Chapter One
Charlotte, North Carolina, 2011
“We both know she’s dead.” Angel Roberts tightened her grip around the steering wheel, realizing too late she’d destroyed a beautiful evening. A harsh silence sucked the air from inside the car. After a minute, her grandmother responded softly, but firmly. “Angel, I can never give up hope.”
Angel took her eyes off the road to peer at her grandmother’s face. A warmth of shame washed over Angel as she witnessed the pain in Fredricka Roberts’s eyes. Why now? It’s my birthday.
Less than fifteen minutes ago, Angel had driven away from Victory Gospel Church, still grateful for the love shown to her. A year ago, Angel would have never imagined herself regularly attending church, and definitely not Bible study. Tonight the members of the Overcomers Women’s Ministry had presented Angel with a surprise twenty-fifth birthday celebration. Angel had loaded the remains of the almost eaten butter cream cake and birthday gifts into the backseat, not realizing her joy would be short-lived.
Angel slowed the car down as she approached the red light. All had been well until her grandmother had said, “You look so much like your mother when she was twenty-five.”
Despite confessing her faith in Christ nine months ago at Victory Gospel Church, Angel had continued to struggle with resentment. It seemed like every year, Angel’s birthday turned into more of a memorial for her mother. There was this gap between Angel and her grandmother where her mother should have been. Angel barely remembered the woman who had disappeared twenty years ago.
The question that haunted Angel the most was the same one that brought her grandmother hope. What if her mother were alive? To Angel that meant Elisa Roberts had abandoned her daughter. That night after Angel’s fifth birthday party, her mother had walked out and had never returned. Elisa had provided no clue about where she was going or whether she was going to meet someone. Just vanished. Due to foul play or on purpose. Surely, her grandmother didn’t want to hope to find a woman who had done the latter.
As she drove through the green light, Angel chided herself for getting angry with her grandmother. It was just her and Grams now. She cleared her throat. “Grams, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to blurt out that we know my mother’s dead. We don’t really know.”
No response.
She glanced at her grandmother. Fredricka’s face was turned toward the passenger window. Not wanting to upset her grandmother any more tonight, Angel became engrossed in her own thoughts. What Angel didn’t want was for Grams to find out what she was doing. She was on a mission to find out what or who had led to her mother’s disappearance. Five years ago, she’d started working on a documentary of her mother’s life, but various circumstances led her off track and she abandoned the project. Now she was determined to complete it. Anything to bring attention to her mother’s short-lived legacy.
Her grandparents had raised her, doing their best to keep memories of her mother alive. Even though she was young, Angel remembered her mother being sad all the time. Angel was born a few months after a devastating breakup between Angel’s mother and father. It didn’t help that her mother, a protégée, had struggled to regain her footing in a once promising singing career while trying to raise Angel.
In many ways, Elisa had shown signs of either desperately wanting a new life or ending the dismal life she perceived she had. Reaching her own breaking point four years ago, Angel longed for a connection with her mother.
Angel maneuvered her grandfather’s old Buick into the driveway of the only place she called home. Her grandmother shuffled behind her as they made their way down the cobblestone walkway toward the front door. Once inside, Angel headed toward the kitchen to find a spot for the leftover cake inside the refrigerator. She had an urge to leave the cake out and eat the rest of it, but weariness invaded her body. She slammed the fridge door shut and turned around.
“Whoa, Grams.” Her grandmother had managed to sneak up behind her. Angel didn’t remember hearing her walk in the kitchen.
Her grandmother sputtered, “Angel, we should have stopped by the store on the way home.”
Angel frowned. Maybe she had agitated her grandmother too much with her outburst in the car. “I can go back out, Grams. It’s not a problem. What do you need?”
“Aspirin.” Fredricka held her hand to head. “I’m not feeling well.”
Angel placed her hand on her grandmother’s shoulder. “Why don’t you lie down? I will bring you some aspirin. I’m sure we already have a bottle.”
Angel walked across the kitchen to the cabinet where they kept a medicine supply. She searched among the orange and white labeled bottles. There were so many bottles. A lot of the labels bore her deceased grandfather’s name. She really needed to work with Grams to throw away his old medicine. Finally, Angel saw a bottle of aspirin.
“Here is the bottle.” Angel flipped the bottle in her hand to check the expiration date. A forceful thump startled her. Angel turned around. “Grams!” she cried out. She ran over and knelt beside her grandmother on the linoleum floor.
The right side of her grandmother’s face twitched. “Ang . . .”
Before Angel could stop them, tears sprang to life, blurring her vision. “Grams, hang in there. You are going to be okay.”
Angel sprinted to the phone on the wall, and with trembling fingers, she dialed 9-1-1.
Oh, God, please don’t take Grams yet.