“What do you mean, the mayor won’t speak to me?” Lisa’s neck rolled from side to side as she held the phone to her ear. “I’m a tax-paying citizen. I have a right to speak with our mayor.”

  The secretary on the other end patiently said, “I have let you speak to the mayor twice already, and I have relayed all your messages. The mayor cannot help you with this matter. The judge has already ruled on your case.”

  Lisa was seated in the break room at her job with the county. She had been back to work for a few months, but things were so different from when she managed the group. Lisa kept her thoughts to herself. She had bigger fish to fry anyway.

  With each of her breaks, she was on the phone or writing letters to express her discontent with the judge who handled Dana’s trial. There had to be some way she could convince the judge he had made a mistake and needed to lock Dana up for her crimes.

  Later in the evening when she went home and checked the mail, there was a letter for her from the office of Judge Stanley Monroe. She opened the letter and frowned at what she saw. By the time she entered the house, steam was blowing from her nostrils. “You won’t believe this,” she said to John as she handed him the cease-and-desist letter.

  “Looks like Judge Monroe wants you to stop calling him.” John handed the letter back and opened the fridge. He took out the container with salad in it and put some into a bowl.

  Lisa stared at him like she didn’t know who he was. She waved the cease-and-desist order in the air. “You act like this isn’t a big deal. He failed to do his job, and now he’s denying me the right to speak to him about it.”

  John poured ranch dressing on his salad. He put the dressing on the counter and then sighed. “Don’t you think it’s time to move on from this?”

  Once again, Lisa felt like she didn’t know who this man standing in front of her was. “Move on? How can I move on when I still haven’t received justice?”

  “Remember what your dad said the other night? ‘God knows how to deal with our enemies better than we do, so why don’t we leave the vengeance to Him’?”

  Wildly shaking her head, Lisa told him, “I don’t want to hear it. Daddy isn’t the one who lost a dream job, nor has he been humiliated in this town the way I have been.”

  “But he has a point.” John put a fork in his salad bowl. “I mean, open your eyes.God has been good to us.”

  Rolling her eyes heavenward, Lisa pressed her lips together, then huffed. “I know you and Daddy want me to say, ‘God is good all the time and all the time God is good,’ but I don’t feel that way right now . . . nothing that happened to me was good.”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “No, I’m not.” She wasn’t backing down. Her life was not how she planned it, so it wasn’t good.

  “Look around, Lisa.” John waved a hand. “We couldn’t get the bank loan to buy this house, but we still have it. We have food in our refrigerator, our daughter is happy and healthy, and even though you didn’t get your dream job, your old job allowed you to come back.”

  “I’m no longer the manager of the department, and I now work for my former employee.” She stomped a foot. “I hate my job.”

  John shook his head. He picked up his salad bowl and headed out of the kitchen, but then he apparently had another thought. He turned around and said, “What happened to you wasn’t right, but you need to pray about how you’ve decided to respond to this situation. I don’t think you’re doing the right thing.”

  The phone rang as he walked out of the kitchen. Lisa wanted to tell John a few things she didn’t like about him, but John hadn’t done her wrong. He was her husband, and she loved him, even though she vehemently disagreed with him.

  She answered the telephone and was surprised. It was the reporter from the local news station. She had contacted him a week ago when she felt like she wasn’t being heard.

  “Thank you so much for returning my call.”

  “Of course,” the reporter said. “I’m intrigued. Your case has been closed, so I’m not sure how I can help you.”

  “I want to let people know how identity theft can ruin lives. People are out here stealing identities and getting off scot-free. That’s not right.”

  “Would you be willing to do a live interview? I’d love for our viewers to understand how Dana Williams stole your identity before she became the Businesswoman of the Year.”

  John thought she needed to let go and let God. Would she have gotten this interview if she hadn’t pursued it herself? “When I knew her, she was Dana Jones, and yes, I’d love to tell you all about how I befriended her in elementary school. I even shared my lunch with her on numerous occasions, then she turned around and stabbed me in the back.”

  Part 3

  Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.

  Ephesians 4:31–32

  Journal Entry

  They tell me I’m dying, as if life hasn’t already been hard enough. Now I must contend with the fact that it will soon be over. But as I look back over my life, I can clearly see that God has been good to me. I was too foolish to see what was right in front of me, and I let life slip away like a whisper. Oh, how I wish I could get those quiet moments back—the times when I was alone and refused to acknowledge God’s goodness in my life and only saw the pain.

  Chapter 33

  Ten years later

  May 17, 2011

  It was her birthday. She should be happy. But as Dana made her way down the winding stairs of her four-thousand-square-foot penthouse apartment with a bottle of Cîroc vodka in her hand, she was anything but.

  She opened her stainless-steel refrigerator, took the cranberry juice out, and set it on the counter next to her half-empty vodka bottle. Taking a glass out of the cabinet, she put ice cubes in it, poured a few drops of cranberry juice in the glass, then filled it with vodka and swirled the glass before taking several long sips.

  She exhaled as the fiery liquid made its way through her system. The doorbell rang. Dana rubbed her forehead. Someone was always bothering her at the most inopportune moments. She took another sip of her drink as she walked through the dining room and the spacious living room.

  Dana lost her footing as she entered the grand foyer and stepped on her silk robe. It was two in the afternoon, and she hadn’t bothered to get dressed. She did have on a pair of heels though, which felt a bit slippery against the marble floors they had recently been waxed.

  The doorbell rang again. “I’m coming.”

  Dana took another long sip of her drink, set the glass on the foyer table, then took her heels off. Still holding the heels in her hand, she stumbled toward the door; twisted the knob to open it, once, twice. “It won’t open.” Dana slurred her words.

  “It’s locked, Dana. Unlock the door and let us in,” Sheri said from the other side of the door.

  Dana laughed like that was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. She unlocked the door and threw it wide open. “Sis!” She hugged Sheri with the hand that wasn’t holding her heels. “It’s so good to see you.”

  “You talk like you didn’t expect me.”

  Dana stumbled backward. She scratched her head, then Ebony stepped in front of Sheri. “What are you doing with Ebony?”

  She and Jeff now had two children. Judah was ten, and Ebony was five. “Ebony . . . Ebony . . . Ebony.” In her drunken state, she repeated her daughter’s name over and over. Dana had always thought the name was beautiful. She had a perfect little ebony princess. Dana loved her kids. Thought she would shower them with love and goodness. But it hadn’t worked out the way she planned.

  “You asked me to pick her up when I picked Cory up.”

  Cory was Sheri’s five-year-old son. She’d married seven years ago, right after she opened her third hair salon. Cory was the same age as Ebony, and they attended the same elementary school.

  “I did? Where’s Judah?” Dana squinted as if she was thinking hard on the matter.

  “Jeff is picking him up.” Sheri rolled her eyes. “I smell the Cîroc. Do you really think you should be d-r-i-n-k-i-n-g this early in the day?”

  “What’s Mommy drinking?” Ebony asked as she and Cory ran into the house.

  Sheri’s eyes shifted from Ebony to Dana. “I forgot how much of a smarty-pants she is. Can’t spell around her.”

  Dana tried to snap her fingers, but the action caused her to move sideways, then stumble backward. “Of course she’s smart. Both my kids are smart.”

  “They are,” Sheri agreed, then turned toward the door as if she was about to leave, but had a second thought and turned back to Dana. “Can I make you some coffee?”

  “I don’t want coffee. I only drink coffee in the morning.”

  “You need some now. I thought Jeff was taking you out for your birthday.”

  Dana put her hand to her mouth, eyes popping out. “Oops, I forgot.”

  Sheri took her purse strap off her shoulder and hung it on the coatrack. She grabbed Dana’s hand and took her to the kitchen.

  “Be careful,” Dana said. “This floor is slippery.”

  “The floor isn’t slippery. You’re drunk.” Sheri sat Dana on a stool at the kitchen island. She then picked up the bottle of Cîroc. “Did you drink all of this today?”

  “Sheri, don’t be so judgmental. I get enough of that from your saint of a brother.”

  Pouring the last of the vodka in the sink, Sheri told her, “My brother loves you. You need to be thanking God He sent you a man like Jeff.” Sheri opened the cabinet next to the refrigerator and pulled out a can of Folgers.

  “Your brother thanks God enough for the both of us.” When things got hard for them, Jeff didn’t turn to vodka as she had. He turned to God. So her husband spent his days being the savior of Hair Fabulous and then spent two to three days a week in church praying for her wretched soul.

  “Did you see the paper this morning? Saint Jeff looks like the savior of the world while I’m still the thief who stole Brooklyn.”

  “I read the article in the newspaper this morning. I thought it was good.”

  “Good for Jeff, but not for me. It’s been ten years since my trial. Why do these reporters have to mention it in any news coverage the business gets?”

  Sheri shrugged. “Most women would be happy to have a husband who gave up his own business to ensure your dreams didn’t die after you fell apart.” Sheri filled the coffee filter, then started the coffee maker.

  “I am happy. Don’t you see me smiling?” Dana lifted her head and showed off her fake smile.

  She appreciated what Jeff did for her. But she wished he wasn’t so much better at running the company than she was. Jeff had been the one who hired all those street vendors and had them sell their products to tourists passing by, even while the residents in Brooklyn blackballed them.

  Jeff had been the one to start their mailer campaign after she had vetoed the idea with Sierra, their marketing manager. He came home one day and told her he liked the idea and thought they should go for it. Dana had thought they would lose everything, but Jeff saved the day.The business prospered and the mailers brought in new customers.

  Shaking her head, Sheri turned back to Dana. “I don’t understand you. God has blessed you with so much, but you’re miserable.”

  Pointing a shaky finger in Sheri’s direction, Dana said, “That’s right. You’ll never understand my misery. You still have your parents and you don’t have people calling you a thief and spitting at you like you’re an animal or something.”

  Sheri raised a hand. “Stop it, Dana. Nobody spit at you. From what I was told, he spit on the window at Hair Fabulous, and all those things happened years ago.”

  Dana’s voice caught as a tear rolled down her face. “It felt like he was spitting at me. Like he was saying I’m nothing.” The incident happened five years ago, but to Dana it was like yesterday. Her mind wouldn’t let it go.

  “Two teaspoons of sugar, right?”

  This wasn’t the first time Sheri had fixed her coffee. She used to come over and make her coffee about an hour before Jeff arrived home, but her help played out last year when the coffee wasn’t sobering her up enough to fool her husband. “Yes, two teaspoons, please.”

  Sheri stirred the sugar into the coffee, poured in a little bit of French vanilla coffee creamer, and then set the mug in front of her. “You are my sister, and I love you. From the moment you walked into my hair salon, I could tell there was something special about you. I don’t know why you can’t see what we all see.”

  “Oh you don’t, huh? Well, why don’t you ask the people in Bed-Stuy. They think I’m trash, and I grew up over there, so they know all about my mother.”

  “Not everyone in Bed-Stuy thinks you’re trash.”

  “How would you know?” Dana sipped her coffee.

  “I live in Bed-Stuy, and I don’t think you’re trash. My neighbors buy your hair products, so they don’t think you’re trash either.”

  Dana twirled a finger in the air. “Big whoop. Three people. Go ask the rest of the people who Lisa poisoned against me.”

  Sheri shook her head.

  Dana grabbed her head. “My head is aching.”

  “Did you eat anything today?” Sheri held up the empty bottle. “Or was this your breakfast and lunch?”

  Dropping her head on the kitchen island, Dana moaned. “You’re always so mean to me.”

  “Argh! You get on my nerves with this pity party you throw every day. Do me a favor—don’t invite me to the next party, okay?” Sheri rolled her eyes. She opened the fridge and took out some lunch meat, slapped a few pieces of the ham between two pieces of bread, and shoved it in front of Dana. “Eat.”

  “I can’t. Jeff is taking me out tonight, and I don’t want to spoil my appetite.”

  Sheri sat down in the seat next to Dana. She had sympathy in her eyes as she let Dana lay her head on her shoulder. “I know you don’t like leaving your house, but you can’t turn to the bottle because your husband wants to take you out to celebrate your birthday.”

  “I don’t like being recognized,” she admitted and then sipped more coffee.

  “Why didn’t you tell Jeff you want to order in tonight? You could have saved yourself a lot of heartache, and maybe you wouldn’t have me scared to leave Ebony alone with you right now.”

  Dana started crying. “You don’t trust me with my own child. How do you think that makes me feel?”

  “Stop crying, Dana. Drink your coffee.”

  Wiping her face, Dana picked up her coffee mug again. She drank all the coffee and even calmed her nerves a bit. Then she turned to Sheri. “I’m forty-four years old today. I’m a long way from the kid who didn’t know where she was going to lay her head from one month to the next. But I can’t stop feeling like”—she waved her arms around, indicating the penthouse and everything in it—“This is all an illusion. And at any minute, I could be back on Lewis Avenue holding an eviction notice and wondering where I’m going to live.”

  “I wish I had known you when you were younger. It sounds like you really needed a friend.”

  “I had friends. Lisa was my best friend when we were younger, before I started hanging with the wrong crowd. And then I did her wrong, and I don’t think she will ever forgive me.”

  “But can you forgive yourself?” Sheri asked her.

  * * *

  Dana didn’t know if she could forgive herself or if she was worthy of forgiveness, which was the reason she found herself stumbling through her penthouse a few days later. Jeff was at work, the nanny had called in sick, and the kids were at home with her.

  “Mommy, Mommy, what’s wrong with you?” Ebony asked as Dana came into the kitchen carrying another bottle of Cîroc.

  Dana patted Ebony on the top of her head. “Nothing’s wrong, baby. Eat your sandwich.”

  Judah was only ten years old, but he knew how to make a bowl of cereal or a sandwich when he was hungry, the same way she used to do when her mother had an all-night bender and Dana had to scrounge around the kitchen for something to eat.

  Opening the fridge, Dana pulled out the cranberry juice. She set it on the kitchen island, then grabbed a glass out of the cabinet. As she was mixing her drink, she glanced over at Judah. He was sitting next to his sister on the opposite side of the island.

  Judah had his father’s almond complexion. He was already five feet five, so she was no longer looking down when she talked to him but face-to-face. And she didn’t like what she saw when she looked at her son. With eyes shaped like hers, he shot daggers of hate in her direction. That expression looked so much like hers when she was a child, looking at the waste that had become her mother. The condemnation was too much. She couldn’t stand under the accusations she saw in Judah’s eyes.

  She had promised she would be a better mother than Vida had been to her, but she had let the censure of the world dictate her self-worth.

  Originally, she needed a drink to get over her mother’s death. After the trial, she needed a drink to get out of bed each morning. She had not been the mother Judah or Ebony deserved, and she was sorry for that—sorry she needed the drink in her hand to cope with all her shortcomings.

  She lifted the glass to her mouth and gulped it down. With her liquid courage making its way through her system, she stared back at Judah. Smirked. “What?”

  “Nothing,” he said tightly.

  Was he calling her a nothing? Dana wondered as she headed back upstairs to the safety of her bedroom. She was going to look for a nanny who could work more than four days a week. The three days she was left alone with her children was too much for her.

  Heading up the stairs, she turned to look at her children, still seated at the kitchen island. Guilt tortured her, but she couldn’t figure out what to do about it. Didn’t they know she was doing the best she could? At that moment, Dana thought of her mother. She thought of the pain she sometimes saw in Vida’s eyes.