Free Sweet Violet and a Time for Love by Leslie J. Sherrod

the door behind him.
    My husband, my advisor, my protector, and self-proclaimed bodyguard. Even he had enough sense to leave the two of us alone.
    As I stared into my son’s narrowing eyes, and felt my own eyes narrowing back at him, I knew that we were going to need more than a few moments just to get past hello.
    Roman, my Roman. Before there was Leon or social work degrees or anything else, there had just been me and Roman, clinging to each other, surviving pain and devastation from his absent father, confiding, plotting, planning, arguing, and forgiving. We’d had our ups and downs over the twenty-one years of his life. He’d run away once; twice if you counted his decision to go to college on the West Coast to form a relationship with my first husband’s “other” family, against my initial wishes.
    But we’d made it through all of these storms together, stronger, closer.
    Now as we stood facing each other, I knew both of us wondered how we would get past the chasm that had formed over his winter break. It was now spring and we still hadn’t mapped a bridge.
    Over what was supposed to be Christmas dinner, Leon and I had shared our news of the upcoming birth with him. Roman, for his part, had broken news to us that shattered every perception I had of him; that made me question if he’d gotten a single message I’d tried to instill in him when I labored in the trenches as a single mother; that made me question his sanity.
    The reality that he’d missed such a key, pivotal lesson I’d taught him from the time he was born had been a swift kick to my gut. I was still emotionally bowed over, holding my stomach trying to recover.
    And his foot had stayed in kick mode. He hadn’t called. He wouldn’t answer my calls. We’d never been this separated this long.
    But he was standing in the doorway, waiting to be let in. Or waiting for me to come join him in the hallway.
    A ding sounded in the hallway and I heard an elevator door open and the sharp commands of Alisa Billy spilled out.
    â€œSienna, we need to go now. This judge does not like any delays.”
    Roman stepped aside, letting me exit the room and close the door behind me. “I’m only here until six this evening,” he said. “I have to be at the airport by eight.”
    I heard his whisper, but saw the stubbornness in his stance. Why had he even shown up if he knew that we wouldn’t get a chance to talk? His actions, his decisions were deliberate. He hadn’t come to talk, I realized, just, perhaps, to say good-bye.
    For good.

Chapter 10
    He sat in the back of the courtroom, squeezed in tightly with the audience, just outside the reach of the television camera’s constant focus.
    My son.
    The fact that he didn’t want to talk to me, yet insisted on watching me in this arena, bothered me.
    â€œMs. Sienna St. James Sanderson, are you ready, or do you need another moment to daydream?” the defense attorney snapped.
    I looked back at her and smiled. “I’m ready, Ms. Deen.”
    The defense attorney had on a black suit similar to the one I wore, except she didn’t have the round belly I had. Her waistline looked like it could fit in my pants pocket. Once I have this baby, I’m going to get my waistline back, no matter how long it takes.
    Yeah, I was clearly distracted and not focused on my task at hand. I knew why, too. My son was watching me make a spectacle of myself and refusing to talk to me about the matter that had us currently separated.
    And I didn’t want to accidentally bring up my concerns about Sweet Violet. Leon’s insistence for me not to made sense to me at the moment. The court, the lawyers, the police, and investigators know nothing about that woman, or my dealings with her. No need to bring more confusion to an already head-spinning case.
    I looked over at the defendant, a young man the same age as my son. He glared back. They had him