by Neta Jackson
“You did?” I said that? “Well, uh, that kind of thing takes time. They’ve got lots of parolees to consider.”
“Yeah, guess so. But I was thinking that maybe some of us should make another visit. Maybe this Saturday?”
I shook my head. “Count me out, Stu. Denny had a fit that I went to Paul and Silas after the doc said to avoid crowds. I’m sure Lincoln Correctional would be off the list. But you could ask some of the sisters who are already on the visitors’ list.”
DENNY AND THE KIDS took off early Friday morning in the Dodge Caravan, trying to beat the morning rush hour. After the invasion of Baghdad, the terrorist alert level nudged up to orange—but what did that mean? Nothing to Josh and Amanda. Yellow, orange, red—nothing short of a nuclear bomb on Chicago would have stopped them heading for New York with CD players, earphones, and duffel bags. I did barricade the back door with my body, and the four of us stopped long enough to hold hands in the kitchen and pray for “traveling mercies,” as my dad used to say. Then kisses and hugs and wet licks from Willie Wonka . . . and they were gone.
Me—I had to go to school as usual. I thought about using Dr. Lewinski’s order to avoid crowds as an excuse to ditch professional development day, but I realized that wouldn’t fly since I already mingled with these teachers and staff on a day-to-day basis. Besides, it was required. However, just before leaving the house, I made a rash decision and clipped Willie Wonka’s leash to his collar. He needed a walk, and he could just walk to school with me. If Avis didn’t like it, she could send me home. Poor Wonka was so pooped by the time we got to school he curled up under my desk and snored through the whole day. Avis never even knew he was there.
My third graders would have loved it. An old dog at school!
True to her word, Stu brought supper Friday night—Chinese takeout. Then she spent most of the evening on the phone finalizing the trip downstate to the prison the next day. Turned out that only Yo-Yo and Hoshi could make it. Carla was still spending every other weekend with her former foster parents, but this weekend she was home. As Florida put it to Stu: “No way I’m gonna be gone and Carla end up wishin’ she was at their house, see what I’m sayin’? Carla an’ me—we’re goin’ shopping for an Easter dress.”
That Saturday our two-flat could have doubled for an abandoned ghost town. I cleaned out two closets, washed all the bedding in the kids’ rooms, played all the gospel CDs we owned, decided against calling my parents (they’d want to know why I wasn’t on my way to New York with Denny and the kids; no reason to get them all worried), called half a dozen Yada Yada sisters just to see “whassup” but got nobody, and finally wallowed my way through a bag of potato chips watching a beat-up video of Rainman and finishing my quilt square.
When Dustin Hoffman laid his head on his sassy little brother’s chest and murmured, “My main man,” I wiped my eyes with my T-shirt and clicked off the VCR. Now what? The house was so quiet I could hear the wall clock tick, but I didn’t want more TV. Every station had constant commentary coming from Iraq. Ambushes, pockets of resistance, more terror threats . . . I shuddered. Nothing clean or quick about this war.
Pray, Jodi. Praise! Praise? Well, why not? As I walked around the house picking up stray stuff, I prayed out loud for Denny and the kids. I prayed for our soldiers in Iraq. I prayed for the Iraqi people, and even public enemy Saddam Hussein, still on the loose. I prayed for Stu and the others driving back from Lincoln, for Becky Wallace and her little boy. For Avis and Peter, for a job for Carl Hickman, for Hakim and his mother . . . and when I ran out of people to pray for, I put on a Gary Oliver CD and let myself go, dancing and swirling and singing along to “House of the Lord” and “More Than Enough.”Willie Wonka didn’t care. Slept right through it, as a matter of fact. No one else was around to bother. I hiked the music up a notch. Just me and God . . .
The phone rang. Had been ringing for some time, I guess. I snatched the handset just as the answering machine picked up. “Jodi!” It was Stu. “Could you turn down the music a bit? My dishes are rattling up here.”
“Oh! Hi, Stu.” I punched the off button on the CD player. “Didn’t know you were home. How’d it go?”
“Amazing. Can’t talk now ’cause I got an emergency foster case I gotta take care of. Just to say this much—Becky Wallace is on the list for early parole!”
I WAS DYING TO hear more about Becky Wallace, yet I had to wait till Stu and I were on our way up to Nony’s house for Yada Yada the next evening. Figured if I could go to work, I could go to Yada Yada—no new faces there either. Besides, Delores had called and said she was collecting the quilt squares. Time to get them sewn together and quilted, she’d said. Still seemed pre-mature to me, but . . . whatever. At least mine was done. Boy, did I feel smug.
“So tell me what happened at the prison yesterday,” I said as Stu turned north on Sheridan Road.
“Whoa. Don’t you want to wait to hear from Yo-Yo and Hoshi too?”
“Can’t wait. Tell me now.”
Stu snorted. “Okay, okay. I didn’t plan to say any-thing to Becky about writing the parole board, because, you know, I hadn’t heard anything back. Whole thing was a shot in the dark. So we’d been talking about five minutes in the visitors’ room when Becky blurted out, ‘I’m on the list.’ ”
“She said, ‘I’m on the list,’ just like that?”
“Yeah. The list of early parolees! She was told she was being released to her ‘home address on Lunt Avenue,’ but she was kind of in shock. ‘I don’t know any address on Lunt Avenue,’ she said. Well, she threw a couple of f-words in there, but that was the gist.”
I laughed nervously. “What did you say? Is she really coming here? When? What about that business with house arrest and an ankle monitor—for how many months?”
Stu grinned ruefully. “Yeah. Guess that’s part of it. I was tempted to just let the sheriff drop her off at our house and surprise her, but Yo-Yo kept kicking me under the table, so I ’fessed up. Becky . . .” Stu’s voice trailed off as she cruised past Northwestern University along Sheridan Road, and then turned on treelined Lincoln Avenue.
“What? Becky what?”
“Her face got all funny. Maybe she was afraid she’d cry. Or maybe she was angry we interfered. Whatever, she got up suddenly and bolted for the inmate door.We sat there about ten minutes or so, and had just about decided she wasn’t coming back—oh, here we are. Tell you the rest later.”
Stu had pulled up in front of Nony and Mark Smith’s lovely two-story brick house covered in creeping ivy. I started to climb out of the sporty car, but Stu laid a hand on my arm. “Jodi, wait.”
I turned back. Her usual self-confident air had dis-appeared.
“Do you think . . . I mean, should I tell Yada Yada what happened that day, you know, after I saw Andy Wallace? And about—you know—what happened a few years ago?”
I hardly knew what to say. I could tell it’d been heal-ing for Stu to own up to the truth, to let go of her need to be Ms. Perfect. But she was doing that. A few of us knew about the abortion. Did she need to tell every-body? And yet . . . most of Yada Yada had witnessed the heated exchange between her and Chanda the last time we met at Ruth’s house. Honesty from Stu would explain a lot. And she was asking me.
I made a stab at wisdom. “It has to be up to you, Stu—you and God.Accountability is good—Lord knows I’m working on it. Trying to be honest with myself and other people. I just don’t think we have to tell everybody everything. You got honest with Florida and me—and Avis knows too. Maybe that’s enough. Unless . . .”
“Unless what?”
I sat quietly in the car for several moments, my door wide open, thinking about the sin that continued to dog me, even though I had confessed to God, confessed to my husband and family, confessed to Yada Yada, been loved and forgiven. But I still didn’t feel free. I’d said I was “sorry” to Jamal’s mother that day in the courtroom—but how did she hear it? That I was sorry it had happened? Sorry she’d lost her son?
Sure. Anybody would be. Yet had I ever really confessed my sin to the mother of the boy I’d killed? Could she ever really forgive me if I didn’t?
I wanted to be free. What was it Jesus said? “If you abide in My Word, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
I blinked back tears. “God wants to set us free, Stu. With the truth. Listen to God’s whisper in your heart. You’ll know what’s right to say . . . or do.”
Right, Jodi. You know what’s right to do. Now do you have the courage to do it?
39
Chanda breezed into Nony’s house, dolled up in silky black pants and a big-print overblouse, topped by a cascade of braided extensions. “Girl, you look good!” I said, giving her a hug. But the moment I let her go, she made a beeline for Stu and gave her a long hug. Over their heads, I saw Nony’s eyes roll up to the heavenlies, and her smiling lips moved silently. Probably thanking God He hadn’t given up on this motley crew.
“We need T-shirts that say W-I-P,” I whispered to Nony as I helped her take a tray of tea and chocolate-dipped strawberries into the Smith’s tastefully appointed family room. The tray had one less strawberry by the time it got there.
“W-I-P?” Nony’s excellent command of English seemed stumped.
I grinned. “Work In Progress.”
“Yes! Hallelujah.” She laughed. “Scripture says we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling.”
The chocolate-dipped strawberries didn’t last long. Delores and Edesa had the farthest to come by el, and by the time they got there, the plate was empty. I gave Edesa a big hug—the bright-eyed Honduran student had been so busy with college classes, we hadn’t seen much of her at the Baxter house lately, even though she was Amanda’s favorite Spanish tutor. Delores had a large plastic bag with her and busied herself collecting small, anonymous packages from different sisters when Avis wasn’t looking.
I was surprised and delighted to see we had a full hand of Yada Yadas that night. Had expected half the group—at least those with kids in Chicago public schools—to be gone somewhere during spring vacation. “Me, I’m taking my t’ree kids on a Disney Cruise,” Chanda crowed. “Leave Tewsday. To-mas, Cheree, and Dia so excited, dem can’t sleep, no way.”
I cast a sympathetic glance at Florida and Delores. No way could those families afford a Disney Cruise.Wasn’t even sure Chanda could, since she’d never told us how much her “winnings” were. But I could have saved my sympathy. Florida lit up. “For real? You go, girl! Someday I’m gonna do that.”
“The whole family is going, yes? DeShawn too?” Ruth asked sweetly—but I suspected the question was loaded.
Chanda brushed it off. “Nah, not dis time. Dat mon say he too busy. Some job he doin’.” Then she patted me on the shoulder, her large eyes pitying. “Like Sista Jodee. Left home alone while she family do de Big Apple big-time.” I pulled my mouth down in a sad clown face, not sure Denny would call visiting his parents “doing the Big Apple big-time.” But Chanda had already turned to Avis. “So you, Sista Avis.What you doin’ dis week of no school?”
Now that was an interesting question. The room suddenly hushed as different ones finished getting their tea and found a seat. I expected Avis to brush off the question, but she pursed her lips, her smooth forehead knot-ting into a frown. “I . . . it’s a bit of a dilemma, actually.” My in-control-and-in-charge principal looked sheepish. “Peter has offered to drive me to South Carolina to see my cousin, Boyd. He’s . . . in prison. Death row.”
“Avis!” several voices cried, some in shock. “You have a cousin on death row?” . . . “Of course you should go see him!” . . . “This is Peter’s idea? Bless that man!” And from Ruth: “What’s to question? I don’t see a dilemma here.”
Avis sighed. “Well, you all can pray with me about it. It is a dilemma, because we’d be traveling together, several days by car, you know, and—”
“Avis Johnson!” Adele cut her off impatiently. “You worried about your reputation? Girl, just get separate motel rooms and don’t worry about what anybody thinks. We not thinkin’ anything.” She made eyes around the room. “Are we, sisters?”
Yo-Yo snickered and Ruth jabbed her. Avis tossed her hand, as if brushing off a pesky fly. “I’m not worried about what you guys think. I’m worried about what Peter’s going to think. It . . . I still feel disloyal to Conrad, dating one of his old friends, much less taking a car trip all the way to South Carolina with him. I don’t want to give Peter the wrong idea.”
That did it. Several people jumped in all at once.
“Wrong, schmong. You’re the one who’s got it all wrong, Avis Johnson.” Ruth wagged a finger in Avis’s direction. “Your Conrad? Happy he would want you to be.Who better than an old friend that he’d trust to treat you right?”
“Don’t forget what God said to the prophet Jeremiah,” Nony said. “God knows the plans He has for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future!” That brought several amens and hallelujahs.
“Sister Avis.” Delores leaned forward. “Think about your cousin. What an encouragement it would be for you to come see him. Jesus said, ‘I was in prison and ye visited me . . .’ ”
“Yeah. What she said.” Yo-Yo jerked a thumb in Delores’s direction.
“Let’s vote!” Stu grinned. “All in favor of Avis going to South Carolina with Peter Douglass say ‘aye.’ ” The “ayes” practically lifted the roof.
Avis’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. “Sorry. I have the deciding vote. But I appreciate what you all are saying. Really. And I’m serious about asking you to pray with me, because”—she made a panicky face—“I need to give Peter an answer tonight.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” I reached for Edesa’s hand on one side of me and Hoshi’s on the other. “Let’s touch and agree that God will make things plain for Avis.” And so we prayed, holding hands around our circle, and the prayers began to flow—not only for wisdom and boldness for Avis, but for “traveling mercies” for Denny and the kids in New York, and Chanda and her kids fly-ing to Florida, and safety for all our kids who were out of school that week, and jobs and MaDear and a quick end to the war in Iraq . . .
Nony’s voice lifted on the tide of prayers. “And thank You, Father God, who hears the cries of the orphan and the widow and the downtrodden, that the South African government has agreed to pay reparations to victims of apartheid crimes, even though it is only a token . . .”
Her prayer went on, but my eyes flew open, and I saw others around the circle sharing questioning glances. When Nony finally breathed, “Amen,” we all jumped in with questions. “Reparations? Really? When? How much?”
Nony was surprised we had not heard about it on the news. The dollar amount was far below what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission had asked for, and some said it was an insult, but Nony seemed grateful that public acknowledgement had been made of the injustices suffered and some reparations given. “It is a beginning, widening the crack in the door of justice.”
Hoshi nodded vigorously. “Tell them what you’re doing now, Nony.”
Nony smiled sheepishly. “You know me, my sisters. I cannot sit on my hands. The United States Congress is considering a fifteen-billion-dollar bill to globally fight the scourge of AIDS. So I’m back to letter writing and making calls to representatives. Such a bill could make a big difference for my country—especially since a third of the money would be earmarked for abstinence education.”
“Huh?” Yo-Yo wrinkled her face. “What education?”
Edesa, who was closest to Yo-Yo’s age, leaned close to her ear and whispered loudly, “Abstinence. No sex. Not sleeping around.”
Everybody laughed—except Adele, who started humming a few bars of “What a Mighty God We Serve.” A few people picked up on the words, filling in until we were all singing, “. . . Lift your voice and say it: He’s a mighty God!”
I had to take a bathroom break—my left leg still got stiff whe
n I sat too long—but when I came back, Stu was telling about the trip to Lincoln Correctional. The group sat open-mouthed and bug-eyed that our “Bandana Woman” was actually getting an early parole—and was coming to live at Stu’s house.
“Lord, have mercy,” Ruth muttered, fanning rapidly with a piece of paper.
“Becky came back to the visitors’ room after she left?” Edesa wanted to know. “What did she say?”
Hoshi picked up the story. “She wanted to know why. Why would Stu offer to let a convicted thief live in her house? And Stu told her, ‘Because Jesus would.’What is that verse you quoted, Stu?”
Stu seemed embarrassed. “Don’t know if I quoted it very well, but the one where Jesus said if we have two coats, we should give one to the person who doesn’t have any.”
“Yes, that is it. And she started to ask each one of us why we call ourselves Christians.” Hoshi’s voice softened. “It was the first time I told her the choice I had to make between my parents and following Jesus.”
“Yeah. Hoshi gave a good answer.When Becky asked me”—Yo-Yo slouched further down on her chair—“I kinda hemmed and hawed, said sometimes I wasn’t sure if I was a Christian or not ’cause I hadn’t been dunked yet.” Yo-Yo suddenly sat up. “And you know what she said? The nerve!”
“What!” we chorused.
“She said I better get off the fence. I could be a pagan like her or a Christian like these guys, but I better choose.”
Adele belly-laughed. “Out of the mouths of thieves!”
The rest of us just shook our heads. Becky Wallace, of all people, telling Yo-Yo to get off the fence. Avis prodded, “And?”
Yo-Yo looked all wide-eyed and innocent. “And what?” Then her grin slipped. “Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re askin’. Okay, okay. I’ve decided. I want to get dunked. You know, baptized. Like Jesus said.”
WE HAD A PRETTY good “Holy Ghost Party” the rest of Yada Yada that night, laughing and singing and thank-ing God that we’d come a mighty long way. Yo-Yo resisted suggestions that she get baptized on Easter—next week!—protesting that it was still only April and the lake was still cold.