Sins of the Mother (33 page)

As long as Jacquie is gone.

With a final look at the picture, she stood and then took slow steps across her bedroom. She paused at the threshold and turned when she heard Zaya’s giggles.

Moments later, when her son spotted her standing at the edge of the kitchen, he screamed, “Love Mama!” Kicking and waving, he was filled with the excitement that came from seeing his mother for the first time in days.

But when Jasmine turned to Mrs. Sloss, the nanny’s face held more fear than enthusiasm.

“Ms. Jasmine, you’re not supposed to be up.” Her eyes were wide, as if she were looking at a walking ghost, and Jasmine wondered what Hosea had told her.

She swatted Mrs. Sloss’s words away and picked up Zaya from his chair. “I’m fine, Mrs. Sloss,” she said, though the unsteadiness of her legs made her return her son to his seat.

“But Mr. Hosea told me to make sure that you were resting comfortably.” Mrs. Sloss’s forehead was packed with creases. “I need to call him.”

Before she could reach for the phone, Jasmine said, “Don’t do that. I told you, I’m fine. Where’s Hosea anyway? Did he go to work?”

“I don’t think so.” Mrs. Sloss shook her head. “He’s been home with you every day.”

Every day? How many days?

The nanny continued, “But this morning, he got a phone call. Then he dressed fast and left.”

As Jasmine stroked Zaya’s head, she asked, “Was the call . . . about Jacquie?” She wondered if Detective Cohen had dragged Hosea once again to the station. More questions about her, no doubt.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so, because all he said was to call him if anything happened to you.”

The thought of Hosea once again with Detective Cohen made her weary, and all Jasmine wanted to do was crawl back into bed, return to the darkness, and sleep until . . . 

She kissed her son’s forehead and turned away. But before she got to the archway, Zaya called out to her.

“Bye-bye, Mama!” he shouted. “Bye-bye,” he said over and over.

She glanced back at him, her little boy filled with glee, clapping, laughing; there were no cares in his world. When he saw
her still standing there, he screamed, “Bye-bye, Mama,” as if now he was dismissing her.

She remembered the days when he would cry when she left the room, but not anymore. After just a couple of weeks, he was so used to her being away that her presence in his life was no longer needed.

Her eyes teared with that thought—and she was filled with a new fear: she’d lost her daughter, was she losing her son now, too?

“Mrs. Sloss,” she began, her voice raised a bit because Zaya was still shouting his demands for her to go away. “I’m going to go out for a little while.”

“Ms. Jasmine, you can’t! You have to rest . . . and eat.”

But Jasmine was already halfway to her bedroom. She had no doubt that Mrs. Sloss would get right on the phone, call Hosea, and tell on her. She had to move quickly. She had to be gone by the time Hosea made his way home, before he rammed into their apartment and demanded that she return to bed and talk to the psychiatrist.

Well, she would rest, and she would talk to Dr. Howard . . . later. But right now, she had to do something more important. Right now, she had to save her life.

And there was only one person she knew who could help her with that.

J
ASMINE ASKED THE DRIVER TO
stop directly in front. She didn’t want to take the chance of anyone seeing her through the side windows; her plan was to get in, get out, do this by herself.

Using her key, she opened the heavy double doors of City of Lights at Riverside Church. The three-thousand-seat sanctuary was without artificial light, brightened only by the sunbeams that pressed through the oversize, stained-glass windows.

Without the sounds of praise or the prayers of the congregants, her heels echoed against the stone floor of the grand room, then quieted as she stepped onto the carpeted section. Slowly, she walked forward toward the altar, feeling as if she should say some kind of prayer, as if she should ask God for permission to step to His throne.

This had not been her original plan. She’d come to the church to talk to Reverend Bush because he was the only one who always had the right answers for her. There had never been a time when her father-in-law had let her down, and she prayed that he could help her now.

But as she rode in the taxi, she had another idea. She’d also gone to God before. Maybe it was time to turn to Him again.

She paused at the front pew, then lowered herself onto the bench. She was sitting in her favorite place . . . the first seat in the first row. The seat of honor that had been reserved every Sunday for Lady Jasmine.

Without parishioners, the vast room was overwhelming, awe-inspiring, almost too much for one person to sit in alone. But she’d come to this space once before by herself. And on that day, she’d found the peace she was looking for. Today, though, she was seeking something else.

She’d heard Hosea say it. And her father-in-law and countless others . . . they all spoke about how God talked to them. Reverend Bush had even once said that prayer was not a monologue, but a dialogue, as if prayer was supposed to be some kind of conversation with a being you could not see.

Well, she’d done her share of praying, but not once had God ever taken the time to speak back.

So that’s what she needed today, for Him to straight up talk to her. He needed to rain down His wisdom from heaven and tell her a few things. Like whether Jacqueline would come home. And He needed to tell her how to get herself together so that she wouldn’t lose Zaya in this process. She had so many questions; she needed some holy answers.

She gazed upon the golden cross that hung behind the altar. She felt like she was in the center of silence, except for the faint hum of traffic as cars whizzed by on Riverside Drive.

Once she was ready, Jasmine closed her eyes and whispered, “Okay, Lord. Speak.” And then, she sat and waited.

Minutes passed, and she waited some more.

Nothing.

More minutes.

More nothing.

Jasmine rose from the pew, walked slowly toward the altar. She wasn’t really sure how to do this; maybe He wanted her to talk first.

She lowered herself onto the kneeling bench and looked up at the cross. Then she bowed her head and closed her eyes. “Lord, you have finally brought me to my knees.”

She paused and wondered why she’d said that. Surely, she had been on her knees before—a lot! How many times had she prayed to God to get her out of one crisis or another?

But today felt different. Like this really was the first time that she was bowing down. She pondered that thought and then it came to her—today
was
different.

In the past, she’d knelt on her knees, even closed her eyes and lowered her head.

But today she was bowing her heart.

For the first time.

So she began again. “Lord, I come to you, truly on my knees, but I don’t even know what to say. I’m just gonna talk to you real, ’cause my husband says that’s how you like it. And I read someplace in the Bible where you said that anybody could just come boldly to you—so here I am, Lord. Scared. Hurt. So, so sad.” She stopped because she thought this would be a good place for God to talk—to say something like He would take all her pain away. But when she didn’t hear anything, she kept on. “I don’t really know how to do this, so I’m just gonna start at the beginning.” A breath. “I’ve done so many things wrong. First, I . . .” She stopped. Did she really have to give God a litany of her past sins? If she did that, she’d be on her knees for days, and surely, He knew it all. He probably had notes that could fill volumes. Her entire life had been riddled with schemes and lies. And truthfully, she hadn’t done much better in her marriage.

But she and Hosea had made it through every single thing.

Until this.

Why this?

She waited and waited for God to answer that question. And then . . . it hit her.

Jasmine looked up at the cross that was blurred by her tears. “Lord, is that what this is about? Is this because of the dozens”—she paused and swallowed—“the thousands, maybe even millions, of sins I’ve committed? Please, Father, please don’t make my daughter pay. Please don’t let this be about the sins of the mother. Please forgive me for every single lie, every single manipulation, every infidelity, and all of that adultery. Lord, please, if a life has to be taken, let it be mine. I’m willing, but I don’t want my daughter to suffer because of me.”

She sobbed. “Please, God, talk to me,” she whispered. “Am I the reason my daughter is gone?”

Even when she felt the cushion on the bench shift a little, she didn’t open her eyes. She could feel another presence close, but if it wasn’t God kneeling next to her, then she wasn’t interested. She was going to keep her head bowed and stay right in that place until God talked to her.

Then, “You know,” the deep voice began, “it’s better to know God than to know answers.”

She lifted her head—he wasn’t the Lord, but he was the next best thing. She wiped her face dry as she turned to her father-in-law. She said, “But I need the answers. If He would just give them to me, then maybe I’d be able to go on.”

Reverend Bush reached for her hand, pulled her up, and together they sat on the front pew. Together they stared at the golden cross.

“I’m glad to see you up,” Reverend Bush said, his eyes still on the altar. “I’ve been quite concerned about you.”

“I’m fine, really.”

He nodded. “That’s what I thought when Hosea called me on Sunday. But then I stopped by on Monday, and again
yesterday . . . and you were still asleep.” He shook his head. “I wasn’t so sure anymore.”

Inside, she counted.
Three days?
Had she really slept that long? She said, “I guess I was just tired.” She leaned her head back and blinked rapidly, as if that would stop the fresh tears she felt coming to her eyes. “And sleep helps.”

“I understand.”

“But I don’t want to sleep anymore, and so I need God to explain this to me. I need Him to tell me why He let this happen and why He hasn’t brought Jacquie home. That’s why I came here . . . so that He could talk to me.”

Reverend Bush patted her hand like she was a child. “You could’ve stayed home for that, sweetheart. He was right there with you. You’ve got to know that He’s always with you.”

She shook her head. She loved her father-in-law, but sometimes he went into his Christian cliché mode, quoting phrases and scriptures that didn’t have a thing to do with her life. Like what he just said—God couldn’t have been with her all the time. If He’d been there, Jacqueline would never have been taken.

But then . . . maybe Reverend Bush was right. What if God was always there, with the ones He loved?

“Maybe God doesn’t love me,” Jasmine said, thinking of her history. After all those lies and schemes she could hardly love herself.

Without looking at her, Reverend Bush said, “Oh, He loves you. More than you know and more than you could ever understand. You can’t even begin to count the ways, His ways.”

Jasmine released a sigh. “That’s what I’ve always wanted to believe, but I was just thinking about all the things I’ve done.”

He nodded, just a little. “Well, you have been way out there, Jasmine.”

Dang!
That was not what she’d expected him to say. What did he mean by that?

Then he turned a little and looked at her, and she knew what he meant—he was referring to her life as a stripper.

This was something they’d never discussed—he had commissioned a report on her from a private investigator before she and Hosea had married. Until this moment, she’d never been sure whether he’d read the whole report. It had been mailed to Reverend Bush right before he had been shot, and then he had remained comatose for months.

Now she knew . . . he knew. As if everything else she was going through wasn’t bad enough.

Glancing away from her, he said, “But you don’t have to worry about your past because that’s what grace and mercy are all about. There’s not one of us walking this earth who can claim a sinless life. We’re just blessed to be able to say that we have a forgiven life.”

Forgiven.
Her husband and his father had forgiven her for so much. But had God? “Maybe that’s it—maybe He hasn’t forgiven me.”

“If you’ve asked Him to, He has. He’s not even thinking about all those sins that
you’re
still counting in your head.” His eyes stayed on the cross. “I know you think that what you and Hosea and Jacquie”—he stopped and swallowed, as if her name was tough to say—“are going through has something to do with your past, but you’ve got to realize that pain is not always punishment, and suffering is not always because of sin.” He paused again, as if he wanted Jasmine to soak in that understanding. “But both of them—pain and suffering—will drive you to a place that’s beyond a superficial relationship with God. Both will drive you straight to His heart.”

“His heart and your knees.”

His chuckle was light. “That, too.” A pause. “You’ve come a long way, Jasmine. Your faith has been stretched and strengthened.”

“I’m not strong,” she said, the memories of the last nineteen days were so fresh. There was not a single moment since Jacqueline had been abducted when she could claim that she’d been strong. She was much more the opposite.

Especially when it came to Brian.

Just thinking his name made her groan inside. She remembered the kiss and cringed with mortification.

After silent minutes, she turned her entire body to face the man she’d once hoped would be her lover but now was the man she loved so dearly as her father. “Do you think she’ll come home?”

He waited a moment, then, “You want the truth?”

Her glance shifted back to the altar, then when she looked at him again, he smiled.

“All right,” he said. After a breath, “I don’t know. My fervent prayer is that my granddaughter comes home, but I just don’t know.” Now he turned so that the two were face-to-face. “But here’s what I
do
know. I know God is God. He’s beyond good. His grace is sufficient and His mercy . . .” Reverend Bush dipped his head a bit, held up his hand as if he was about to testify. “Thank Him for His grace, but thank Him even more for His mercy.”