A Sad Soul Can Kill You

by Catherine Flowers

  Serenity went upstairs to her bedroom and sat by the window facing the fenced in backyard. She tried to visualize the landscaping below that had been made invisible by a sheet of crystallized snow. Fallen acorns from the ominous-looking oak tree formed a haphazard pattern on top of the frozen snow and the trees’ branches hung low from the weight of the thick ice that encased them.

  Bushes struggled to maintain an upright position under the weight of the icy burden, and a mound of snow covered the bench that sat in the center of the yard. Serenity noticed a display of small animal prints decorating the surface of the snow-covered bench.

  Suddenly, several squirrels began ducking in and out of the many nooks and crannies of the timeworn trunk. As cold as it was, they didn’t seem to be affected by the single-digit temperatures at all as they continued their fast-paced game of hide-and-seek. After a few minutes, all but one of the squirrels had disappeared.

  The last squirrel continued darting in and out of one of the trunk’s crevices until Serenity tapped on the window; then it crawled down to the bottom of the tree and stopped.

  She thought about how she’d almost knocked over the lamp at Cookie’s house, and the comment Cookie had made. Her mind pictured the look of disgust her mother gave her every time she knocked something over and it broke. Another sting. And lately, she’d noticed that same look on her father’s face, even when she hadn’t stumbled over anything, even when nothing had shattered to pieces.

  Serenity realized she was squeezing the fashion magazine she’d gotten from Cookie in her hand. She turned from the window, smoothed out the wrinkled pages, and opened the magazine to the page that had captured her attention earlier.

  She discovered that a modeling agency was looking for girls between the ages of thirteen and eighteen years old to model the upcoming fashions for spring. Local auditions were going to be held at the Brookridge Mall on the first Sunday in March.

  Her heart began to race. That was only three weeks away. This could be her chance to prove everyone wrong, to silence the jokes that Cookie made, and erase the looks of disapproval from her parents’ faces. She would do it. She would go down to the mall and audition.

  Her only prayer was that her mother would not stand in her way. She looked out the window once more, and the last squirrel was nowhere to be found.

  Chapter Twelve

  Tia left the sanctuary quickly after Bible Study was over. Not only was she still agitated with Lorenzo, but she was upset with Serenity for not coming home in time for church.

  The frozen snow on the ground crunched and flattened under the weight of her car. She was driving too fast as she approached the sharp corner ahead of her. She put her foot on the brakes, and her car spun halfway around, leaving her facing the opposite direction of traffic. She heard the honking of a car horn as the driver behind her slowly maneuvered his way around her vehicle.

  After making sure there were no other cars approaching, Tia put the car in reverse and slowly turned the car back around, being careful not to apply too much pressure to the brakes. It took her almost thirty minutes to get home—longer than she had planned. She was relieved when she finally drove her car into the garage.

  After turning off the engine, she picked up her Bible and ran her fingers over the clear rhinestones that decorated the pale pink cover. She sighed, knowing her relief would be short-lived and would be replaced with agitation once she went into the house.

  She got out of the car and entered the house through the side door. She walked past Lorenzo who appeared to be sleeping on the couch as Catch came running up to her. She stopped to give the dog several quick pats on the back.

  Suddenly, Lorenzo sat up on the couch. “How was church?” he asked.

  You’d know how it was if you’d been there. “Fine,” she said. “You should have come.” He chuckled as he resumed his position on the couch.

  Just then, Tia heard Serenity coming down the back stairs. Seconds later, they were face to face.

  “Where have you been?” Tia asked sternly.

  “I was at Cookie’s house,” Serenity answered.

  “Didn’t I tell you to be home in time for church?”

  Serenity was silent.

  “Do you hear me talking to you?”

  “Yeah,” she answered defiantly.

  “And what were you doing at Cookie’s house? Didn’t you tell me you had to go to the library?”

  Serenity lowered her head. “Yes.”

  “So you lied.”

  “No. I was gonna go, but we changed our mind. I did my research on Cookie’s computer.”

  “If that’s true,” Tia said, “that still doesn’t excuse you from not getting home in time for Bible Study. I’m sick of this mess!” she yelled. “Every time I turn around, it’s one thing or another. You do that again,” she said, pointing her finger at Serenity, “and you won’t be going anywhere for the next month!” She moved in closer to Serenity. Her breathing came rapidly. “Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes,” Serenity whispered.

  “You lucky I don’t whip your butt!” Tia said as she stormed upstairs to her bedroom.

  Tia slammed the door behind her and sat on the edge of her bed. She stared at the slender bronze cross hanging on the wall in front of her. A pair of hands had been placed together in the center of the cross to represent prayer. A feeling of defeat crept into her soul.

  Nothing was going right. Her husband had no desire for her in any capacity, her daughter had resorted to lying to her in order to get out of going to Bible Study, and she was still dealing with this ongoing battle, a struggle between her soul and her flesh. She didn’t want to feel the way she felt about the other man, but it was hard not to when her husband didn’t want anything to do with her physically or in any other way.

  She closed her bedroom door and picked up her phone. She entered Scamp’s number into her phone; then changed her mind and quickly disconnected the call. She rubbed her forehead as a scripture from the book of Ecclesiastes came to her mind:

  “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”

  Nothing new. She sighed. The only thing new was the person, time, and place.

  She opened her Bible to a random page and started reading. It was a verse from Romans, Chapter 6. “For the wages of sin is death; . . .” She stopped reading. Such a high price to pay for her discontentment.

  She flipped through several pages and stopped in the book of 1 Corinthians, Chapter 10. She had highlighted verse 13:

  “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”

  Hadn’t God delivered her countless times before?

  More turning of the pages landed her on a verse in James, Chapter 4. “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

  She closed her Bible and looked up at the cross. It seemed as though every scripture she’d randomly chosen had a message pertaining specifically to what she was going through. Then there had been the message she’d heard at church earlier. She knew she needed to submit herself to God. He was the answer. Not another man. She closed her eyes and lowered her head.

  “Father, forgive me of my sins,” she whispered. “Purify my heart and renew my spirit.” She clasped her hands together. “Give me the strength to resist ungodly temptations, Lord, especially the physical ones.

  “Lord, if You will, take all sexual desires away from me . . . at least for a time. At least until You restore Lorenzo back to me,” she prayed.

  “Strengthen me, Father. Renew a right spirit in me and in Lorenzo. Restore him back to You and to me. Keep Serenity safe from all harm, Father. And please . . . touch her heart so that she might have a desire to know You, Lord.”

  She paused for a moment. “I need You, Lord.” She cried out softly
. “I need You. Let Your will be done in me. In the name of Jesus I pray. Amen.”

  She raised her head, wiped the tears from her eyes, and went downstairs to warm up the beef ribs Lorenzo had baked earlier.

  It was Thursday morning as Tia entered the small nurse’s lounge at the hospital.

  “Looks like somebody had a rough night,” Janelle, the third-shift nurse, said as she prepared to give Tia a full report on the sixteen patients she would be caring for.

  “I just didn’t sleep well,” Tia said. And it was the truth. How could she sleep with all the turmoil going on in her house? She had tossed and turned all night, unsettled by the confrontations she’d had with Lorenzo and Serenity.

  Janelle gave her an update on all of the patients she would be caring for except Francis, the patient in room 523 whom she’d just cared for yesterday.

  “What about the patient in room 523?” Tia asked pouring herself a cup of coffee. “Franny, I mean Francis Woodard?”

  “Oh, the nurse on duty after you left yesterday had to call a code on her,” Janelle said nonchalantly. “She’s been transferred to ICU.”

  “She was just admitted to our floor yesterday in stable condition,” Tia said surprised.

  “I know,” her colleague agreed. “When I got here last night, they told me that the nursing assistant went in to get her vitals, and she saw her lying in bed with her eyes closed and one hand on top of the phone. The nursing assistant said she called her name several times, but she was unresponsive. So she got the nurse and they called it.”

  Tia took a sip of coffee. “Wow. That’s two codes in one day.”

  “Yeah,” Janelle said. “I heard about the patient across the hall.”

  “Uh-huh,” Tia said. “It happened as soon as I started my shift. You know, they say these patients are stable enough to be moved up here, but it doesn’t seem like it for some of them, does it?”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “So what was it with Ms. Woodard?” Tia asked. “A heart attack?”

  “You guessed it.”

  Tia shook her head. “Her vitals were stable all day on my shift. Her lungs were a little congested, and her heartbeat was irregular, but that was nothing new according to her records.”

  “I know,” Janelle agreed. “She came up that way. And it looked like she was getting better. But I guess she took a turn for the worse.”

  “That’s too bad,” Tia said, “She seemed a little sad too. When I was in her room, I asked her if she was ready to go home, and she didn’t answer.” Tia stared off into space remembering the conversation. “I thought that was a little strange. You know, most people can’t wait to get back home.”

  “I know. Wasn’t she married?”

  “I don’t think so.” Tia stood up and clipped her papers to her clipboard.

  “Well, she must not have any family at all because there weren’t any emergency contact numbers in her records,” Janelle said.

  Tia walked toward the door. “I guess that’s not too surprising,” she remarked. “I remember her telling me that she had a son she hadn’t seen in a while.” She put her hand on the doorknob, then stopped. A fleeting memory of the length of time she’d been separated from her own mother came to her mind. “I hope she and her son reconcile before it’s too late,” she said softly as she opened the door and walked out.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It really didn’t matter that it was Thursday. For Homer, all of his days—Monday to Friday—were the same. Every morning between 8:30 and 8:45 a.m., he arrived at his accounting job.

  He limped down the hallway, passing a multitude of tight and sterile smiles similar to his before entering the 1,200 square foot office that he shared with nine other employees. To make matters worse, the supervisor insisted on keeping the door closed, forcing Homer to endure a stifling and perfumed-filled modern-day tomb.

  “Good morning,” Leslie, his coworker, said with a fake smile pasted on her face.

  Homer barely moved his lips. “Morning,” he said as he passed by.

  He sat down at his desk and turned on his computer. Didn’t she know he could see through that fake smile of hers? He saw right through it just like he’d been able to see through the smiles of the girls he’d gone to high school and college with. Back then, when he’d asked a girl out on a date, they would politely turn him down with a smile on their face just like hers.

  He unlocked his desk drawer and pulled out a stack of papers he’d partially completed the night before. He thought about the rest of his coworkers and their tight expressions. It was difficult enough for him to open his mouth and say hello, and he wondered how they managed to do it. Not that he wanted them to. He would have been quite happy if they had remained silent. But they never did.

  When Natalie, their supervisor arrived, the tightlipped women transformed themselves into a group of hyenas, laughing at the silly story Natalie was telling them about her two-year-old son’s attempt to put his right shoe on his left foot. This created such a wave of laughter that Homer, thinking about his own deformed left foot, almost got up and left the office.

  The cackles dwindled down to snickers, and Homer looked up to see Natalie’s amazon-like frame standing in front of his desk. Whatever comments she’d made after talking about her two-year-old’s fiasco, he hadn’t heard. But even if he had, he would not have laughed. He never laughed at anything she said.

  He was not there to be entertained by Natalie. Besides, not only were the things she said humorless, some of them weren’t lady-like either. But what could he expect? She was just like his mother who, in his opinion, was also not a lady, but a failing imitation of one. He stood up. With her shoes on, Natalie towered over Homer’s six foot frame.

  “Good morning, Homer,” she said. Her silver hair tumbled gently across her face as she reached for a stack of papers on his desk. “Are these the statistics for me?” She began flipping through the papers, and then handed them back to him.

  “Yes,” Homer said, looking at the sheets. His chest rose up and down heavily as he noticed the faint red marks from her fingernail polish staining the corners of each sheet. He couldn’t stand it when she did that. Wasn’t it enough that the polish was on her nails? Did she have to put some of it on his papers as well?

  “Natalie,” he spoke her name as if it were a command. “Do you think you can stop leaving all these red marks from your fingernail polish on my papers?”

  She stared at him for a few seconds before she spoke. “This is just a copy, right?”

  “No. It’s my original.”

  “Oh, well then you better start making copies,” she said. “Then you won’t have to worry about that.” She turned and walked briskly away from his desk.

  And you better watch how you speak to me, Homer thought as he stared at the back of her bouncing hair. Had she been like some of the girls he met online or almost twenty years younger, like his neighbor, she might have been his next quest. He wasn’t in high school or college anymore. Homer had been studying women, and he’d learned how to play the game—deformed foot and all. As a matter of fact, if the women in his department knew that he was now a conqueror, all of them would watch how they spoke to him.

  He heard someone snickering behind him. When he turned to look, everyone’s head was down. He wasn’t a fool. He knew they were just pretending to be writing or typing or doing anything other than what they had really been doing, which was listening to what the boss had just said to him.

  He turned his attention back to the stained papers. He sat down and began vigorously rubbing at the red marks left behind from her fingernails. They remained just as he knew they would. He opened his drawer and pulled out a bottle of liquid paper. That was females for you, he thought, young and old—always playing games.

  Just like the little fish he’d met online, pretending to be grown but who was really just a kid trying to play on both sides of the fence. He would be meeting her real soon, and he’d show her what being a grown-up
was all about. She was like a fish out of water and she didn’t even know it. He’d show her.

  He began applying tiny droplets of the white liquid fluid to every red mark he saw on his papers until there were no longer any stains visible to the human eye.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Shari kissed Tony good-bye, and then headed for her job at a nonprofit community resource agency. The Thursday morning commute had been backed up, and when she finally pulled her brown Pontiac into the parking lot of her job the time on the dashboard in her car read 8:05 a.m.

  She was already five minutes late as she began her ritual of driving up and down the twelve rows of parking spaces on the lot. She was hoping to snatch a parking spot close enough to the building so she would not have to park in the parking structure and walk what felt like half a mile just to get to work.

  She knew some employees coveted the parking structure because it protected their cars from the elements. Since it was only February, it was still pretty cold outside, and more snow could not be excluded from the coming days. But Shari didn’t care about that. By the time she got off at four-thirty, daylight would be just about gone, and her preference was to not have to walk a mile in semi-darkness just to get to a clean car.

  She found a parking space in the second row on the lot and shouted, “Thank you, Lord!” She grabbed her purse and her coffee mug, and got out of the older model vehicle. She walked through the front door of the maroon-colored brick building and showed her ID badge to the security guard on duty. Then she headed for the elevator that would take her to the second floor where her department was located.

  Her job was to provide information and referrals for various types of resources to people in low-income communities, and the majority of her day was spent listening and problem solving in order to determine which referral numbers would best benefit the person calling.

  She had accepted this position four years ago because it gave her the opportunity to do what she liked most—helping other people. And the bonus had been that she could get paid while doing it.