“I’m fine. Really, I am.”
“No, you’re not. You’ve lost weight. And you don’t look like you’re sleeping very much.”
Grace came back and sat. She watched Samuel wrestling the red ball into submission. “I don’t want to do anything that’s going to hurt Samuel.”
“Like introducing a man into his life who may not be the marrying kind.”
“Precisely.”
Aunt Elizabeth didn’t say anything for a long time. Samuel sat and rubbed his eyes. Grace got up and went to him. Lifting him, she hugged him close. “Nap time, little man.” Aunt Elizabeth followed Grace inside and stayed in the kitchen to wash the few dishes. Grace sat in the living room rocker, Samuel snuggled in her lap, his head resting against her chest. She loved this time of day, loved the feel of his little body loosening and warming in her arms as he fell asleep.
“He looks like an angel.” Aunt Elizabeth sat on the couch. “You’re a good mother, Grace.”
“I’m trying my hardest.”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s better to leave things as they are.”
Grace wanted to believe that.
Roman slept for a few hours and left around noon to drive up the Pacific Coast Highway. He needed time to think before he arrived in San Francisco. When he reached the city, he didn’t check into a hotel on Nob Hill or downtown, though he could easily afford either. He went to the Phoenix in the old hood. A last-minute cancellation had opened up a room. He took that as a sign God was with him.
Still wide-awake after midnight, he decided to take a stroll down memory lane. Nighttime had been playtime when he was a teen. Shrugging into his leather bomber jacket, Roman went for a walk through the Tenderloin.
It hadn’t improved much. The homeless population had grown. Trash still spilled over cans and alley Dumpsters. New graffiti marked walls. Some tough-looking kids came down the sidewalk toward him. Roman took his hands from his jacket pockets and stared the leader in the eye. The group passed by without a word, two looking back at him. Roman kept going until he came to the overpass where White Boy died. He looked up at the concrete arch, letting himself think about his erstwhile friend, and made peace with the place before he walked on.
The apartment house where he’d lived with his mother looked the same. The right kind of graffiti would improve the place. The third-story window was dark. How many hours had he spent looking out and waiting for his mother to come home?
You know I love you, baby. I always come back, don’t I?
The nightclub where she worked had a new name, but was still in business. Sleazy music oozed out the front door. Steeling himself, he went inside, but got no further than a podium occupied by a middle-aged man in a cheap suit. “Twenty bucks will get you inside.” The man looked Roman over. “A hundred will get you more.” Roman didn’t take out his wallet. The smell of booze hung in the place, and one glimpse of an expressionless girl gyrating on the stage turned his stomach. A man at a table by the stage stood and tucked money in her G-string. Roman went back outside.
Gulping cold, moist coastal air, he walked away.
He spent another two hours wandering the streets, thinking about his mother. Be honest. Look to Me. Understanding bubbled to the surface. He’d loved his mother. And hated her—for what she did to make a living, for leaving that night, for breaking her promise. He’d never wanted to admit those feelings, but now he felt them like an open wound that still bled and left him raw with pain. He knew what God wanted him to do—to confess what he’d kept locked inside for so many years.
I am the Healer.
Instead of the shame Roman expected, he felt the old pain soften into understanding. His mother had been a child when she got pregnant and gave birth to him, barely an adult when she died. To his knowledge, she never had friends or family to help her. She’d been abandoned long before he came along. Whatever the circumstances, Roman knew something else. She hadn’t thrown him away. She kept him close. She loved him.
Still walking, Roman suddenly remembered the landlord in the apartment building talking with the stranger who’d grabbed him. What had he said? It all came back, as if it played out in front of him. The man had given the landlord a wad of money and then followed Bobby Ray up the stairs. You’re coming with me. Bobby Ray had fought, instinctively sensing something wrong, terribly wrong. The would-be abductor started carrying him down the stairs. Then Bobby Ray’s second-grade teacher had shown up with a police officer. The man let go of him and disappeared like a rat down a hole.