Fifteen Years (17 page)

“Yes sir.” Josiah paused long enough to polish off the last of his lemonade. As soon as he placed the empty glass on the table, Joanne picked up the pitcher and refilled it for him. He thanked her, and then gave his attention back to Thomas. “After I graduated high school, I accepted a full scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and—”

“That’s outstanding,” Thomas exclaimed. “Full
academic
scholarship, son?”

“Yes sir … academic.” Josiah was reeling in every compliment he was fishing for. “And need I say that the baddest brothers on campus wore black and gold?”

Thomas dropped his fork and his bottom lip. For a second Josiah thought his father was going to cry. “You?” Thomas pointed at him. “JT, are you …?” He couldn’t even bring himself to finish the sentence.

Before answering verbally, Josiah curled in his index, middle, and ring fingers and allowed his thumb and pinky to point outward to flash the sign that Thomas had always been so proud to display “Alpha Phi Alpha all the way,” Josiah said.

“Oh, goodness. Now I got two of ’em to deal with,” Joanne grumbled.

Ignoring her, Thomas pumped his fist and said, “Excellent! Excellent! You couldn’t have pledged anything better, son.” He seemed more enthused by Josiah’s Greek affiliation than he had been about the full scholarship.

“I began working at MacGyver shortly after I graduated,” Josiah continued. “I had done a summer internship there between my junior and senior years, and the late Mr. MacGyver was so impressed that he promised me a position once I had my bachelor’s.” Josiah didn’t see a need to pass along Lillian’s rumor that the company had an equal opportunity quota to meet. “Once I began working, I didn’t return for my master’s. It just didn’t seem necessary. I had already landed the job that I’d wanted to do for most of my life.”

“Praise the Lord,” Joanne said, clasping her hands under her chin as if she were about to call for everyone to bow their heads in prayer. “I always hoped and prayed that things worked out with you and your mother. To the natural eye, she seemed like a lost cause, but look at God.”

Joanne was so elated that Josiah didn’t have the heart to volunteer the truth about Reeva. But when Joanne went on to specifically ask him how she was doing, he also didn’t have the heart to lie. Josiah stood from his chair and took a few steps toward the china cabinet that stood catty-corner in the dining room. Talking about Reeva always tended to make him antsy. When he moved around versus sitting still, it seemed to be easier to discuss the unpleasant matters regarding her.

“She was murdered about twelve years ago.” Josiah cut right to the chase, and despite the gasp that ran around the table, he barely paused before continuing. “Mama never really got her life straight. She did pretty well for the first few months after they returned me to her, but she couldn’t stay clean. We lived in pretty poor housing in
Chicago, and she did a lot of drugs and … well, other things that she had no business doing.” Josiah made a turn and faced the table, but didn’t look at anyone in particular. “It all finally caught up with her, I guess. The police found her dead the morning after my high school graduation ceremony. Based on her autopsy, she was probably being strangled as I was marching across the stage.”

“Jesus.” Thomas whispered the one-word prayer as he sat with his eyes closed. His head lowered and he massaged his forehead like he was in physical pain.

“Oh, my,” Joanne said. Her hand fluttered to her chest. “We didn’t know.”

“I’m so sorry, son.” Thomas looked injured. “If I had known, I would have—”

Josiah forced a weary smile. “It’s okay, Dad. It wasn’t your fault, and I wasn’t your responsibility anymore. I’m not gonna downplay it. It was rough; really rough, but I have you and Mama to thank for my survival. Because you presented Christ to me before I left, I made it.”

His words didn’t seem to soothe Thomas at all.

Patrice rose from her chair and secured Josiah in the warmth of her arms. “I’m sorry too, JT. What happened to your mom was awful, but I hope that being here with us for a while will help to make it better. I know everybody else missed you, but I can’t speak for them. But speaking for myself, I just want to say that I missed you so much.”

This time, Josiah returned her embrace. “I missed you too, Peaches. I can’t tell you how good it feels to reunite with y’all.” He said the words, but as he closed his eyes and enjoyed the stimulating feel of her skin, Josiah didn’t feel so much like he was reconnecting with Patrice as he felt he was meeting her for the first time.

REFRESHED BY the shower he’d just taken, Josiah slid open the hotel room’s closet door and fished out a pair of khaki shorts and a T-shirt that displayed the emblem of the Chicago Bulls. They weren’t nearly the beasts on the court that they’d been during Michael Jordan’s active days, but the Bulls was still one of his favorite teams. Josiah looked at his chosen ensemble and sighed. It was the third outfit he’d considered wearing, and that alone concerned him. He hated that he wondered which outfit would be most impressive. He hated that he wondered which cologne would be most alluring. He hated that it felt like he was preparing for a date with the girl next door instead of lunch with his big sister.

It was Monday afternoon, and after spending hours at his foster parents’ house yesterday and declining Joanne’s insistence that he spend the night in one of their spare bedrooms, Josiah had returned to his Stone Mountain hotel suite and slept the night away. He’d
slept away the better part of Monday morning as well. The excitement of seeing his family again had been a rush that kept his adrenalin revved well into the night. But once he made it back to the Hampton Inn, fatigue assailed him, and he barely remembered anything after his head hit the pillow.

“Please, JT?” Last night, Patrice had taken over begging duty once Joanne finally ran out of steam and eventually called it a night. “I know Sam is a bit huskier than you, but I’m sure he has something in his closet that you can wear just for the night. It’s nearly two in the morning. It doesn’t make sense for you to drive back to Stone Mountain. Everybody else is already gone to bed, and I keep clothes for Arielle and me in one of the spare room closets; so we’re gonna crash here, and you can too. It’ll give us time to talk some more. I only teach four days a week, and Monday is my off day, so I’m free to sit up all night and talk like we used to do sometimes when we were kids after Mama and Daddy had gone to sleep.” She brought her voice down to a whisper on that last part as if their foster parents might hear the confession from their master bedroom all the way down at the end of the hall.

Josiah smiled at the childhood memories and gave her plea some serious consideration. Staying did seem sensible. Thomas and Joanne had plenty of room to make accommodations, and his eyelids were already getting heavy. Why not take advantage of the chance to stay in the house with his foster family again?

But the painful reality set in when Patrice snuggled up to him on the sofa and added, “Think about it, JT. Me, you, and Sam, all under the same roof. It’ll be just like old times.”

Oh no it won’t.
The chill bumps that rose on his arms the moment she leaned against him refuted every word that had come out of Patrice’s mouth. This was not at all like old times. That was then. This was now. Back then, when they all lived under one roof,
she didn’t make him crazy like this. Back then, he always felt the urge to yank at her long, thick ponytail just to hear her yelp in pain. Last night, he wanted to free her hair strands from the clip that bound them and run his fingers through the soft tresses. Back then, when they nestled together in front of the fake flames of the fireplace while eating popcorn and watching television, it felt as if he were having a slumber party around a campfire. Last night, it felt like a different kind of party, and she was setting his soul on fire.

“I have a better idea,” he’d suggested while abruptly edging himself free, nearly causing Patrice and the bowl of popcorn she held to topple off the sofa. He had to put some space between them before he said or did something really stupid. “How about the whole family go out to lunch tomorrow. Whatever restaurant you guys choose is fine with me. My treat. I would stay over, but I have some paperwork at the hotel that I need to complete early in the morning, and I need to use the hotel fax to send it to MacGyver by the time my boss gets in.”

Wow. Josiah amazed himself at how quickly he could generate a lie when it felt like his life depended on it.

“Oh, okay. Well, yeah. Let’s do lunch then.” Patrice conceded, no doubt figuring she didn’t have a choice if he had work obligations to fulfill.

Allowing his mind to float back to the present, Josiah looked away from the mirror and at the grey prayer rug beside his bed. He’d had a good, long talk with God this morning, apologizing for the blatant fib, and when he got up from his bent-knee position, he was satisfied that the Lord had heard him and granted him pardon. In Josiah’s mind, all while he was praying, God was waving a carefree hand in his direction and in an understanding voice was saying, “Pshhhh … no need to apologize, my son. Under the circumstances, who wouldn’t have lied?”

That must have been wishful thinking at its highest level because Josiah now felt that God had totally tuned out that morning prayer and was now punishing him by forcing him to face the demons he was so desperately trying to avoid.

It was Joanne’s telephone call that stirred him from a deep sleep just after eleven this morning. The pastor of Kingdom Builders Christian Center had called an emergency leadership meeting, she’d told him, and all of the staff ministers, missionaries, deacons, and deaconesses who were available were asked to meet him at the church at 1:00.

“I’m so sorry,
JT
.” Joanne sounded every bit as regretful as she said she was. “Your dad is a deacon and I’m a deaconess, so we need to be there. We’re taking Sam along with us because he has a doctor’s appointment at 3:30 anyway.”

“It’s okay, Ma,” Josiah had assured her. “Like
I
said, I’ll be here a few days. We can all go out and do lunch any day this week.”

“But you’ll come over for dinner tonight, won’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am.
I
wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

When they finished the phone call, Josiah thought that was the end of it. He’d rolled out of bed, stripped the mattress of his personal linen, replaced it with the hotel linen, and then tried his best to muddle it so that it looked like it had been slept on. Then after his shower, he did the same with the towel and washcloth before removing the
DO NOT DISTURB
hanger from the outside of his doorknob so that when the maids made their second run, they’d come in and change everything out as normal.

Josiah had just poured a fresh cup of coffee from the hotel-provided coffeemaker and fired up his laptop to check his e-mails when the telephone rang again.

“Hi, JT. Looks like it’s just you and me for lunch, huh?”

Josiah almost spilled his coffee onto his laptop keyboard. He’d
assumed that lunch would be cancelled altogether since Thomas and Joanne had a change in plans. “I guess so,” he’d replied, not knowing what else to say.

Patrice’s voice sounded joyful. “Listen. Instead of going out to a restaurant, let’s eat outdoors.”

“Outdoors?”

“You’re at the Hampton Inn on Mountain Industrial Boulevard, right?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll drive out there to meet you, and we can ride to the park together.”

“The park?” He felt like a parakeet.

“Stone Mountain Park,” she clarified. “You’re not far at all from the actual mountain, and today is too nice of a day to be stuck indoors; so I thought maybe I could pack some sandwiches and other goodies, and we could eat in one of the park areas out there. What do you think?”

Josiah hadn’t eaten breakfast yet, and on cue, his stomach produced an angry rumble, daring him to turn down the opportunity to feed it. “Sounds like a plan.”

“Great. I’ll meet you at the hotel in about an hour. What room are you in?”

No way was he going to invite her up to his room. His salvation would be challenged enough with him being alone with her in the open air of the park. “I’ll meet you in front of the hotel. I just need to get dressed. I’ll be ready in plenty of time. Just call me when you’re five minutes away, so I can start making my way downstairs. You don’t even have to get out of your car.”

“Yes I do, JT. You can meet me in the parking lot, but I’ll still have to get out of my car so that I can get into yours. I’m not missing a chance to ride in the Viper.”

Josiah laughed. “It’s an R8.”

“Same difference,” she responded.

The two cars were nowhere near the same, nor were their prices, but Josiah didn’t challenge her on it.

“I’ll be there in less than an hour,” Patrice said. “I just need to pack a few things, and I’ll be on my way.”

“Okay.” Josiah forced his voice to sound as cheery as hers. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to spend time with Patrice. The problem was quite the opposite. He
did want
to spend time with her. A
lot
of time.