Without Faith by Leslie J. Sherrod

to hearing come from the elder, turban-wearing church mother; but suggestions and directions seemed out of the normal realm of her ministry scope. Besides, a media spectacle didn’t seem like what was needed.
    My sister, for obvious reasons, immediately agreed with my unexpressed thought.
    â€œThe media?” Yvette gasped. “No, we don’t need any extra attention right now. Let’s just wait until the boys finish their fun and then they’ll call home.”
    Mother Sadie had her left eye squinted and her mouth was moving silently again as she looked back and forth between me and Yvette.
    â€œOkay, I’m going back upstairs.” I stood up, ready to get away from all of it, all of them.
    The lion’s head ring.
    I sat back down, knowing that I was going to have to figure out a way to get that ring out of my father’s safe before he started rummaging through it as a heroic gesture. I say gesture because everyone in the room knew that Alvin Davis wasn’t selling any of his beloved baseball cards or other prized possessions, didn’t matter what kind of trouble his grandsons were in.
    â€œSienna,” Leon began, his hand, I suddenly noticed, locked over mine. “I think, I think—” His cell phone interrupted him with a soft wind-chime ring. I didn’t recognize the ringtone. I’d been around him long enough to know the falling-rain ring had been his late grandmother who raised him; the bullhorn was his current supervisor; the drumroll was his best friend, Benny. And I had managed to squeeze out of him that a robin sang when I called.
    But wind chimes? I had no idea.
    â€œI . . . I have to go. I’m sorry.” Leon glanced at the screen of his phone and mumbled something else, but I could not make it out. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled again, shutting the ring off without answering. “I’ll check in with you soon. Keep me posted.”
    He was leaving so quickly, I was halfway up the basement steps behind him before I realized that I was following him out. “Leon, wait.”
    â€œI really need to go.”
    Is he trying not to look at me?
    â€œI know. I only wanted to thank you. For everything.” We were standing on my parents’ front steps, right under the porch light where a circus of moths was circulating. Leon stopped and turned around to face me.
    â€œYou know I am here for you.” He spoke soft and low. I had to move closer to hear him.
    Any thoughts I’d had about him trying to avoid eye contact with me were dissipated as his eyes pierced mine. We were inches apart, the closest I could ever remember being to him. And the longest we’d ever been that close.
    â€œRoman will be okay.” His voice could have been fingers massaging my neck, loosening the knots and kinks that were tightening it. That’s how warm and amazing and comforting the sound of his voice was to me at that moment. He took a step closer to me, as if there really was more room to fill between us. His face was now inches from mine, our eyes still locked, the smell of his cologne intoxicating.
    I became aware of the rise and fall of my chest, the breaths I was taking, the quickening pace of my heart.
    This feeling.
    So foreign and yet so familiar.
    RiChard.
    A literal pain flashed through me from the base of my skull to the tops of my knees. My eyes dropped. I backed away.
    â€œI need to go back inside.” I studied the words on my parents’ welcome mat. E NTER WITH L OVE. EXIT WITH C ARE. “ That’s kind of a weird welcome mat message.” I chuckled.
    Leon was not laughing. In fact, he wasn’t even standing where he had been. I watched him look up at the unusually bright moon before the wind-chime ring of his cell phone interrupted whatever thought he was having, whatever moment I was trying to avoid.
    â€œI have to go. Call me if you hear anything.”
    Down the steps. Car door slam. Engine roaring.