Fifteen Years (22 page)

“I see.” Patrice’s heart went out to the little girl, and for the moment, she forgot her own troubles. She put her car in reverse and began backing out of her parking space. “Well, if none of the references work out for your sister, you can get in contact with me, and
I’m sure I can do some research and find out if there are people in your area that I can recommend. There was a set of twins—a brother and sister—who graduated from LaSalle with me who were headed out your way to begin a pathology firm. I don’t have their information on me right now, but I can get it if you need it.”

“Thanks so much, Patrice.” The gratitude could be heard in Danielle’s voice. “I really appreciate that, and I’m sure Saundra will too. And I don’t know if there will ever be anything to arise on your end wherein I might be able to return the favor, but if it ever does,
I’m your girl.”
Danielle laughed as she sang out the end of her sentence.

“Ac … Actually, there might be … uh, something that you can help me with.” Patrice nearly stumbled over her words.

“Okay.” Danielle sounded guarded again.

“If you need me to call at a later time, I can,” Patrice offered. “I work in the school system too. I know what it’s like to be trying to get away from work and to have people come in and hold you there against your will. But normally I’m the hostage, not the hostage taker.” Patrice ended her weak joke with a nervous laugh.

Danielle must have thought it was funny because she laughed too. Then she said, “No problem. My fiancé and I work at the same school, and he has an after-school meeting today. I was going to stick around and meet up with him after his conference anyway. Talking to you will just help fill the time. What is it that you want to talk about?”

Patrice heard scuffling noises, like Danielle might have been getting comfortable behind her desk. She wished she could get comfortable too, but the small lapse of time was not nearly enough to give her the opportunity to prepare for how she’d introduce this matter.

“It’s about JT.” She took in a breath, and then released it. “He’s
… well, he’s … um, it’s been a long time since he’s been at home, you know.”

“I know. He says it’s been fifteen years.”

Patrice nodded her head as she navigated toward the private Christian academy where she knew Arielle would be anxiously awaiting her arrival. “Yeah. A little more than fifteen, actually. Last time I saw JT, he was fourteen, and I was eighteen and heading off to college for my freshman year at Auburn University.”

“Auburn? You mentioned LaSalle earlier. Did you transfer?”

“After my sophomore year; yes, I did. My degree is from LaSalle.” Patrice adjusted the fan on her air conditioner. She was cold and feeling sweaty at the same time.

“He told us he was returned to his mother shortly before his fifteenth birthday. Did you ever get to see him again before he moved out?”

“No, I didn’t. We never got the chance to say good-bye to each other. So like I said, when I left for college, it was the last time I saw him before this past Sunday.”

“I guess you couldn’t help but be shocked to see him again after all this time. Especially since JT didn’t call ahead. It must have felt like a present day prodigal son moment for your parents.” Patrice could tell that Danielle was smiling.

“When my mother called to tell me that JT was at their house, I can only compare the moment to the alarm I felt that Thursday when the news broke that Michael Jackson had died,” she replied. “It just didn’t seem possible.”

“Surreal?”

“Yeah. I mean, who could have even imagined that he’d come back after fifteen years? JT … not Michael Jackson,” Patrice quickly clarified.

“Of course,” Danielle replied.

“Fifteen years is a long time.”

“A lot can happen in that length of time,” Danielle agreed. “A lot can change.”

“You got that right. When I last saw JT he was skinny, he wore a low cut fade, he was shorter than me, he was a computer geek—”

“He’s still a computer geek,” Danielle interjected.

They laughed together, and Patrice was the first to sober. “Yeah, but that’s about the only thing that hasn’t changed.” She proceeded with caution. “He’s … he’s so different now, you know? Don’t get me wrong. JT was a good-looking kid. I remember when we were younger, the women in the church would always tell Mama to keep his name on the altar because he was gonna grow up to be a heartbreaker. Everybody raved about his smile and his eyes.”

“He does have nice eyes,” Danielle said.

“He has
gorgeous
eyes. A girl could get lost in them if she …” Patrice didn’t know what Danielle thought of her incomplete comment because she offered no response. Patrice regrouped and continued. “When JT came into our home, I think he was eight, going on nine years old. He lived with us for over six years, and although he and I fought a lot—”

“Like most brothers and sisters do,” Danielle offered.

“Right. We fought, but we did a lot of fun things together too. We liked the same movies, so we’d watch television together all the time. I’d pop popcorn, and we’d wrap up in a blanket together in front of Mama’s imitation fireplace and snack while we watched the movie. And sometimes my homework assignments would call for me to use Dad’s computer, and while I worked at the keyboard, JT would hang around and watch. As long as he wasn’t talking or pulling my ponytail, I’d let him stay.”

Danielle released a soft laugh. “Sounds like the two of you got along pretty well.”

“We did on most days. He knew he had to be nice to me if he wanted his turn on the computer, and since he wanted to play on the desktop every day, he didn’t mess with me too much, ’cause he knew I’d tell Dad.” Patrice giggled and added, “I was kind of a tattletale as a kid.”

“That’s something we have in common,” Danielle admitted. “I think I was the president of that club when I was little.”

They laughed together, then Patrice continued, feeling much more comfortable now.

“Most times Daddy punished JT, he banned him from the computer. JT would rather get a whipping than to be told that the computer was off-limits to him. So he was good to me most of the time because he knew I was the all-access pass to his favorite room. On days when Daddy would allow JT to experiment on the computer, I had to sit and monitor him to make sure he didn’t mess up anything. I guess I had to do that because I was the oldest. JT caught on to computer stuff real fast. By the time I left for college, he knew how to build websites, do spreadsheets and slideshows, play web games, do system defragments, check for viruses … all that. We used to go to him to ask about computer stuff by that time. He was like some kind of prodigy.”

“That’s believable,” Danielle said.

“Well, like I said, that’s all been fifteen years ago,” Patrice specified once again. She swallowed hard and hoped Danielle would cut in and say something more so that she’d have more time to think. No such thing. “When I heard that JT was back, I drove to my parents’ house to see him. At first it was like old times. I mean, it took a minute for him to warm up to me, but I guess after so many years, that should have been expected. But once the ice was broken, it was like old times. We ate as a family, we caught him up on our lives and he filled us in on his; then we sat around and talked until late in
the evening. Even after everybody else in the house had gone to bed, JT and I sat up for hours, talking and watching television. Then at some point… I don’t know when but at some point in the evening …” Patrice was babbling again, and she couldn’t figure out how to make her point. She just couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud. Maybe now was a good time to pretend she’d lost the signal on the cell phone and hang up. Danielle would think that the call dropped, and she’d be off the hook.

“Things have changed, and JT isn’t feeling so much like your kid brother anymore. How’s that? Am I at least lukewarm in my attempt to turn your novel into a CliffsNotes pamphlet?”

Patrice was speechless. Lukewarm? More like boiling hot. How had Danielle managed to decipher the mumbo jumbo? Truth be told, Patrice could barely make sense of the words that had come out of her own mouth. So how Danielle figured it out, she wasn’t sure.

“Hello? Patrice, are you still there?”

Routing her car into the parking space in the lot of her daughter’s school, Patrice put the car in park and leaned against the steering wheel. The warm breath from the heavy sigh she released clashed with the cold wind that streamed from the air conditioner vent that was aimed at her face. “Yes, I’m still here.”

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Danielle’s question sounded more like a statement.

“I guess a lot can change in fifteen years.” Patrice stared out of her windshield at the brick structure in front of her and listened to the dead air coming from the other end of the line. She could tell that Danielle was judging her, and she couldn’t even blame her. “You must think I’m some kind of twisted human being, but I’m not. I never meant for anything like—”

“I don’t think you’re twisted at all,” Danielle assured. “JT is
exceptionally handsome and very intelligent. It’s easy to see why a woman would be attracted to him.”

“A woman, yeah. But not his sister.”

“Patrice, you’re not JT’s sister, not biologically. The two of you grew up in the same house for a while, and—”

“We were raised like siblings, Danielle. For six years we referred to the same set of adults as Daddy and Mama.”

“So what? I have a godbrother, and I’ve called his parents Daddy and Mama my entire life. He calls my parents the same thing. That doesn’t make us related.”

“So you’re saying that you’d be okay if you discovered that you had feelings for your godbrother?”

“I would, and I was.” Danielle’s reply surprised Patrice. “I didn’t have a boyfriend, and his girlfriend at the time had the flu, so he and I went to our senior prom together. Like I said, I’d known him my whole life. His dad is the pastor of my church. We’d never dated before and had never viewed each other as anything other than siblings, but something happened that night that changed the course of our relationship. It wasn’t planned. It just happened. We’d never danced together before. We’d never dined together as a couple before. We’d never taken formal photos with our arms wrapped around each other before. Being in those new environments made us look at each other in a new way. By the time we graduated, we were an exclusive couple.”

“Really?” Patrice’s eyebrows furrowed.

“Yes, really. We weren’t biologically related. There was nothing wrong with it.”

“And you never felt like you were breaking some cardinal rule?” That was Patrice’s biggest concern. Something about her attraction felt downright sinful. Like God was looking down at her tsking and shaking His head in disgust.

“Of course not. Why would it?” The force of Danielle’s sigh could be heard through the phone. “Listen to me, Patrice.
You are not JT’s sister.
You aren’t related to him at all. There is absolutely no bloodline there.”

“I know, I know.”

“Then why are you beating yourself up over it?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know.”

“Does JT know how you feel?”

The question took Patrice back to the park. “No.” Then back to the kiss. “Yes.” Then back to the slap. “I don’t know.” Her frustration ignited a heaving sigh.

“Sounds like there’s a part two to this story,” Danielle said. “Wanna talk about it?”

Patrice sank into the fibers of her driver’s seat, and as she stared at the colorful concrete building in front of her, tears began to blur her vision. She failed in her attempt to steady her voice when she asked, “How much time do you have?”

Not a moment of pause preceeded Danielle’s reply.

“How much time do you need?”

JOSIAH GNAWED at his fingernail and glimpsed the clock at the same time. Convincing Thomas and Joanne that he had to get back to the hotel hadn’t been an easy job. He had to escape soon if he didn’t want to find himself in an uncomfortable situation.

“I don’t understand why you have to leave already.” Joanne’s voice pulled his eyes back to her.

“Already?” Josiah tried to laugh. “Mama, I’ve been here for five hours. I’ve driven Sammy around in the car, walked Dad through the process of going wireless with his laptop, helped you pull the weeds from your flowerbed, ate breakfast, took a nap, ate lunch—”

“I know, but it’s almost dinnertime now. You can’t leave yet, JT. Dinner will be ready in an hour, and Tuesday is the only weekday that Patrice and Arielle join us for dinner. It’s Patrice’s busiest day at work, and I try to give her a break by cooking for them.”

Hearing Patrice’s name made his armpits perspire. Joanne had just fueled his need to abandon ship. “I’m sorry, Ma. I can’t stay today. I have too much work to do.” Josiah was getting good at this lying thing. He didn’t want to be dishonest, but forging work was the only thing that seemed effective. “You should have let me in on the family dinner plans earlier, and I probably could have done my work this morning and waited until now to come over. I intentionally came early so that I could spend some time with you all before having to get back to the hotel. I need to get some paperwork done and faxed to my office.”