York, but first things first.

“Winona, I’ve thought long and hard about this, and I have to liquidate my assets. It makes sense to me. Karlie is way too young to handle the magnitude of my estate. You know that.”

“Yeah.” Winona’s eyes glazed over. “I’m not even sure that I can handle the task, Tiffany, because I refuse to give your properties and stocks away for pennies. Are you sure you don’t want Arnold in on this?”

Arnold Truitt was Winona’s second husband and Tiffany’s legal attorney. Somehow, after their parting, Winona and Arnold had remained amicable and even lunched together as old friends. Kudos to her, Tiffany thought. Her mind wandered to her own ex-husband, Thomas. She hadn’t spoken to him in years. That was about to change now, too.

Tiffany realized Winona was waiting with a pen and notepad on one leg and her iPad on the other. Tiffany said, “No. At least not yet. I can’t think past six months’ time, Winona. I might not be here.”

“You will be.” Winona scribbled furiously on her notepad before pulling up the calendar on her iPad.

Tiffany sat while Winona finished her notes. She looked around the room, taking in the understated elegance of Winona’s loft, which doubled as her office. Winona had purchased the loft as her temporary home, refusing to live with Harvey until they were married. The rich browns and burgundies were soothing, especially since outside did not feel like spring. It was the end of March, but outside it was a whopping forty degrees.

“What about the house?” Tiffany asked. She could not refer to the place in question as her home, though she had lived there for most of her childhood.

“It is being gutted and renovations have been made, as per your directions,” Winona replied. She removed her trendy shades to peer into Tiffany’s eyes. “I still don’t get why you’re planning to move there.”

Tiffany did not expect Winona to understand why she would leave her elegant million-dollar home to take on anonymity and move back to Hempstead, New York. “Because I am dying, Winona. I want to go home. Correction, I need to go home. I am doing this for Karlie. Believe me, if it weren’t for her, I would not step another foot into that place. When can I go take a look at it?”

Instead of answering Tiffany’s question, Winona asked another. “Did you tell Karlie about the move yet?”

“No. I plan to do that when I get home.” Tiffany arched her eyebrow, indicating she wanted an answer to her original question.

Winona lowered her head to glance at the delicate diamond-encrusted timepiece on her slender wrist. “The workers assured me that you can go over there late tomorrow afternoon. Did you need me to come with you?”

“No.”

Winona’s head popped up at Tiffany’s abrupt response.

Taking a deep breath, Tiffany softened her tone. “No, I mean, that is something I have to do on my own.” Tiffany swallowed after her blatant lie, but she could not bring Winona with her.

Winona got up and walked around her desk to sit next to Tiffany on the small couch. She hugged the younger woman. “Tiffany, I have been with you through chemotherapy and radiation. I have seen you at your best and at your worst. You are more than a client to me. You know that. You know you could stay here with me until . . . that time came,” Winona gently assured her.

“I know.” Tiffany nodded and pulled out of the embrace to look at Winona. “Winona, you have been good to me. You have stood by me through it all. But Karlie needs family—someone who will be her guardian and take care of her. Winona, Karlie needs her father.”

“Thomas?” Winona sputtered. “Is he the reason you are going home? Even if you’re dying, I do not think a reunion is the answer.”

Tiffany chuckled. Winona was not one to mince her words. “Let’s just say Thomas is a part of the reason.” Tiffany knew she was deliberately being vague, but she was about to delve into a topic that left a sour taste in her mouth.

Winona’s eyebrow arched with inquiry. Tiffany’s subtle remarks did not suit a woman of her disposition. Patience was not her strong point, and brutal honesty was her trademark. “Hit the nail on the head, Tiffany. Quit hedging.”

“I plan to visit my mother,” Tiffany began. Winona prodded her on, knowing that Tiffany had more to share. “Winona, I need the name of a good private detective.”

Winona’s eyes widened as her active imagination took over. She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I know the perfect person—Edison Sniles—a retired detective who’s fast, reliable, and discreet. Tiffany, what are you planning to do? Are you going to plot your revenge on Thomas after all these years?”

“Nothing of the sort,” Tiffany quickly assured her. “I just need to conduct a little . . . ah . . . research . . . to determine who is best suited to become Karlie’s guardian.” Father, Tiffany corrected inwardly. Actually, she first had to find out who Karlie’s father was.

Tiffany fretted. She had done a dirty deed and now was going to pay. Not once had she thought she was going to have to reveal her most shameful secret—that she, Tiffany Knightly, had married Thomas knowing that there was a strong possibility that he might not be Karlie’s father. Tiffany turned away from Winona for a moment and closed her eyes. Why had she done it? She exhaled. Why had she gone on a promiscuous rampage and slept with four men? At that time in her life, she thought it was for revenge. But now that she was a little older and wiser, Tiffany admitted that she had only exacerbated a situation that was going to disrupt quite a few lives. Should she just perpetuate the lie? After all, no one would know if she only kept her mouth shut. No, Tiffany reasoned, it was time to come clean. She turned to face Winona again, who had been watching her with a puzzled expression on her face.

“I have to do this, Winona,” she said desperately. That was all she could say without saying too much. “I just have to,” she whispered with tightly clenched fists.

Winona pointed to the goose bumps popping up on her flesh. “I knew there was more going on than you’re telling me. Tiffany, what aren’t you telling me?” she asked with quiet concern.

Gather. . .