Finding Faith (29 page)

I should’ve backed away. I
should’ve gone back into another part of the house and cleaned
until the back of the condo was empty, but I didn’t. Instead, I
peeked in through the crack. It was Zeke and his girlfriend
Patience. They were completely covered, thank God, but he was on
top of her, looking into her eyes as if she were the only thing
holding him on Earth.

It was mesmerizing. He whispered
sweet words of love to her as he slowly moved his body against
hers. Their kisses were sweet, and again, it made me long for the
affection I was missing in my life. I was tired of being alone and
shouldering all the responsibilities. I wanted a partner in
life—someone who could hold me on the nights when I felt like
everything was falling apart and tell me that I was going to be
okay—that Jimmy was going to be okay.

I backed away from their door
slowly, ready to turn and go back into the kitchen to clean.
Instead, I walked straight into Finn. He looked past me into the
crack in the door and then looked back down at me with a knowing
smirk.

My face lit up with a deep blush. I
could hardly believe that I’d been caught watching a couple make
love.

I tried to move around him quietly
so I didn’t interrupt Zeke and Patience, but Finn caught me around
the waist and turned me back around to face the door. His arms
locked around me the way they had the day before and then I felt
his hot breath against my ear.

“
So you’re into voyeurism now?” he
whispered.

Chills broke out across my
body.

I tried again to get away, but he
was holding me so tightly that I couldn’t move. The fear of Zeke
and Patience seeing us standing in their doorway watching was too
much. I didn’t want to say anything to him. I didn’t want to make
any noise at all. I just wanted him to let me go so I could be out
of the embarrassing situation.

“
Let me ask you something, Faith.
What do you see in there?” His lips brushed my ear. “Are you into
Zeke now? Because if so, let me go ahead and squash your fantasies
now. He wouldn’t touch you.” He was still whispering, but it
sounded so loud to me that I was positive Zeke and Patience would
hear it, too.

The noises from their room were
starting to get louder, and instinctively, I pressed back away from
the doorway, but all that did was press me harder up against Finn.
He hissed softly in my ear and cursed under his breath.

Everything was so quiet that I
could still hear the things that Zeke and Patience were saying to
each other.

“
I love you so much, baby. God,
you feel so good,” Patience was saying to Zeke. “Please. Please
don’t stop.” She moaned louder.

Again, I pressed myself back. I
wanted to run. I wanted to be anywhere in that moment but where I
was.

My eyes locked onto Zeke’s tattooed
back as the covers slid down around his waist. Patience dug her
nails into his back so hard that I was sure he would bleed. Instead
of yelling, he kept telling her how beautiful she was and how he
couldn’t live without her. It was the most disturbing yet most
beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

“
Tell me, Faith. What do you see?”
Finn whispered in my ear again.

I felt his words all over. My knees
were getting weaker by the second. My stomach dug into his arm as
my body slowly melted.

Finally, he released me enough that
I could move. I turned in his arms and looked up at him. I was so
mad that he was making me watch them. I didn’t want to be there. I
didn’t want to see people engage in something that I’d never know.
I’d probably never feel a man’s touch again, and I’d probably never
hear someone call me beautiful or tell me they loved me. I wanted
to scream at him. I wanted to hit him again.

Instead, I pushed him back away
from me. He moved out of my way and grinned down at me like he’d
been playing a joke.

“
I see love,” I said. “Something
you know nothing about.”

His face dropped and he attempted
to say something, but instead of waiting to listen, I walked away.
He didn’t follow and I was glad. I wanted to be rid of him. I
couldn’t get into the kitchen fast enough, and once I was in there,
I cleaned the fastest I ever had. Once I was done with the place, I
left as quickly as I could.

I stopped by the grocery store on
the way home and grabbed some essentials. A few of the people I
worked with were happy to see me and kept telling me how great I
looked. They were just being nice since I knew my stress level had
only gotten worse since I’d taken on my new job.

When I got home, Jimmy was jumping
on the couch and singing loudly.

“
Baby boy, get off the couch and
quiet down some. The people next door are going to start
complaining.” He jumped down from the couch and into my arms.
“Where’s Grandma?” I asked.

“
I dunno!” he sang
playfully.

Worry set in. I set Jimmy down and
started searching through the apartment.

“
Mom?” I called loudly. “Mom,
where are you?”

I went to her room and pushed the
door open. She was nowhere to be seen. I started to panic. She
would never leave Jimmy alone. Something was wrong. Something was
definitely wrong.

When I got to the bathroom, I tried
to push on the door, but it wouldn’t budge. Something was keeping
the door from opening all the way. I pushed harder and when I did,
I saw my mom’s leg.

“
Mom! Oh my God! Mom!”

I ran into the living room and
picked up the cheap flip phone that Mom and I shared. I called
9-1-1 and screamed my address into the phone. Jimmy sat on the
couch in front of me and started to cry.

“
It’s okay, baby. Everything’s
okay. Just sit there and be a good boy for Mommy.”

Ten minutes later, the fire
department and an ambulance showed up at our apartment. They were
able to get into the bathroom and get Mom up on a
stretcher.

Jimmy and I followed behind the
ambulance to the local hospital. We sat in the waiting room until
we were allowed to go back and see her. Apparently, she’d had
another stroke. When we got into her room, I was shocked to see my
father sitting next to her bed.

“
What are you doing here?” I
asked, disgusted.

I hadn’t seen him in forever, and I
couldn’t think of a single time when he’d seen Jimmy.

“
I’m still the first person on her
contact list. They called me and I came straight here.” He reached
down and cupped her hand.

He looked older. The little bit of
hair he did have was gone completely and there were new wrinkles
around his eyes and mouth. He looked down at Jimmy and gave him his
fake preacher smile.

“
I was just leaving,” he said as
he stood.

He walked right by us and left
without saying good-bye. It hurt that he barely acknowledged my
son, or me for that matter. It was amazing how easily he’d given up
his family. As a mother, I couldn’t understand it. There was
nothing in the world that would make me disown
Jimmy—nothing.

I sat by Mom’s side. Jimmy ate some
vending machine food and fell asleep in the chair on the other side
of Mom’s bed. When she finally woke up, I called a nurse in and she
examined her. Her blood pressure was way too high and the doctors
were concerned that she might have another stroke.

The following morning, I called in
to Mrs. Cooper to let her know that I wouldn’t be making it to
work. I explained what had happened to my mom and she said she’d
take care of it.

After running some tests, the
doctor determined that Mom would have to stay in the hospital for a
few weeks.

“
I’m so sorry, Faith.” Mom
apologized when we found out she wasn’t going to be released soon.
“Who else are you going to get to watch Jimmy so you can
work?”

“
Mom, do
not
apologize to me.
Don’t you worry about Jimmy. I’ll take care of everything. You just
get better,” I said as I held her hand.

I was happy that Mom and I had a
decent mother-daughter relationship. I hadn’t had that since I was
younger and I missed it.

When I left the hospital, I sat in
my car and gathered my thoughts. I had to figure out what to do
with Jimmy while I went to work. Missing an entire week, or however
long it took for Mom to get released, wasn’t something I could do.
I wasn’t even sure Mom would be able to watch him anymore. I
couldn’t take the chance of something else happening to her and
Jimmy being left alone again.

I called around to daycares, but
the prices were insane. I’d have to pay them half of what I made a
week for him to stay there. The only way I was going to make this
work was to get a second job. So the following day, while I was at
one of the daycares applying for Jimmy to get a spot, I also
applied for a job.

The daycare director hired me as
soon as I turned in the application, and thankfully, my hours were
eight to two Monday through Friday. That gave me enough time to go
to the condo after the daycare and clean. Mrs. Karen, the daycare
director, said it would be perfectly fine for Jimmy to stay at the
daycare all day. I’d still have to pay, of course, but all worked
out well.

The only thing I couldn’t get
around was school. So once again, I had to drop out. I hated to do
it, but Jimmy and work always came first. If I didn’t feed him and
put a roof over his head, then no one else would.

From that day forward, my schedule
was nuts. I worked the daycare every day from eight in the morning
until two in the afternoon. From that point on, I’d go to the condo
and spend the next three to four hours cleaning. Once I was done
cleaning, I’d go back to the daycare, pick up Jimmy, and go home,
where I’d make us dinner. After dinner was bath time followed soon
after by bedtime.

I continued to study my books just
in case I was able to go back to school. So once Jimmy went to
sleep, I’d pull out the books and study until I couldn’t keep my
eyes open. Every morning it was the same routine and every day was
the same. I hardly ate, I barely slept, but I worked
constantly.

Luckily, I hardly saw Finn. Coming
later in the day was apparently the trick. Not to mention, Blow
Hole had been doing a lot of shows lately and were out of town
constantly. It worked. I was too busy to be happy or unhappy about
my situation.

Even after Mom came home from the
hospital, I continued this way. Watching Jimmy was just too much
for her. He was a rambunctious three-year-old and Mom was getting
up there in age. Her health was most important, and I wanted to be
sure to keep her stress levels down like the doctor had
suggested.

After a few weeks of the same
schedule, I could feel myself wearing down. I hardly got to see
Jimmy at all since I took care of the babies and he was in a
separate class at the daycare. I missed him so much it hurt. Mom
was having issues with her memory and her right hand, and that was
making it hard for her do to things on her own.

I spent my days working and
silently cursing all the men who were major factors in my life—Finn
and my father. They were doing whatever they wanted while Mom and I
continued to struggle to hold it all together. Then I’d spend my
nights trying to sleep and having nightmares in the moments when I
did catch a brief nap.

I’d never before been so happy to
see Friday roll around. Even if I did spend my weekends lying
around with Jimmy or running around the park, it was time with him
and that’s all that mattered.

I scrubbed the guest bathroom
vigorously. It was one of the last rooms I had to get done before I
left for the day and spend the weekend with my baby boy. I was
leaning over the tub and rinsing the cleaner from the bottom, when
I felt someone standing behind me.

I didn’t bother turning around. The
soft scent of Finn’s cologne wafted in on the bathroom steam that
was floating around. I’d gone a while without seeing him, but I’d
always known that I’d run into him again. I was cleaning his condo
after all. The heat from the hot water in the tub was no match to
Finn’s heat when he moved up behind me.

“
No backpack full of high school
books today?” he asked.

“
No,” I said as I continued to
scrub.

“
Gave up on tutoring high
schoolers already? That’s so unlike you to give up on someone,
Faith. Oh wait, maybe it’s not so unlike you after all.”

His sarcasm made my stomach turn. I
knew exactly what he was getting at, but I was too exhausted to
play battle of the wits with him.

“
I wasn’t tutoring anyone but
myself.”

I gave the tub a final rinse and
stood full, stretching the ache out of my back. I was too young to
feel so old.

“
Tutoring yourself? You’re a
little too old for high school, don’t you think? You graduated a
few years ago. I’m sure you’re getting close to graduating from
whatever fancy Christian college your daddy forced you to go to.”
He continued to verbally poke my nerves.

“
You don’t know what you’re
talking about,” I said as I collected my things and moved on to the
last room.