Chapter 2
Twelve weeks prior.
Aquila and her three children, Daniel, Darius, and Abigail, sauntered back to her friend, Pricilla’s, tattered two-bedroom house. It was only four blocks from the church, but in the searing North Carolina August heat, it seemed more like four miles. Still, she was grateful to have a safe place to stay.
Lord, she prayed silently as she rounded the corner and walked the few yards to reach the dilapidated front porch, I thank you for making a way for me to escape the torturous life I was trying to survive in while back in Nashville, Tennessee.
“Auntie Cilla!” Daniel, Darius, and Abigail screamed excitedly as they ran ahead to meet their adopted aunt.
Pricilla stretched out her arms to greet them.
“Are you done with school, Auntie Cilla?” Abigail questioned.
“I’m finished with my classes for today, sweetie. I bought you guys some chocolate covered ice cream bars. Go look in the freezer and help yourselves to one.”
The children, ages six, five, and three, raced into the house.
Aquila sat on the porch, with its warped planks, beside her childhood friend. She wiped the sweat that ran down her face on her long-sleeved blouse. “Pricilla, you don’t have to buy things for them. You’ve already spent a lot of money on bus tickets for us. I know how tight money must be, with you going to nursing school full time and only working part time.”
Pricilla shrugged. “I don’t mind at all, Aquila. When you called me the last time talking about that husband of yours and how he had slapped you around again, I knew God wanted me to do something to get you and those kids out of that hell hole. Sending money for you guys to come to Raleigh was the sensible thing to do.”
“Yeah, but Pricilla, you barely have enough money to take care of yourself. Although I appreciate you for helping us, I feel really bad living off of you,” Aquila told her apologetically.
Pricilla used the napkin that she held to dab at the sweat on the back of her neck. “I imagine you thought I had a huge house to live in when I sent for you all, but unfortunately, it only has two bedrooms. I’m sorry that all I could offer you was the couch to sleep on. You’re probably disappointed, but this is the house I bought.”
Pricilla had moved to Raleigh from Nashville, Tennessee to go to school. She rented the house for a year, and then the owners asked her if she wanted to buy it. The couple was retired from the military and had made their home in Phoenix, Arizona. They didn’t plan on coming back to Raleigh to live, so they concluded that paying taxes on the dilapidated property wasn’t feasible. The owner told Pricilla that remodeling his mother’s house was too costly and collecting rents through a real estate agent had been unprofitable. They quoted a price well below the market value, so Pricilla knew that she couldn’t refuse the offer.
Aquila looked at Pricilla and shook her head slowly. “I’m not disappointed. I’m grateful to sleep peacefully on that sofa bed, girl. Although Brandon provided a beautiful four-bedroom three and a half-bath house for us to live in, it wasn’t worth the beatings I had to endure whenever he got in the mood to use my body as his punching bag. Believe me; peace is more valuable than material things.”
“I know that’s true. Pricilla looked back at her home. “This doesn’t look like much, but it’s mine. I figured that I could remodel it when I graduated and became a registered nurse.”
“That’s a great idea,” Aquila encouraged her. “You’ve accomplished a lot since you left Nashville.”
“I know you didn’t understand at the time, but I was tired of living in Nashville with nothing but sad memories. I needed a change, so in 2006, when I read in a magazine article that Raleigh was voted as the second best place to live in, I decided to move here to see if I could start a new life. I hopped on the first bus out of Dodge, moved to Raleigh, and found me a place to live because I had a plan.”
Aquila glanced at Pricilla and giggled. “You always did have a plan. Ever since we grew up in the orphanage together, you’ve had a plan.”
Pricilla and Aquila grew up in an orphanage in Nashville Tennessee. Pricilla had been adopted by an older couple who were in their late fifties. Her memories of them were vague, but she remembered feeling loved. Her adopted father was an innocent by-stander that was killed during a convenience store robbery. Five months later, her adopted mother died from a massive heart attack.
Pricilla was only six years old at the times of their death. Being that her adopted parents didn’t have any living relatives, Pricilla was placed in one foster home after another. At age eight, she was sent to the orphanage. She couldn’t fully comprehend why her life had been changed so drastically.
She had a hard time adjusting to the orphanage, with so many other little girls of all ages. Ms. Berry, the director of the orphanage, was very strict. She made sure that the girls were fed, had their individual beds, and proper places to keep their scant clothing.
But there were twenty or more girls per employee, so the girls didn’t get much individual attention. Pricilla learned quickly how to obey the rules, go to school every day as required, and do what she was expected to do.
Aquila had been sent to the orphanage after her parents died. She didn’t have any memory of them. All she could recall was being sent to different places to live. She learned later that she had been placed in four different foster homes. To her recollection, most of the families seemed nice.
She remembered the day a kind, soft spoken woman came to visit the woman she thought was her mother. The two women sat and talked with her and told her that she would be going to live in a special house. She remembered crying and reaching back for her ‘mother,but her mother only looked away as Aquila was driven away by the visiting woman.
Sometime during the car ride, Aquila had cried herself to sleep. The lady woke her up and walked her into the huge house with a lot of other girls. She was taken to a bed by Ms. Berry, the director, who told her with a somber face, “This is where you’ll sleep.” She instructed one of the older girls in the room to guide her until she was familiar with her surroundings. After Ms. Berry left the room, Aquila fixed her innocent eyes on the girl for support, but the girl gave Aquila a mean look, turned on her heels, and walked away. Aquila shyly looked around at the other unfriendly looking girls in the room and fell on the bed and cried pitifully.
One girl came over, sat on her bed, and tried to comfort her. She told her not to be afraid because she would take care of her. That girl was Pricilla. Since then, Pricilla Battle, age eight, had called Aquila Forest, age six, her little sister.
Pricilla propped her right foot up on the bottom cement step. “Yep,” she said confidently. “My first plan was to go to college. I’m fulfilling my dream of going to nursing school. I hope to start my career as a registered nurse shortly after graduation. It was my dream to own a house, and now, I own a house. It may look like a shack to some people, but it’s mine. So far, my plans are working. The only thing that’s missing is my biological mother,” Pricilla said sadly. “But I’m going to find her too, if it takes me the rest of my life.”
Aquila smiled. “Don’t worry, Pricilla,” she encouraged her. “I believe you’re going to find her too. That’s been important to you for a long time.”
Pricilla dropped her eyes toward the ground. “I hope so. When I find her, I hope that she will be proud of me too.”
“Why wouldn’t she be?” Aquila asked her defiantly. She then sighed softly and told her in a soothing tone, “I’m very proud of you.”
Pricilla raised her head back up. “Thanks, Aquila. I might have always had a plan, but you’ve always had something kind to say to anyone that you’ve encountered.”
Aquila’s countenance saddened. “I should have had a plan for my life. Unfortunately, my only plan was to meet a nice man and marry him; you know, my knight in shining armor.”
Pricilla stood up, stretched, and watched the heavy afternoon traffic whiz by only a few feet from her tiny fenced in front yard. “I understand what you’re saying, but that was some knight you chose.”
“Well, when all your life consists of is an orphanage, a girl couldn’t help but dream of someone to love her.” Aquila lowered her eyes toward the ground. “Only my knight was twelve years older than me and as mean as a snake.”
“I had a funny feeling about him when you introduced me to him in the park, but I dismissed those feelings after you dated him for months and he treated you so well. I was shocked when you told me that you were going to run away from the orphanage and move in with him.”
Aquila gazed toward the traffic. “That was one of the dumbest things that I’ve ever done.”
Pricilla sat back on the porch and clasped her hands together behind her head. “You didn’t know what the future held, Aquila. Like the saying goes, hindsight is better than twenty-twenty,” Pricilla told her with conviction.
Aquila nodded her head in agreement. Aquila had been gone a week before Ms. Berry, the director of the orphanage, had noticed that she was unaccounted for. She questioned all the girls and staff members, but they had no idea where she was. Aquila had disappeared without a trace. Pricilla had graduated high school a year earlier, moved out of the orphanage and into a nearby boarding house. She worked full-time at Wendy’s fast food restaurant. She had visited Aquila at least once a week at the orphanage, so Ms. Berry’s first contact person was Pricilla. Ms. Berry had hoped that Aquila was with her, but she wasn’t. Ms. Berry reported Aquila’s absence to the police, but they didn’t put much effort into trying to find her.
Pricilla knew where she was, but Aquila begged her not to divulge her location, so she didn’t. A few weeks later, Aquila turned eighteen. She flew to Las Vegas with Brandon Savino, where they got married in the beautiful Tropicana Wedding Chapel at the Tropicana Hotel Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. She became pregnant two months after the wedding with Daniel, and Darius was conceived ten months later. During the first two years of their marriage, Aquila was happy.
Brandon provided a good life for her and the babies. He had a great career as an air traffic controller at Nashville International Airport. Within that two-year period, he had purchased a beautiful home in a prestigious neighborhood for them to live in.
However, Aquila noticed a sudden change in his behavior once they moved into their new home. Brandon became increasingly verbally abusive and forbade her to leave the house without his permission. He was unusually jealous and accused her of being attracted to any man that she looked at for more seconds than he thought she should. He insisted that she stop using public transportation, citing that it was too dangerous for a young woman with two small children. Brandon demanded that she stay at home until he got there, and he would drive her everywhere she needed to go.
Aquila was a strong-willed individual. She thought he was being ridiculous and told him as much. She continued to travel throughout the city, riding on the public bus system the way she was accustomed to while in the orphanage. To keep the peace, she made it a point to be home before Brandon returned home from work.
One Friday afternoon, she’d taken the bus to the community college to enroll in the adult high school diploma program. She got home later than usual, at four fifteen and had anticipated having dinner ready by five thirty. Brandon usually walked in the house at five forty every day. But to her surprise, on that particular day, he was already sitting at the kitchen table waiting for her when she walked in the house. Aquila perceived that his whole body language emitted anger. Despite this, she walked into the kitchen and greeted him warmly. He stood up abruptly and began to yell expletives at her. Aquila usually tried not to aggravate his temper by staying quiet while he vented. But that day she was fed up with him. She used a few expletives of her own, but she was utterly shocked when he slapped her so hard that she landed on the kitchen tile floor. That slap was the beginning of Brandon’s cruel, physical abusive behavior toward her.
“I thought Brandon was the best thing that could have ever happened to me,” Aquila lamented.
“He had me fooled too,” Pricilla admitted. “If I had been able to foresee the future, I would have given Ms. Berry his address. He could have been arrested for child molestation because you were still a minor.”
Aquila sighed loudly. “He definitely fooled me into thinking that he was my dream come true.”
Pricilla rubbed her hands together. “He was a charming man.”
“He was a charmer; a snake charmer. In the end, all I did was jump out of the frying pan of the orphanage and into the fire with a maniac.” Aquila picked up a small twig from the ground and broke it in half. “I should have stayed where I was until I graduated high school like you did, and then gone to college.” She threw the two pieces of the twig back on the ground. “Now, here I am; a high school dropout with three young children, no education, and not a dime to my name.”
“There’s no need to beat yourself up over the past, Aquila. God is still in control, and He is a loving and merciful God. You just keep the faith, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”
A single tear rolled down Aquila’s face. She quickly brushed it away with her sleeve before Pricilla saw it. “Thanks, Pricilla. I need to be around someone who has faith in God because it will help me to become stronger. You know, I’d never really opened the Bible and studied it until you started quoting scriptures to me when I called you after Brandon decided it was time to teach me another lesson. I tell you, he is the meanest, most jealous man on the face of this earth.”
“Don’t even give him a second thought, Aquila. He’ll reap what he sowed.”
Aquila exhaled loudly. “I suppose you’re right. All I know is that I’m glad that I finally got away from him.”
Pricilla raised her right hand up toward the sky. “Thank God,” she said emphatically. She noticed the painful expression on Aquila’s face, so she changed the subject. “So do you want to go to my church Sunday?”
Aquila hunched her shoulders. “What church do you go to?”
Pricilla looked at Aquila in amazement. She had assumed that Aquila knew where she attended church. “I’m a member of the church that you and the kids eat lunch at every day, Quila.”
“Oh, you attend church there?” Aquila asked in a surprised tone.
“Yeah, girl; the pastor and his wife are really kind people. When I told them about your situation, they advised me to tell you about the lunch meals they prepare for the homeless. They are both lawyers, and he is the pastor of the church too. First Lady Kendra spends her lunch hours in the soup kitchen every day, making sure everything runs smoothly while the homeless are being fed.”
Aquila was thoughtful for a moment. “You know, I think I saw her today. I was standing in line waiting to be served and some snooty woman looked at me and asked what I was doing there. I looked at her like she was crazy. And she wanted to know if Darius, Daniel, and Abigail were my children. I usually try not to be rude to people, but that lady pissed me off when she looked down on my children like they were stank or something. Then she had the nerve to say she was surprised to see a young girl down there and with children too. It must have been First Lady Kendra that called her away.”
Pricilla shook her head. “It’s a sad fact, but some people live in their own little wealthy cocoons and either don’t know, or don’t care that there are homeless people living in this wealthy country just like there are in other poverty stricken countries.”
Aquila rubbed her left arm gently. “I guess you’re right. Today was the first time I’ve seen her. Of course, I’ve only been in town a few days. But I’m surprised the pastor’s wife allowed that lady to work in there. Most of the people sitting at the tables around us were talking about her; how she had a terrible attitude. She must have been born with a silver spoon in her mouth or something.”
“I doubt it. If she’s working there, I’d be willing to bet she was ordered to do so by the court system. First Lady Kendra allows people to do community services there because she works with the juvenile judicial system. She believes it’s the perfect alternative to keeping young people who are first time offenders from going to jail.”
Aquila scrunched up her nose. “Well, this lady wasn’t young. She looked at least forty or forty-five. It was hard to tell with that pile of makeup she had on. And believe me, Pricilla, she needs more than community service work to get rid of that stinking attitude she has.”
Pricilla was thoughtful for a moment. “You know, I think I know exactly who you’re talking about. I believe her name is Diana. She’s First Lady Kendra’s friend. How that came to be, I have no idea, because they’re as different as day and night.” Pricilla didn’t feel comfortable enough with Aquila to tell her exactly how she knew of Diana. When the time was right, she’d explain it to her.
“She sure was a piece of work,” Aquila emphasized.
“If she’s anything like the way you described her, she’s not going to last long in the soup kitchen.”
“The lady that replaced her, I think her name is Ms. Mable, looked at her like she dislikes her.” Pricilla nodded her head. “And she looks just like someone I’ve seen before.”
“It’s funny how we see strangers that look like people we know, isn’t it? Who does she look like?”
Aquila frowned slightly, trying to remember who Mable looked like. “I don’t know; maybe one of the social workers who used to come to the orphanage.” Aquila moaned when she stood up.
Pricilla laughed. “What’s wrong with you? You sound like an old lady.”
Aquila forced a phony smile. “Oh, nothing; I’m just tired, I guess.”
The truth of the matter was that Aquila had black and blue bruises over most of her body. She was ashamed to let Pricilla know just how badly Brandon had physically abused her. She hated to admit it, but a part of her felt that she was partly to blame. She didn’t have an answer why her husband did the things he did to her. Aquila remembered Pricilla once telling her that God is an all knowing God. If that were the case, then perhaps He knew, and perhaps, in time, He’d reveal it to her.