Hope Is Love

by Hubbard, Sylvia

  She was slightly off centered and overwhelmed by his body being over her, so the fact he wanted to speak about something “really important” all of a sudden, she came to the realization that he wanted to know something she didn’t want to give him.

  "What is it, James?" she asked warily. "What do you ask me that's very important to you?"

  "You had a baby?"

  In one moment she was slightly relieved, but in the next she was slightly upset. Jona sat up, pushing him slightly away so he settled down on his heels, but he never stopped watching her face. "What made you ask me that, James?"

  "Nicole said she checked into some things and found out you had been seen at that hospital in the emergency ward. It was undetermined about what really happened, but the reports were sure you were pregnant and had somehow gotten rid of the baby."

  Jona turned around to put her feet on the floor and look away from him to concentrate on the wall. Guilt over a lot of things always plagued her, but the guilt of the pregnancy and how everything had happened had been the worst for her. She had never really known if she had deserved everything that had happened and sometimes thought maybe it was all her fault.

  At least he didn't know about the ring, her conscious said. And you're not going to tell him about it. Once you get the reward, you can give him the pawn ticket.

  Hopefully his memory would come around within the next thirty days or she'd have to return the money with interest to get the ring back or end up losing it forever.

  "We all do some bad things, Hope, but even if people who care about us will forgive us for what we've done wrong, the first step in healing is to forgive ourselves."

  "You've done some bad things, James?" she asked without looking his way.

  "Pretty damn awful things, Hope."

  "And was it hard to forgive yourself?"

  "Yes, but I had too or I couldn't be the man in front of you today."

  Looking over at his shoulder. "What if the awful things hurt and killed people? Can you still forgive yourself?"

  James looked a little worried. "Does this have to do with the baby you killed?"

  "I don't know if it was my sins that killed it or my guilt. Either way, I know it died because of who I am."

  He took a deep breath and then moved beside her and took her hand. Opening her fingers, he pressed his lips in her palm tenderly. She closed her eyes to release in his touch. "No matter what you've done, Hope, I will forgive you and I will always care about you."

  She wanted to believe that, but she couldn't believe anything ever good would come to her. Not when she had done what she had done.

  Tell him, she conscious encouraged. Tell him the thing about the baby and since it's not as bad as the ring, he won't hate you so much when he finds that out.

  Jona took a deep breath and decided to tell him everything that had happened to her. If he told her to get out, at least she could get to her coat, live on the last three hundred dollars and go back to her way of life without missing the good life so much.

  Chapter 14

  Staring at the wall, too ashamed to look in his face, she began where she remembered everything had all started. "Last winter was one of the coldest Detroit had had. My fingers were numb to the bone and I had come down with the worst cold. I thought I was dying and I didn't know where to go. Somebody suggested I go to this guy who was a street doctor and he'd helped me." In embarrassment, she admitted, "And in return paying him for making me well, David asked for me to be his woman. I didn't agree until we both got checked out and I did it because I knew if I went back in that cold, I'd die." Folding her arms over her chest, feeling the guilt of exchanging sex for a place to stay. "I know you think it's foul of me to do such a thing."

  "What thing? Staying in a place for warmth for payments of sex?" he asked incredulously. "Women do it all the time for less than that. What I'd like to know is if you loved him?"

  She looked at him and saw the acceptance in his eyes. He wasn't judging her and she felt a lot better at confessing. "No," she answered earnestly looking down where his hand still held hers. The contrast in the skin was rather startling, but the warmth of his palm comforted her to continue. "I was just there in body. Nobody wanted to be around him. A facial deformity from a vicious dog attack in high school made him unsightly. Most times I would just lie there and pretend I was somewhere else. Other times, I would try to get out of it with a headache or sleepiness. Aside from that he became paranoid. I was just going to leave him, so he kept me confined inside."

  "What do you mean confined, like a prison?" he asked appalled.

  "Pretty much," she answered with a nod.

  "But that's inhuman!"

  "He fed me," she tried to justify. "Kept me company when he could. There was television and other entertainment, but little to no clothes and all doors and windows were boarded or securely locked." She could see upset written all over his face.

  Aghast, James asked, "There was no way to escape."

  Looking at him incredulously, she asked, "Too what? Back to the streets? Back to the grime and cold, looking thru the garbage for food? He kept me fed, clean and in return all I had to do was close my eyes and let him do what he wanted with my body... and to others."

  "What do you mean to others?"

  "I told you he was a street doctor, so there were a lot of people he worked on."

  "But you were locked in a room, how did you see him working?"

  She sighed miserably. "After a couple of weeks there, I did get bored and convinced him to install cameras around where he worked. I told him I missed him and would like to see him during the day. He believed me and did it. I would watch him all day and all night work on all these people. Sometimes he knew what he was doing, other time he didn't." She chuckled to herself. "I knew if I was dying, I would never go to him, but watching him, I learned a little bit. I finally convinced him to let me out and help him. This really relieved the boredom and I really thought I could accept this life for a little while if I ignored what he didn't do."

  "And what was that?"

  "Heal people. Like I said he wasn't a real doctor, James. What he knew from medicine was from his first year of medical school before he dropped out because of his emotional problems about his face. He seemed to be doing more harm than good for those that were ignorant enough to come to him and not to other street doctors. I knew this, though and I thought I could justify my guilt of silence about his stupidity of medicine because I needed the comfort. When I could, I would send people away, but the others..." She moved her hands from his to wring them in frustration. Closing her eyes, remembering the cries of pain and hurt inflicted, she moved her arms around her stomach to hold the turmoil arising from the stress. "I wanted to leave and the night I was going to sneak out, someone knocks on the door as if they're trying to break it down. He goes to the door and these guys are carrying around this injured guy who got shot very bad. This well dressed guy in white comes in afterwards. I was looking at the cameras and I could hear them from the opened bedroom door. The guy in the white coat said this was his boy and they couldn't find Tanner Tanner. She was a better street doctor but had disappeared off the streets a couple of months earlier in hiding from some old boyfriend pimp. No one else could be found and he needed David to assure him that he could keep his guy alive."

  "But you knew the truth," James suspected. "You knew this was an incompetent fool."

  "I knew David was going to fuck up, just like always and when the men left, I told David to take this guy to the hospital. David refused. He said he couldn't do this because that guy was King Heart."

  James jumped up out of the bed as if something had stabbed him in the back. "Who did you say?!"

  She looked up at him as if he was crazy. Why would a name make him react so powerfully? "King Heart. He said something about how he could only be in town for twenty-four hours. He was looking for some girl. I'm not sure about exactly whom, when one of his men got shot several times protecting him. David
said that if he didn't save this guys life, King Heart would finish what was started on his face."

  A look of fear crossed James features. "And you were in the same apartment as King Heart and lived?"

  "I don't know if I would say I lived?" She shivered as she took a moment to gather herself. "David did try this time. More than any time in his life he tried to save that man, but he didn't know enough. I could see the doubt in his eyes as the man's heartbeat slipped away slowly. And when the man was gone, David told me to go in the room. He locked me in there and called his boys. These were the guys that helped him get rid of evidence, if you know what I mean. Those guys in the alley were his boys."

  He looked confused. "But... they were his boys. Why'd they-"

  "Let me finish," she insisted.

  James tightened up and asked to get her back on track, "How many times had David had to get rid of evidence?"

  Putting her hands over her eyes for a moment to stop the agony that wanted to show on her face, she admitted, "I'm positive it was a couple of times when I was there, but when you sell your soul for a little bit of comfort, you try to blind yourself to the evil going around." She stood up and went to the table where the food was and took a sip of the water that was on the tray. "When his boys came to get rid of this body, I remember David explaining to them they had to hurry up and get out before everyone came back. They asked what was he going to do about me and all David did was shrug. Unfortunately, they took too long wrapping up the body and arguing over what to do about the money David was going to pay them when everyone did show back up." She looked at James who seemed completely on edge about hearing the rest. He was farther than arms length away and she was glad at the distance between them. "The guy in the white suit ordered them to hold David down and after he took off his coat, King Heart took out a scalpel and proceeded to carve David like he was going to use his skin to make a rug."

  "Was David dead?" James asked.

  Tears ran down her eyes as she remembered David's scream. "No and this bastard didn't stop no matter what David promised to pay him or do for him."

  "And then what happened? How did a baby come from this night?"

  Wiping the tears away, she said, "After David's last begging breath left his body, this maniac turned to David's boy's with the scalpel and they started telling him about David's whore in the back room. This King Heart came back there after he ordered his men to rape David's boys and they did. Rape them until they screamed they didn't have anything to do with their guy's death." Her tears increased. "I was terrified and scared as King opened that door and walked in there casually as if he were just going to cook dinner. He still had the scalpel in his hands when he came in with David's blood all over and I was too scared to scream. He stared at me as if he was trying to figure out where to cut first, but then he called the men in there. While they were coming in, King asked if I helped David do what he did. I told him I did whatever David wanted me to do, but I did tell David to take the guy to the hospital. I told King what happened word for word in the calmest way I could knowing this was a psychotic standing over me holding a scalpel up contemplating if he should slash my throat or carve me up like he did David. When I was done speaking, he walked to the door and snapped his fingers. He put the scalpel away and then someone brought him his coat. He said he believed me and that I wasn't going to die today, but he was going to make me pay for my silence." She held her stomach. "He asked David's two guys if they wanted to live? They begged for their lives. King Heart closed them off in that room with me and told me they'd have to show him they wanted to live by killing me."

  Chapter 15

  Jona needed a moment before continuing with what happened that night. This was the first time she had told anyone everything and although it was a comfort to get everything off her chest, she still worried about what James would think of her. He made no attempt to come to her, except to move arms length away as she spoke.

  She was grateful when he asked, "Why didn't he kill you himself?"

  Before answering, she questioned, "So you know King Heart?"

  "I know of his family. My brother is more close to them than I am. But I've heard enough to know King can't step foot in Detroit without trying to get killed by his own cousin, Lethal Heart, who lives here. It's a long running family vendetta. You said he was looking for a girl?"

  Nodding, she answered, "I heard him say that and David seemed to know more, but only urged me to try to do my best to help him with this guy King wanted to keep alive."

  "So David knew King Heart too?"

  "From what I suspect, it had something to do with David's face, which is why King said he was only finishing up the job that was started a long time ago as his insane justification for carving David like a Thanksgiving turkey." She shuddered remembering how much pleasure was in King's voice. "He said, why use dogs, when it's so much enjoyable to extract revenge with your own hands. As if I would know anything about that."

  "So what happened after he left you in the room with those guys? I can see they didn't kill you."

  She took a deep breath as she wiped the tears away using the back of her wrist. "He never locked the door. They didn't even check if he locked the door. They just attacked me and took turns repeatedly like dogs in heat, with every intention of killing me when they were done..." She turned away unable to look at him anymore. "I wanted to die because this was a reality I just couldn't take my mind away from what they were doing to me, but I was acutely aware of David a baton under the bed for when ... when I was bad. When they switched around again, I maneuvered myself around until I could reach under the bed and did my best to bash their brains out, but only accomplished knocking them out. I scrambled out the room, but when I ran out to the living room King Heart was standing all alone, without anyone else around. Someone had removed both bodies out of the room. He still had the scalpel in hand and he blocked the door. I dropped to my knees just ready to die because I had used all my fight to get away from those other guys. He was standing there as if he knew I would be coming out of that room. He asked me if I killed them. I told him I tried. He stepped aside, outstretched his hand and said, Good."

  "King Heart just said good?" James asked shocked. "He didn't hurt you?"

  Jona shook her head and faced James. "He helped me up, opened the door and said, there aren't many times I'm nice, but I saw what was in your eyes can't be killed. Get out and never think the comfort of shelter means everything is okay." She grabbed some tissue and blew her nose before continuing. "I ran into the cold and didn't stop until I felt my whole body freezing. From then I started back over, back on the streets, but safer than I have ever been. Four months later I was pregnant and I decided to keep it because I hated being out on the street alone. I mean my mother did the same thing with me, so I didn't think it could be that hard. I saw what they did to other girls on the street and how they would put them in shelters or take the babies away. I stole prenatal vitamins from the drug store to make sure I was helping the baby. Less than three months later after that, I had massive cramps and stubbornly decided to ignore everything until it was too late and then I thought... I thought I could ... I could do it myself because I was bleeding so bad... I was being stupid, but then smartened up and found a friend to take me at least to the door of the hospital. It was stupid of me to try but I saw all the hack jobs David had done and I was terrified of trying to find someone and then there was the money issue." She shrugged. "I thought I could take care of myself and I thought I could save it, maybe..." She closed her eyes as there were too many tears running down her face and she couldn't wipe them away fast enough. "Stupid, huh? Stupid to want to have something so much I was going to die for it. But King Heart was right. I was going to suffer for my silence and I did."

  James warily stepped to her. When she didn't move away from his closeness, he grew confident and drew her in his arms. She relished his touch, smell and feel of his strong body.

  "We all do bad things, Hope. Trust me. We
all do." He stroked her back in comfort for a moment, but then lifted her slowly and carried her to the bed.

  She let him, enjoying the security he offered. He lay beside her after turning out the lights around the room and they held each other in the darkness until they both fell asleep.

  * * *

  Jona’s body was on its usual clock and she found herself woke in James’ arms at three in the morning. After a moment of reassessing where she was, she slid out of his arms without waking him and went out of the room. The first thing she needed to do was get to her coat and get the pawn ticket out. She had confessed one bad thing to him and after all he had done for her, she couldn’t in good conscious let him know she’d been no better than a theft and stole something from him.

  Going down the steps, she saw Nicole in a bathrobe walking into a front room. “Are you okay, Ethan? It’s late.” Her voice was heavy in concern as she proceeded into the room. "I thought you just came down here to put the alarm on the doors."

  Ethan’s voice came from the room, “I did put the alarm on." He sighed heavily. "I’m not okay, Nic. My brother’s memory is shot and there’s too much unfinished business I might have to deal with myself. I have too much on my mind to sleep.”

  Jona was disappointed briefly know if she tried to go out the doors to the shed to get to her coat now the whole house would be alerted. She was going to leave and return to lying with James, but her curiosity about this couple peeked her to move closer to see what was going on in the room.

  “Are you speaking of the legal matter that you're having with Lawton?” Nicole questioned.

  Jona inched closer to the doorway to finally be able to peek in. Ethan was in a robe, pajama pants and house shoes. A glass of brandy was in his hands as he stared down into the fireplace deep in thought.

  “Yes, I’m speaking of that matter.”

  “Do you want me to tell Monica not to come over? It would be an uncomfortable situation with her here knowing that you plan on firing her new husband."