Losing Hope (32 page)

Tomeeka had highlighted and hyperlinked the phrase “a link to the newspaper article can be found at this Web site,” letting me know that I could click on it to get right to the picture.

My heart rolled like thunder in me as I clicked on the mouse one last time, with my eyes closed.

I did not want to open my eyes until I knew that I was ready to see what I knew had to be a photo of my husband, RiChard Alain St. James. The words
found unconscious in a hotel room
spun around in my head like a topsy-turvy spinning top. I did not want to imagine RiChard crumpled up on the floor of a room in a foreign land. I could still see him as I did the first time, when he was shouting “Revolution!” from the steps of the student union on campus. He was the color of chocolate-laced vanilla, his hair a wind-blown mop of gleaming black curls, his smile easy, his eyes a beautiful shade of brilliant green.

I smiled and finally opened my eyes and nearly jumped out of my seat, as if I'd just seen a ghost.

In a way, I had.

A man with skin as dark as night and a spirit as bright as day filled the computer screen.

Not RiChard.

“What is he still doing alive?” I tried to make sense out of senselessness. I had seen the blood on RiChard's hands myself when he'd avenged his violent death fifteen years ago.

Or at least that was what RiChard had said at the time.

But there he was, though in an unconscious state in the picture, alive and in Portugal, at least a couple of weeks ago, and taking up the monitor's space.

Kisu.

I took the lion's head ring back out of Roman's homemade gift bag and laid it on the small desk. The jewels sparkled even in the dim light of the basement. Several minutes passed as I stared at it.

“RiChard, wherever you are, this side or the next, I wish you well. There are answers out there somewhere, but I'm tired of chasing after them. I know only what you have let me know.”

I could try to seek out Kisu. I could even try to see if there was a way to connect with RiChard's international family. Luca, the young model from the Portuguese class, had ties to Perugia, RiChard's mother's hometown, I recalled.

I could try to seek and search out and push forward until all stones had been unturned. But the path to answers looked unending.

And I was tired.

My father kept a safe in the back of the basement, where the most valuable pieces of his sports collection were stored. I had a fleeting memory that the combination was either my or Yvette's birth date. I tried both, and the lock gave way. I pushed the large ring as far back into the safe as I could, plunging my hand deep into the plush red velvet interior.

My fingers lingered on the cold metal a few seconds before I did what I now knew I had the strength to do.

I let go.

For now.

Leslie J. Sherrod is the author of
Like Sheep Gone Astray
(Grand Central Publishing, 2006) and
Secret Place
(Urban Christian/Kensington, 2011). She is also a contributor to the
A Cup of Comfort
(Adams Media) devotional series and the short story anthology
But, Yet, Still
(Plenary Publishing, 2012). A social worker providing therapy to children and families, Leslie resides in Baltimore, Maryland, with her husband and three children.

 

 

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Losing Hope: Book One of the Sienna St. James Series

Copyright © 2012 Leslie J. Sherrod

 

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ISBN: 978-1-6016-2729-2

 

 

 

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