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That can’t be you?”
    “In the flesh,” JT said with a smile.
    “Well, I’ll be. I’ve wondered what happened
to you many times, but I never pictured you as a preacher. God is
good.”
    “Yeah, I figured that out.”
    “Well, I’ve got to get back to my other
patients, but it was nice seeing you,” Erica said as she turned to
walk out of the room.
    “It was nice seeing you again, Erica. I’ve
thought about you so much over the years,” he said before she was
out the door.
    “I’ve wondered about you too, so I’m glad I
got the chance to see you again. Since you know the Lord, may I
suggest you pray hard for this boy? He’s going to need Jesus to get
through the night.” She pointed a finger in the direction of the
hall and then said, “That girl who just died two doors down was
riding on his motorcycle without a helmet and her family is
fighting mad.”
    “I know. I just met the brother of the dead
girl,” JT said.
    Erica waved him off. “Just be glad the mother
didn’t come in here. She probably would have slit his throat before
I got a chance to ring the guard station.” She walked over to the
white board that was on the wall, erased a name and then wrote
hers. She turned back to JT and said, “I’ll be here the rest of the
night with Lamont.”
    “Lamont doesn’t appear to have any family
with him. So do you mind if I spend the night here to make sure he
doesn’t receive any more unwanted visitors?”
    “We’re posting a guard outside his door for a
few hours, but I’m okay with you staying.” She pointed to JT’s
Bible and said, “Why don’t you read to him. That might help him to
heal a bit better while he sleeps.”
    JT sat down and grabbed his Bible. But his
mind was playing too many tricks on him to read a word from the
Lord. Had he really just seen his first love after all these
years?

     
    Six
     
    “Girl, why are you running around here like a
Thanksgiving turkey being drug to the slaughter house?”
    Cassandra had invited her mother to spend the
night so that she would have help with the kids while JT was gone.
Big mistake. “What are you talking about, Mother?”
    They were in the kitchen. Cassandra was
washing the dinner dishes, while Mattie sat at the table drinking a
cup of bitter black coffee. She put the cup down and told
Cassandra, “Why don’t you wake up and see what everyone else can
see? You don’t want to be here. And who would? That no count
fornicator is God knows where, sleeping with God knows who, while
you’re left here to babysit his ill-gotten seed.”
    Cassandra cringed at the way her mother spoke
of her sweet baby girl. Because as far as Cassandra was concerned,
Lily was just as much a part of her as Jerome and Aaron were. There
were days when she wondered if Lily had anything to do with the
reason she was having panic attacks, but those questions quickly
fell away when she held the little girl in her arms. Nothing that
sweet could cause something so harmful.
    “I need you to stop talking about Lily like
that,” Cassandra said as she put the last dish in the strainer,
unplugged the sink and then sat down at the table across from
Mattie.
    “Oh, so you don’t allow no truth talking in
your house, is that it, Cassandra Ann? Just act like everything is
okay and then,” she lifted her arms in the air and quickly flared
her fisted hands and said, “poof, like magic everything will be as
it should.”
     
    “You need to respect the fact that I love my
husband and am-”
    “I don’t need to respect nothing,” Mattie
interrupted. “That fornicating husband of yours is the one who
needs to respect your love.”
    Cassandra slammed her hand on the table and
stood up. “He’s not cheating on me. Stop saying things like
that.”
    “Now look here, Cassandra Ann, I know you’re
not getting flip with me.” Mattie stood up with her hands on her
hips.
    “When you say things like this, it really
makes me wonder what Susan said about me when I was a