Losing Hope (26 page)

“My dear sister, who let you in?”

This was the man who preached fiery sermons on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings, who led a flock of thousands, who commanded the respect of city, even state, leaders.

And yet his voice in person, two feet away from me, had the quality of doves and quiet rainstorms—gentleness.

That was what it felt like, anyhow, as I stood there dumbfounded, uncertain what to say to this much-revered man of God, who had, it seemed, at least half the city of Baltimore under his sway.

“The door was unlocked,” I finally managed to say, looking up into his deep brown eyes. I saw the fire in them, the boldness, the pureness of them, and I knew that this was a man who spent time with the Master.

There would be no playing games or sidestepping in here. I swallowed, wondering why I suddenly felt so exposed.

“Well, God must have a reason for you to be here. There are no coincidences in God's Kingdom.” He smiled. “That door is always locked, but for some reason, somehow, you got in. Come in. Join the circle. We were just about to have prayer.”

I looked around, realizing that the “we” was the bishop's true inner circle. Aside from his wife, Marcie, I recognized a few of the five or so faces as men and women who served on his ministerial staff, the director of the church's deacon board, and the leader of the church's youth movement. A smile from the corner of the room caught my eye, and I smiled back.

Mother Ernestine Jefferson.

Marcie LaRue's grandmother, the wife of the late, great elder.

The woman who'd said she'd had a husband like mine.
The kind that can't be explained to nobody but Jesus.

My smile grew even wider as I considered the impossibility of the comparison. There was no way that she, the wife of a gospel great, could ever relate to my tale of missing love, broken promises, differing priorities, and, well, murdering mayhem.

I shut my eyes hard to block out the image of RiChard's bloody hands. I had to stay focused on my task today.

Even still, my eyelashes were wet.

“Come join us.” Marcie LaRue, the cool, calm, collected epitome of stress management, held out her hand, making me realize I was holding up the prayer session thinking about RiChard.

How many more times was I going to let that man—dead or alive—hold me up from my own life? I swallowed the bitterness down and grabbed hold of the first lady's damp palm.

I guess I had been expecting moans and groans, shaking and quaking, and long, drawn-out petitions of desperation and tears.

That was what I would be doing if my reputation and ministry were on the line.

Instead the prayer was simple; the plea succinct.

“Father,” the bishop began, “we know that no weapon formed against us shall prosper.

The enemy of our souls thought he could bind us with false reports, but we know that Your report will prevail. We ask you, Lord, that Your perfect plan will be revealed and that we will simply be obedient to Your moving. Thank You for this time of testing so that we may draw closer to You. Bless the ones behind this so that they will be moved to repentance and also draw close to You. We trust You. Our hope is in You. And now we praise You, for You have already perfected this situation. In Jesus's name, let's praise Him together, for we will not be moved.”

And then a chorus of praise rang out from those standing in the circle. Not a flashy show of shallow shouts, but a quiet air of awe and reverence.

Standing there, holding hands with people who truly did not appear shaken, I felt something settle inside my own spirit. A calming, a peace.

It began when I found my way to worship. It continued as Mother Jefferson, sitting outside the circle, in a padded chair, quietly began quoting the entire sixty-second Psalm.

Like a parched tongue finding spring water in the desert, something inside of me lapped up the sacred words. Like finding food for my empty stomach, I absorbed the message and found solace for my weary way.

Pain. Betrayal.

Power and justice.

Salvation and defense.

Waiting.

And hope.

All in those words.

“Thank you, Lord.” I joined the quiet chorus of praise around me. Yes, I was supposed to be there. I had not realized how much my soul needed reassurance.

Inner relief was not the only reason I was there, however. I quickly marveled even more at God's purpose and timing after the prayer and praise died down. The mood in the room had gone from reflection to business. While I had been welcomed to join along with the prayer, I knew I was not going to get an invitation to the planning session. Indeed, the only reason I had not been kicked out so far, I concluded, was that Mother Jefferson had been nodding her head at the bishop about me since I first stumbled into the room.

The right person at the right time.

And then the right information.

As I headed toward a door that would take me to the main corridor, I noticed a stack of colorful brochures listing all the church's ministries. I picked one up and read through it as I entered the administrative wing of the church, which was located right next door to the pastor's conference room.

“Can I help you, ma'am?” A middle-aged woman wearing square black eyeglasses smiled at me from behind a large round desk.

“Yes,” I said confidently so as not to raise suspicion. “I was looking through your list of ministries, and I had a question about the Second Chance substance abuse program led by Brother Horace Monroe.” I squinted down at the brochure, as if trying to make out the tiny print. “That ministry seems to be doing a lot of good work in the community. Do you know if they get grants or any other financial support from outside the church to run their sessions and activities?” I blinked innocently.

“Um, not to my knowledge.” The woman shook her head. “For the most part, all our ministries get funded directly out of the church's budget. On occasion, and with the pastor's approval, some special events or programs receive help from outside businesses or community organizations.”

“Would Second Chance ever have events that would fall into that category?”

“I guess it's possible,” she said, nodding, “especially with the type of work they do. I could see an outside agency collaborating with them from time to time, particularly for community outreach events that a government or local agency could get involved in to offer additional supportive services. There are too many people on drugs in this city, and the mayor always supports the church in our efforts to get those numbers down, those lives healed.”

I liked the woman for her obvious optimism, her professionalism—and for not asking why I wanted all this information. I decided to ensure that the question would not even arise.

“Thanks for sharing all this with me. I'm a social worker, so sometimes I come across people or businesses that are looking to partner with programs such as those initiated by Second Chance. What would need to be done for a potential donor to offer help to this particular ministry?”

She looked at me with a sympathetic eye. I wondered if a loved one of hers battled a substance abuse problem. With the high rates of drug use in the city, as she'd correctly noted, it was highly unlikely that her life had been untouched.

“Here, let me pull that file, and I can give you the leader's contact information. I'm sure that he would be able to fill you in on that process, as I do not know the specifics.”

She reached for a file cabinet behind her and shuffled through several papers before nodding her head and pulling out a thin manila folder.

“Hmmm, that's odd.” She wrinkled up her face.

“What's that?” I tried not to look too eager to see what it was that had her narrowing her eyes in confusion.

“This is the folder for Second Chance Ministry, but it looks like it was emptied. There's nothing in here.” She held it up for me to see, but as she did so, a small paper fell out and landed next to her desk. She did not notice it, but I did.

“What is that?” I pointed to the rectangular scrap.

“Oh, this came out of there?” She picked it up and squinted down at the tiny print. “It's a business card. Not really sure what this has to do with Second Chance. Must have fallen into the folder by accident.”

She held out the card for me to see, and it took all I had to keep from snatching it out of her hand.

“Can I hold on to that?” I did my best to sound calm, despite my heart's sudden race to the finish line. “I might be able to find a use for it.”

“Sure.” She passed the card to me. “I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help.”

“Oh, you've been plenty.” I could barely hold in my excitement at this new bit of revelatory information that had literally been placed into my hand.

I tucked the card into my purse and headed toward the learning and resource wing of the mega-church building. There was a computer lab somewhere over there, and I needed an Internet connection.

I smiled at the name of the business printed across the card and the slogan underneath:
From desolation to renovation, we turn shambles into treasures!
A scripture reference was underneath the slogan. Isaiah 54:11–12. I grabbed a nearby Bible and looked it up. Parts of the verses jumped right out at me.

The names of the jewels could not be a mere coincidence. I smiled, turning to the computer in front of me. A sign on the door stated that a computer literacy class would be starting in ten minutes, so I needed to hurry.

An e-mail address was the only contact information listed on the card. I knew sending an e-mail would probably serve no purpose, so I pecked the name of the company into the keyboard to do a search and waited for the results to show.

Nothing.

No Web site link, no address, no telephone number for a company with that name showed up anywhere in my search results.

I tried spelling out the word
company,
including the words
Baltimore, Monroe,
and even
Diamond,
for good measure.

Still nothing.

I took out my notes, which I had been carrying with me for the past couple of days. Dayquon's list of his sisters' names was on top, as I had been checking off the ones I'd found so far that morning. I typed in all their last names as a single search and added the word
homes
to see if anything would come up.

Still no information about the business.

But what did come up caught my attention just as much.

Entering the names of the various gems and stones making up the sisters' last names brought up multiple links to Web sites listing birthstones.

“Could it be?” I pulled up a site with a list of modern birthstones and double-checked the list of names and birth dates Dayquon had given me.

Sure enough! Each sister's last name coincided with her birthstone month. I wanted to absorb that new bit of information so I could try to figure out the significance of it, but I had only five minutes left before the computer literacy class was to begin. Indeed, the first of the attendees, a woman who reminded me of one of my great-aunts, strolled in.

“You the teacher?” she grunted, rolling toward me with her wheeled walker.

“No. I'll be out of here in a second.” I did not have time to get into any conversations. Thankfully, the older woman didn't seem interested. She found a computer in a row behind me and collapsed into her chair with a loud grunt.

Lord, you've got to give me some direction.
I had only three minutes left, and more class attendees were trickling in.

Then an idea.

I went to a government Web site for the state of Maryland and found a search engine that looked up business trade names. Typing as fast as I could, I entered in the name of the home rehab business and waited for the results to appear.

One did.

Cambridge, Maryland? I tried to place the city's name and then remembered it was a small city in Dorchester County, on Maryland's Eastern Shore. There was a small museum there celebrating Harriet Tubman, the famous Underground Railroad conductor, who had been born in that area. Visiting the museum had been on my list of things to do before Roman got too grown for me.

But at the moment the fact that the business address was on the Eastern Shore spoke volumes to me. I vaguely remembered the Monroes' neighbor, Everett Worthy, saying that Horace Monroe had family there, or something like that. A P.O. Box was not a physical address, I knew. I also knew that some people kept P.O. Boxes as a way of keeping their street addresses hidden.

What are you hiding, Monroes? Or rather,
who
are you hiding?
I'd found all but one of Dayonna's known sisters in the Monroes' former residences, rehabbed and renewed. I felt like I was close to some answers, but there were many other questions out there.

“Welcome, everybody.” A woman wearing a black business suit and a simple long ponytail came to the front of the room, a clipboard and laptop in hand. “I am Sister King, and we'll be starting our computer literacy class in a moment.”

Four or five other people had taken seats in the minutes I'd been researching Cambridge. A thousand questions more or not, I knew it was time for me to head to my next destination.

There were two more previous addresses from the Monroes' file.