Forgiven Read online

“Move out of my way, I’m going to kill him,” the man said as he stomped his way into the room.

  Caught off guard, JT stumbled backward. His foot got tangled in the cords. As he tried to extract his foot from the cords, he unplugged Lamont’s heart monitor. The big man advanced on JT and tried to push him away from Lamont. Leaning against Lamont’s bedrail with his hands outstretched, JT tried to keep the big guy from knocking him to the ground. “Hold up. Wait a minute!” JT yelled authoritatively.

  The man stood in front of JT. Although he was no longer trying to push JT out of the way, he was clearly still as angry as sin. “He shouldn’t have rode my sister on that motorcycle of his.”

  JT righted himself as he prepared to stand in the gap for Lamont’s life. He waved his hand toward Lamont and told the man, “Can’t you see that he’s at death’s door himself?”

  At that moment, a nurse ran into the room. “What’s going on in here?” she demanded.

  JT didn’t want to cause this man any trouble. He saw the pain in his eyes and knew from what he had said that his sister was dead. “You don’t want to do this,” he said to the big guy and then turned to the nurse. “This man is upset. He just lost his sister. Can you please get some help so we can calm him down?”

  “JT?” the nurse asked.

  JT hadn’t looked at the nurse when he spoke a moment ago. He was too busy trying to keep this big guy off of Lamont. This time when he turned toward the nurse he looked at her and recognition hit him in the gut. “Erica?”

  “Yeah, it’s me. I’m going to get security and then I’ll be back,” she said as she backed away from the door.

  JT looked at the man. He could barely concentrate on him. Images of his first love, Erica Swell, danced through his head and made him a little incoherent. He shook his head, trying to release the past so he could concentrate on the angry man standing in front of him. “You don’t want to go to jail do you?” JT asked the guy.

  The man pressed his palms against his head and let out a loud roar. “I want my sister back,” he said as tears streamed down his face.

  JT pulled the man into his arms and embraced him as if he were a two year old child in the middle of a tantrum. “It will be all right. You’ve just got to have faith and believe that God can see you through this.”

  The man pushed JT away from him. “Go ‘head on somewhere with that religious stuff.” He walked toward Lamont’s door and then turned back around. He pointed where Lamont lay still unconscious and said, “You better hope he dies, because if he doesn’t, I’m going to kill him with my bare hands.”

  JT had no doubt that the big man could do exactly what he threatened. He bent down and plugged Lamont’s heart monitor back in, then turned back to Lamont as the giant left the room and prayed, “Lord, help Lamont get out of this situation and learn to live for You. I speak peace over this young man’s life. In the name of Jesus, victory will be his.”

  After praying over Lamont, JT sat down in the chair next to his bed and took his Bible out of his duffle bag. Just as he was getting comfortable, the door burst open again, but this time it was Erica, backed up by two body guards. “He left, huh?” she said as she looked around the small room.

  JT sat up and put his Bible in his lap. “Yeah, I don’t think he wanted to go to jail.”

  Erica smiled as she said, “We’re going to post a guard at his door for the night.”

  “Thank you,” JT said as he stood up and walked over to her. JT hadn’t seen Erica in twenty years, but she hadn’t changed much at all. She was still as pretty as ever with long hair that flowed down her back. She had it in a ponytail now. “How have you been? I didn’t know what became of you.”

  She posed in her Sponge Bob smock and said, “Now you know. What about you, JT? The head nurse approved a clergy to stay in the room with Lamont. That can’t be you?”

  “In the flesh,” JT said with a smile.

  “Well, I’ll be. I’ve wondered what happened to you many times, but I never pictured you as a preacher. God is good.”

  “Yeah, I figured that out.”

  “Well, I’ve got to get back to my other patients, but it was nice seeing you,” Erica said as she turned to walk out of the room.

  “It was nice seeing you again, Erica. I’ve thought about you so much over the years,” he said before she was out the door.

  “I’ve wondered about you too, so I’m glad I got the chance to see you again. Since you know the Lord, may I suggest you pray hard for this boy? He’s going to need Jesus to get through the night.” She pointed a finger in the direction of the hall and then said, “That girl who just died two doors down was riding on his motorcycle without a helmet and her family is fighting mad.”

  “I know. I just met the brother of the dead girl,” JT said.

  Erica waved him off. “Just be glad the mother didn’t come in here. She probably would have slit his throat before I got a chance to ring the guard station.” She walked over to the white board that was on the wall, erased a name and then wrote hers. She turned back to JT and said, “I’ll be here the rest of the night with Lamont.”

  “Lamont doesn’t appear to have any family with him. So do you mind if I spend the night here to make sure he doesn’t receive any more unwanted visitors?”

  “We’re posting a guard outside his door for a few hours, but I’m okay with you staying.” She pointed to JT’s Bible and said, “Why don’t you read to him. That might help him to heal a bit better while he sleeps.”

  JT sat down and grabbed his Bible. But his mind was playing too many tricks on him to read a word from the Lord. Had he really just seen his first love after all these years?

  Six

  “Girl, why are you running around here like a Thanksgiving turkey being drug to the slaughter house?”

  Cassandra had invited her mother to spend the night so that she would have help with the kids while JT was gone. Big mistake. “What are you talking about, Mother?”

  They were in the kitchen. Cassandra was washing the dinner dishes, while Mattie sat at the table drinking a cup of bitter black coffee. She put the cup down and told Cassandra, “Why don’t you wake up and see what everyone else can see? You don’t want to be here. And who would? That no count fornicator is God knows where, sleeping with God knows who, while you’re left here to babysit his ill-gotten seed.”

  Cassandra cringed at the way her mother spoke of her sweet baby girl. Because as far as Cassandra was concerned, Lily was just as much a part of her as Jerome and Aaron were. There were days when she wondered if Lily had anything to do with the reason she was having panic attacks, but those questions quickly fell away when she held the little girl in her arms. Nothing that sweet could cause something so harmful.

  “I need you to stop talking about Lily like that,” Cassandra said as she put the last dish in the strainer, unplugged the sink and then sat down at the table across from Mattie.

  “Oh, so you don’t allow no truth talking in your house, is that it, Cassandra Ann? Just act like everything is okay and then,” she lifted her arms in the air and quickly flared her fisted hands and said, “poof, like magic everything will be as it should.”

  “You need to respect the fact that I love my husband and am-”

  “I don’t need to respect nothing,” Mattie interrupted. “That fornicating husband of yours is the one who needs to respect your love.”

  Cassandra slammed her hand on the table and stood up. “He’s not cheating on me. Stop saying things like that.”

  “Now look here, Cassandra Ann, I know you’re not getting flip with me.” Mattie stood up with her hands on her hips.

  “When you say things like this, it really makes me wonder what Susan said about me when I was a child.”

  Mattie sat back down. “Susan has nothing to do with this.”

  “She has everything to do with it. I was the same child that Lily is… born from an adulterous relationship. But Bishop and Susan took me in.”

  Mattie scoff
ed. “Those people never had to take you in. Not like you’ve done for Lily. They kept you on the weekends, big deal. Till this day, that man still hasn’t admitted to anyone outside of his immediate family that you are his daughter.”

  One of the kids started crying. Grateful for the distraction, Cassandra went upstairs. She knew even before she reached the room that Aaron had woken up. His cries, which turned into screams, always alerted her that his nap was over. She didn’t understand why some babies wake up peacefully while others always had to start a riot. But maybe Aaron was protesting the fact that he had to leave beautiful dreams to once again enter an unfair and cruel world. Cassandra wanted to scream herself awake sometimes too.

  She opened the door to Jerome and Aaron’s room, and like she suspected, Aaron was sitting up in his Spiderman toddler bed screaming his head off. Jerome, thankfully, hadn’t stirred at all. Cassandra put her finger to her lips as she tiptoed over to Aaron. She picked him up and rushed him out of the room. As they headed back downstairs, she rubbed his back and said, “Its okay, honey. Nothing to worry about, I’ve got you.”

  Aaron wiped his eyes and then wrapped his arms around his mother’s neck as if she alone could save him from the boogie man that chased him awake.

  “Grandma Mattie is here. Do you want to see her?”

  Aaron lifted his head off Cassandra’s shoulder and smiled while vigorously nodding his head.

  “Yeah, she wants to see you too.”

  Mattie met them in the hallway and took Aaron out of Cassandra’s arms. “Hey my little man, I missed you all day today.”

  “I saw you,” Aaron said, in that mumbled tone of a nineteen month old.

  “Yeah, but that mean old daddy took you away from me.”

  “Mother,” Cassandra’s tone was rebuking. “Don’t talk about JT in front of my children.”

  “Whatever.” Mattie waved her hand in the air and turned to walk into the family room with Aaron on her hip.

  Cassandra shook her head but followed behind them. The phone started ringing, so Cassandra picked up the receiver in the family room. “Hello.” The line went dead so she hung it back up and turned on the television.

  “Who was it?” Mattie asked.

  “I don’t know. They hung up.” Cassandra picked up the remote and put the television on the developmental cartoon station for Aaron. Aaron jumped down from his grandmother’s lap and sat in front of the TV and watched the ABCs float across the screen.

  “Why don’t you and the boys pack your stuff and come back home with me?” Mattie asked.

  Cassandra noted that her mother did not invite Lily as she sat down in the chair across from the couch Mattie was sitting on. “I can’t just up and leave. I don’t even know when JT is coming back home.”

  Mattie harrumphed. “You’re back home less than a month and that no-account is already out of town on a secret rendezvous.”

  Cassandra rolled her eyes at that comment. “JT is at the Charity Hospital in New Orleans visiting the son of an old friend, Mother. Nothing more. I really need you to stop with all your accusations against JT. I’m having a hard enough time as it is adjusting to being back home.”

  “That’s because you never should have come back here. You should have shook the dust of this bad marriage off your feet and kept on trucking ‘til you found something better.”

  Mattie’s words hit Cassandra right where she lived. She had wondered if she had come back too soon, or if she should have come back at all. Cassandra knew that she loved JT. But was he truly the best God had for her? At that moment, Cassandra was sure that if she listened to her mother long enough, she would go upstairs, pack their clothes and leave her husband. So she lifted her hand and said, “Mother I need you to stop.” She looked at Aaron as he sat glued to the television and then added, “JT and I have asked you not to say these things in front of our children.”

  Mattie waved her hand, dismissing Cassandra’s comment. “I’ve got another joke. Do you want to here it?”

  Cassandra didn’t know where her mother came up with so many jokes. But they were almost always offensive or something she didn’t want to hear. “If it’s anything like the jokes you normally tell, I don’t want to hear it.”

  “You always say that and then you listen to them anyway.”

  “That’s because I’m in the room with you when you tell your offensive stories.”

  “Hush, girl, ain’t nothing offensive about my jokes. Just listen,” Mattie said as she looked over at Aaron to make sure he was still transfixed by the television. “Okay, it goes like this. The CIA is having this training for operatives. So they put this man in a room and the director hands him a gun and tells him, ‘In order to be a CIA operative you need to be committed and be willing to do anything we tell you to do.’ The man had just been laid off his job and he was a little crazy anyway, so he said, ‘Sure, no problem.’ The director then told him, ‘I want you to kill the next person that walks into this room.’

  The director left, and when the door opened, the man’s daughter walked in. The man put down the gun and left the room with his daughter. He told the director that he couldn’t take the job. He would never shoot his own child.

  The next potential employee was a young woman. The director went over the same drill with her. He left her in the room with the gun and then her mother walked into the room. The girl burst into tears, and like the man before her, she told the director that she could not do what they asked.

  The final woman to be tested that day stood in the room with the gun in her hand, when the door opened she saw that it was her husband. He closed the door and then the director heard the gun go off three times. Then he heard another sound that he wasn’t familiar with; clickety-clickety-clack, clickety-clickety-clack, clickety-clickety-clack. The woman opened the door and walked out. She handed the director the gun and asked, ‘When do I start?’

  The director looked puzzled so he said, ‘Before I can process your papers I have to ask you something. When you were in that room I heard two different sounds. I’m familiar with the click sound of the gun, but what was that other noise?’

  The woman smiled and said, ‘Well, when I shot him, I realized that you had put blanks in the gun. So, I picked up a chair and beat him to death with that.’” Mattie held her stomach and began laughing so hard she rolled off the couch.

  “See, I knew I didn’t want to hear it,” Cassandra said as the phone rang again. She got up to answer it while still shaking her head at her mother. “Hello.” There was silence and then Cassandra heard heavy breathing. “Hello, who is this?” she demanded.

  The caller continued to take deep, seductive breaths and then released them into Cassandra’s ear.

  “I’m hanging up if you don’t say something.” They kept breathing, so Cassandra hung up and returned to her seat.

  “What was that about?” Mattie asked.

  “It was stupid really. Whoever it was wouldn’t say anything, just kept doing all this heavy breathing.”

  “Heavy breathing, huh?” Mattie said as she looked at her watch, then back at Cassandra. “It’s six in the evening, do you know where your husband’s at?” She was mimicking that popular commercial that used to come on years ago at eleven every night, asking parents if they knew where their children were.

  Cassandra had been in high school when that commercial used to come on and she and Mattie would laugh every night. The running joke between mother and daughter had been, When your child has a strict 9:00 p.m. curfew, you always know where she’s at.

  But Cassandra wasn’t laughing now. Mattie jumped out of her seat as she watched her child sputter and gasp as she struggled to breathe. “What’s wrong? Oh my God, Cassandra, please tell me what’s going on.”

  “I… need… air,” was all Cassandra could eek out as she held her throat and continued to gasp and struggle to breathe.

  Aaron turned away from the TV and came over to his mother. “What wrong?” he asked, looking just as puzzled
as his grandmother.

  “Move, Aaron. Let me take your mother outside,” Mattie said as she opened the sliding glass doors, ran back to Cassandra, stood her up and rushed her outside.

  Cassandra breathed in the evening air and tried desperately to think soothing thoughts. JT had told her to quote the 23rd Psalm when a panic attack threatened. So that’s what she did. She couldn’t speak it, but her heart said, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures… Yeah though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”

  And that’s when it hit her. Quoting the 23rd Psalm while her mother and son looked at her like she was a freak, she realized that Dr. Clarkson had been wrong. She wasn’t angry. She was scared to death that her life was all a lie, that JT hadn’t changed and that she was going to wake from this dream and find the boogie man chasing her.

  Seven

  JT woke early the next morning. He hadn’t had much sleep the night before due to the constant round of nurses that came in to check on Lamont. Every time that door opened he thought Erica would come into the room. But she never did. As he drifted off to sleep he thought of the night he and Jimmy were holed up in a hotel hiding from Lester Grayson. JT had gotten shot that night as he and Jimmy ran from the dope house they’d attempted to rob. It was only by the grace of God that JT hadn’t bled to death that night, since he didn’t get to the hospital until the next day. By the time JT was being admitted into the hospital, Jimmy was being booked for the robbery he’d attempted the next day without JT. That was where the two men parted company.

  JT had been young and impetuous. But he’d never envisioned himself as a lifetime criminal. As a matter of fact, that wild night of thievery with Jimmy was the only time in his life that he had ever stolen from anyone. He had been angry about his mother’s death and his first wife’s betrayal, so he threw caution out the back door and went on a ride that would eventually cost him more than he wanted to pay.