Sing A New Song Read online

  Sing A New Song

  Michelle Lindo-Rice

  www.urbanchristianonline.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  A Note to My Readers

  Acknowledgments

  Dedicated to . . .

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Epilogue

  Reader’s Guide Questions

  About the Author

  UC HIS GLORY BOOK CLUB!

  Copyright Page

  A Note to My Readers

  Sing A New Song has a sensitive subject matter that may be hard to digest. However, my aim is to deliver the content tastefully, and with artistry, which I could do only through the direct leading of the Holy Spirit.

  Sing A New Song introduces you to characters with difficult and life-changing situations. It is my hope that you will read this work of fiction but see truth. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. . . .”

  It is my distinct pleasure that after reading Sing A New Song, you will be inspired to “love your neighbor as thyself ” and perhaps be a little less judgmental, and realize that everything that happens in your life and others’ happens for a reason.

  Every single one of our life experiences sets us on a path intending to lead us to accepting the gift of salvation from our Lord Jesus Christ. My father, Pastor Clive Lindo, often says, “Nothing just happens,” and Romans 8:28 sums it up well: “And, we know all things work together for good to them that love Him, to them that are called according to His purpose. . . .”

  You will not be reading Sing A New Song by chance. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy. Above all, I truly hope it inspires you. May God bless you always.

  Sincerely,

  Michelle Lindo-Rice

  Acknowledgments

  I did not get here by myself! After years of rejections, rewrites, and revamping, I am here.

  Countless thoughts and prayers and a lot of encouragement followed me each step of the way. I cannot begin to name them all. The good news is that if I missed you, forgive me. I will have other books for which you will have top billing. LOL.

  Thank you, Lord. You gave me this gift. I sought to use it for my gain, but, Lord, now I use it to bring you glory, and I am content.

  My sons, Eric Michael and Jordan Elijah: Hard work does pay off! I love you both and hope you will come to know and accept Jesus in your life. Let Him direct your path.

  I’d like to acknowledge my parents, Clive and Pauline. My dad is not perfect, but he is perfect for me. And my sisters Zara Anderson and Christine Lindo, and my brothers, Mark Lindo (my twin), Ronald Lindo, and Sean Anderson.

  I would like to give a special shout-out to Arielle, Erika, Erin, Katherine, Lisa, and Angela (Choo-Choo).

  Kisses and hugs to my first fan readers and unpaid editors. Special thanks to Sobi-Dee Ophelia Lindo, my little sister and biggest fan; Glenda Momrelle-Clark, the first to read Sing A New Song way back when; Nicole Fox, for keeping me concise and in the active voice; Sandy Ward, my walking partner; Jane Adams, punctuation/grammar guru; Colette Jeffries-Alexander, who has that weird kind of gift to catch the tiny inconsistencies that would have driven you nuts; and Bridgette Murray, who listened to me while I bounced story ideas/concepts. Thank you for consistently encouraging me and for keeping me going.

  Thank you to my church brethren at Agape Church of God Seventh Day—including Missionary Velma Thompson.

  To “Grandma” Lucille Adams, who has taught me the importance of attending conferences and networking.

  To LaToya Haley, hairdresser and avid reader, who has read some of my earlier work and told me she wanted to see my book on the shelves.

  To my numerous cousins and family members who support me. Some special mention goes to Arlene Murdock (Dolly), Patricia Walker (Precious), Karlene Summerall (June), Andrea Saunders, and Abbey Resilus.

  I have to mention Annemarie Maynard, Linda Apple, and Karen Owens and all the staff in the ESE office. Hey, Peace River Elementary!

  To established and awesome writers and women of faith who built my confidence when they told me I can write at the 2011 Faith and Fiction Retreat—Tiffany L. Warren, Victoria Christopher Murray, Pat Simmons, and ReShonda Tate Billingsley. To Cherise Fisher, the amazing editor who helped me stay focused and develop the story into what it is.

  Finally, I give a heartfelt thanks to Joylynn Jossel-Ross, author and acquisitions editor at Urban Books, who gave content-editing tips to make me a better writer and to make Sing A New Song pop and jump off the page. Thank you.

  Dedicated to . . .

  My sister Sobi-Dee Ophelia Lindo. Stick around to live your life and your dreams to the fullest.

  My aunt Dawna, and my cousin Pauline, who are cancer survivors, and my aunt Flavia, who took care of them. One day at a time.

  Chapter One

  “I’m sorry, Tiffany. We’ve done all that we can do.” Dr. Ettelman spoke those words with great dread.

  Tiffany Knightly leaned back in the plush black chair across from Dr. Ettelman’s wide mahogany desk. The sun beamed on her honey-blond curls and heightened her hazel-colored eyes. From her vantage point of three floors up, she could look out the window behind him and make out the business-clad people scurrying like ants to keep appointments.

  Tiffany blinked in slow motion. How could the world go on when she had just received the most devastating news of her life?

  Dr. Ettelman must have moved from behind his chair, though Tiffany did not recall seeing him move. But the next thing she felt were his hands gently squeezing her shoulders. Instinctively she shrank away from him. He was the monster at that moment.

  “Whoosh.” Tiffany finally exhaled the breath she had been holding. Vehemently, she shook her head. “No, Dr. Ettelman, I must not have heard you correctly,” she croaked in a voice she hardly even recognized. She panted hard, feeling as if she was about to pass out from the magnitude of emotions hitting her all at once.

  Dr. Ettelman’s face reflected empathy. He was still talking about something. What was he even saying?

  “We’ve done all that we could do, Ms. Knightly. Is there someone that you can call?” She heard the hopeful inquiry but robotically shook her head. She needed some alone time to process the news she’d just received, and did not feel like calling anyone.

  Tiffany opened her mouth, but it just hung open. Words were stuck in h
er throat. Vestiges of all coherent thought left her body. It was as if her mind had disintegrated, leaving her powerless to stop the feeling of losing sanity. She screamed on the inside to regain some semblance of control.

  Tiffany could barely process the doctor’s words, but he had said it. He had said that she was dying.

  No. He must be mistaken—he was talking about someone else.

  Tiffany frantically looked around the room, scarcely seeing the pictures on the wall. Her eyes rested on his medical degree prominently displaying his specialty. Her eyes zoomed in on the calendar behind her. Today was March 17 . . . March 17 . . . March 17. . . . March 17 was the day she received her death sentence.

  Almost subconsciously, Tiffany picked up a picture frame on his desk. There was a girl smiling back at her. In slow motion, she replaced the silver-encrusted frame before finally looking into Dr. Ettelman’s sympathetic face. Her tall, lithe frame drooped, and she sank even lower in her chair.

  She could not be . . . No, she could not be dying. Tiffany absolutely refused to accept that, emphatically shaking her head in abject denial. Death was too . . . final.

  She looked to Dr. Ettelman to provide some measure of comfort. In her heyday, she had been a national icon, but at this moment, Tiffany Knightly was just a patient, like any other who was the recipient of terrible news. “In my twenty-odd years of practice, it has never gotten any easier to tell any of my patients such devastating news, but I cannot give false hope. I have to tell the truth.” Tiffany’s initial shock turned into disbelief, and an unmistakable anger started to form. She keenly listened as he spoke.

  “You are wrong,” Tiffany shouted. Her long curly hair slapped across her face as she sprung to her feet. Tiffany’s hazel-green eyes looked almost red with her palpitating fury. She had finally found her voice, and it reverberated like a crescendo off the walls. She bent her five-foot-nine frame over the doctor’s desk and demanded, “You did something wrong. Test it again.”

  Dr. Ettelman remained calm and professional. Her demand was one he faced almost daily, and it was expected. He quickly assured her. “I have tested and retested the specimen carefully, Ms. Knightly. I would not give you this kind of news if I were not absolutely certain. However, you can get a second opinion—if you would like. I know someone I can recommend.”

  As if they were a lifeline, Tiffany zeroed in on his comments. Slowly, the reality of his words registered. Rationale was returning. She was dying. She had lung cancer, and the worst part was Tiffany did not even know how she had developed the disease. It wasn’t like she was a smoker.

  The symptoms had been inconsequential at first. Tiffany had been on tour and had started coughing a little. The coughing made her voice hoarse, but she was not overly concerned. Then, before she knew it, her little cough had escalated into bronchitis and eventually pneumonia. Just when she thought that she was well, the coughing returned suddenly and with a vengeance.

  That was when Dr. Ettelman had checked for the possibility of lung cancer. He had found the lump on her lungs, had biopsied it, and had begun chemotherapy almost immediately. Tiffany had not been a viable candidate for surgery because of where the tumor was growing. Even removing the small specimen for testing had been a serious undertaking.

  Evidently, all the treatments had been to no avail. Tiffany grappled with that thought. The chemotherapy had not proven an effective remedy. All the radiation, losing most of her hair, and feeling ghastly sick had all been in vain. The cancer had returned and had spread rapidly through her body. She did not know how long she had before the pain and agony would set in or before she looked sick and frail.

  Dr. Ettelman prescribed some strong painkillers for her, but they made her feel nauseous or they put her to sleep, and radiation was not an option. She needed to have all her strength because her life was going to get increasingly difficult, and she had to be able to withstand it to the very end.

  Time was all she had left.

  Tiffany placed her hands in her hair, feeling the extensions she had put in to blend with her own natural curls—her immediate cure for hair loss. It was time to take them out, she mused.

  Swallowing deeply, Tiffany gathered her courage and asked the question uppermost on her mind. “How long do I have?”

  Her heart hammered so loudly in her chest that she could hear the beats resound like a drum. It felt like her heart was literally about to explode and splatter across the room. Unabashed, Tiffany allowed the tears welling in her eyes to fall. She felt a moment of helplessness and utter defeat.

  With gritted teeth, Dr. Ettelman handed Tiffany a box of tissues, which she gratefully accepted with a resigned look on her face.

  “I do not know for sure. It could be months. The human body has been known to show resilience that remains a miracle and a mystery. But from my experience, I would say about no more than a year. Do you need to talk to someone?” Dr. Ettelman offered.

  “No,” Tiffany assured him. “I will be all right.”

  Dr. Ettelman refrained from responding, but they both knew that was a lie. She was not going to be all right. She was going to be six feet under. Under the ground, not breathing, not seeing the sunshine. What was death like? How could anybody know?

  Dazed, Tiffany stood to her feet, found her balance, and walked out of the doctor’s office. When she got to the elevator, she vaguely heard someone calling her name.

  Tiffany stopped and turned around with stiff, controlled movements. It was Dr. Ettelman’s nurse, and it took everything in Tiffany’s willpower to listen to what the nurse was telling her.

  “Your purse,” the nurse huffed, slightly out of breath. She extended the purse toward Tiffany. “You left it in Dr. Ettelman’s office.”

  “Thank you,” Tiffany politely responded and took the bag out of the waiting hands. She entered the elevator and gave a slight wave, but she did not want to be so civilized. She wanted to scream or yell like a banshee. Yet here she was, exchanging mere pleasantries about a bag that she could replace with hundreds more.

  Tiffany let out a huge breath of air and knew she had to get out of the doctor’s office. She needed some alone time to vent.

  Just let everything out.

  Her driver, Marlon, opened the town car door when he saw her exit the building, but Tiffany shook her head. She needed to walk and clear her head.

  As Tiffany walked, she reflected on her life.

  She had unfinished business to take care of before she . . .

  Tiffany gulped, unable to complete that thought. She needed to make sure Karlie would be all right once she was . . . gone.

  Karlie.

  How was Tiffany going to tell her daughter she was dying?

  Buzz . . . buzz . . .

  Tiffany felt the vibration against her hip, and her brain slowly registered that it was a call from her cell phone. One she needed to answer.

  Tiffany dug into her purse and grabbed the device, cringing when she saw who was calling. “Hi, Winona.”

  “Marlon called.”

  Winona Franks was a woman of few words. Highly efficient to a fault, she had been Tiffany’s manager from the days of her “one-hit wonders” from her six albums. Tiffany met Winona by accident when she was preparing to do a spread with Cosmopolitan. With her long blond tresses, svelte shape, and sparkly blue eyes, Winona, then Winona Young, had been on her way to becoming a highly sought-after fashion model. When the two met, they became fast friends. The only problem was that Winona hated modeling. She wanted to use her brains and not her body to get ahead. Using her earnings, Winona dropped from the modeling scene and went to the NYU Stern School of Business. Tiffany later became her top client.

  With her business acumen and expertise, Winona had amassed such a huge fortune for Tiffany that she could live quite comfortably for two, even three lifetimes. Throughout Tiffany’s cancer nightmare, Winona had been a rock and a fortress to her. There was only one other person who Tiffany could rely on—a special friend—who not even Winona knew
about, but she was not ready to call just yet.

  “The news isn’t . . . ,” Tiffany trailed off.

  “Tiffany? Are you saying what I think you’re saying? Tiffany, please answer me.” Winona’s worry screamed through the phone. Winona knew about Tiffany’s appointment with Dr. Ettelman and had waited anxiously for Tiffany to tell her she now had a clean bill of health.

  Tiffany exhaled, hearing Winona breathing deeply on the other line. “I just needed a minute.” Actually, she needed a lifetime to come to grips with her imminent death. Tiffany shuddered but continued. “I—I—I have a year, Winona. One measly year to . . . How am I going to tell Karlie?”

  “Get in the car and go home, Tiffany. I am coming,” Winona directed.

  Tiffany belatedly realized that Marlon was creeping alongside her. She could see the worry etched across his face as his head turned back and forth from the road to where she was now standing.

  Tiffany swung her bag back and forth in her arms like a pendulum while she debated. She felt like just running off into the sunset and disappearing for parts unknown.

  “Tiffany,” Winona called out, her urgency evident through the line. “Please I am thousands of miles away. Please just get—”

  “I’m going.” Tiffany dragged her feet toward her car. Marlon put on the hazard lights and quickly got out and opened the rear door for her. Like a dutiful child, Tiffany entered the car. She told Winona, “Don’t come. I’ll be in touch,” then ended the call.

  As they drove toward her huge L.A. mansion, Tiffany took in the sights before her. Was it just her imagination or did the world suddenly seem brighter? The water from the beach sparkled and shone brightly. The leaves on the trees appeared greener. The sun beamed with unequaled brilliance.

  “I can’t look anymore,” Tiffany whispered before closing her eyes and leaning back into the comfortable leather seats.

  “Did you say something, miss?” Marlon asked.

  “No,” Tiffany replied and turned her head away from his piercing eyes. Tears rolled down her face. Silently they fell. Tiffany placed her fist in her mouth to keep from crying aloud. There was so much she had to do, and how much time she had to do it, only God knew.