Revelations: Roads to Redemption

2 / The Sweetest Girl

"Se kouto sèlman ki konnen sa ki nan kè yanm."

[Only the knife knows what hides in the yam's heart.]

(State University of Haiti Hospital - 26 years ago, 1992)

In Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in a cold, dull room in a hospital with gray and off-white walls, lay Margaret Goodman. The Haitian Sentinel's award-winning journalist, who usually covered community issues and politics, was in a deep coma. Earlier that day, she'd had a tense interaction with a hooded man who had accused her of lying in her exposés. During that altercation, there had been gunfire. Margaret had jumped in front her son, Grayson Goodman, who'd been in the path of the bullet, and the writer was shot in the chest. Now, Margaret Goodman's life was in the balance.

Sitting at her bedside in the hospital room was her husband, Lucias Goodman. A former Port-au-Prince police officer, Lucias had kept his athletic build, even after retirement. But now there were heavy bags under his eyes. He scratched his salt-and-pepper goatee, then moved his hand across his face, rubbing his thick, disheveled eyebrows. Lucias lifted his head to look at his wife.

He touched her cold cheeks. "I wish I could hear your voice right now. There are a few things I've never had the courage to tell you about my past, Margaret." Lucias fiddled with his watch. "Right now, I guess is as good a time as any." He paused and had a hard time swallowing. "I miss your presence. You are one amazing woman - one amazing wife, mother, and journalist. We are blessed beyond belief to have you in our lives. Margaret, you put some much work into bettering our community. All the while, your hunch was right: No matter how hard you tried, your love for me couldn't fill the void that I had within myself."

Lucia's rough hands shook. He put them together in an attempt to calm his anxiety at revealing to his motionless wife what had plagued their marriage for years. "You felt it. You knew it. I didn't give my complete love to you. My heart belonged to someone else." He rubbed his left bicep. "Her mother worked for my parents for fifteen years, and she came to live with us too. I was only five when we met." He smiled, but his eyes were clouded by tears. "Her name was April, just like our daughter, and she was the sweetest girl." He continued, "April and I grew up together. And even though we were told by our parents that our worlds were too different, April and I didn't believe a word they said. We snuck around as often as we could, as we simply loved being around one another."

As Lucias continued the story, he didn't notice that Margaret's heart rate was increasing.

"Deep down inside, I believe she felt it too. April and I were soul mates, but our love..." Lucias took a deep breath. "Our love was forbidden. One day, I came home from school and my parents weren't there. I went straight to my room and collapsed on my bed. I was seventeen by then. My feelings for April were so deep, even when I was in school, I would often daydream about her. Then there was a knock at my bedroom door." Knock. Knock! "Shortly after, my dream came true. 'Lucias, mon chéri,' April said, 'je ne peux pas être trop loin de toi. Mon cœur me fait mal quand on est loin l'un de l'autre. Lucias, my darling, I cannot be too far from you. My heart aches when we are apart.' April reached out to embrace me."

Lucias, still not paying attention to Margaret's monitor, didn't notice that her numbers were fluctuating. He said, "What happened in my room in that moment, I will never forget. It changed my life forever." He held Margaret's hand. "Margaret, you are my wife, but April has my heart and I will always love her." Lucias continued, "We must have been so into our intimate moment, that we didn't realize my door was left ajar. Just then, my mother swung it open with rage."

A nurse interrupted his tale, barging into the hospital room. "Monsieur, vous devez vous excuser, votre femme a un arrêt cardiaque. Vous devez quitter la pièce. Sir, you must excuse yourself, your wife is having a cardiac arrest. You must leave the room."

Lucias stepped out of the room, his clenched fists set against the temples of his head. He continued speaking, but this time to himself. "My parents kicked her out in the streets and forbade me to ever see her again." He was sobbing. "And I never saw her again." He continued, "I cannot go on in this life without her-and without you. I can't do this on my own. Don't leave me alone!"

Lucias didn't realize he wasn't alone.

Just then, entering the hospital's waiting room was Amara, along with her parents, Jean-Luc and Edna Donsalvo. With tears in his eyes, Jean-Luc hugged Lucias, as if he hadn't seen him in years.

Lucias said, "Jean-Luc, thank you for watching April for me."

"We rushed here as soon as soon as we could." Edna hugged and kissed Lucias, adding, "Having Beatrice, our daughter, watch April, your youngest child, is the least we can do. Jean-Luc and I love you, Margaret, and the family so much."

Jean Luc, with his hands folded in prayer, said, "We are going to get this shooter and he or she will pay for this unbearable act." His head was full of well-groomed locks that ran down past his neck.

Amara, Jean-Luc and Edna's teenage daughter, nodded in sadness. She looked up to a distraught Lucias. "The police will find the shooter. Right, Mr. Goodman? Because that is what they are supposed to do: Put away the bad guys." Wiping tears from her eyes, she continued, "You always told me that they are there to protect the community, just like Mrs. Goodman does. Why wouldn't they bring the culprit to justice? Why?"

Doctor Jeantel, the short and beautiful doctor assigned to Margaret, walked out of the room. When she motioned Lucias to join her in a private conversation, he followed her behind a glass window while the others sat in the waiting room.

Amara saw the doctor put a hand on Lucias's shoulder, and the other on his chest while she shook her head from left to right. Lucias's head dropped and caved into his chest.

Lucias walked out into the waiting room, shaken, barely holding himself up. With his eyes full of tears, he whispered, "She's gone." He collapsed in Jean-Luc's arms and yelled out, "Madanm mwen mouri:My wife is dead." Then he screamed out in distress. "Anmwey!" His pain permeated and shook the entire room.

Edna, teary-eyed, placed her hand on Lucia's shoulder. "Oh, my God."

At that very moment, Grayson Goodman, Lucias's fourteen-year-old son, entered the waiting room. Amara hugged him at once, with fresh tears in her eyes. "Grayson, no matter what happens, we will always be there for each other. I am here for you now."

A shaken Grayson laid his head on Amara's shoulder and said, through his tears, "Merci, Amara."