Plenty Good Room

by Cheri Paris Edwards

  She turned up the television, took a big bite of her peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and was chewing contentedly when she heard a noise behind her. Instantly alarmed, Tamara laid the sandwich on the cocktail table and spun around toward the doorway just in time to see Sienna round the corner into the living room, followed closely by Isaiah Perry!

  “I’m back!” said Sienna loudly.

  “I see,” managed Tamara, even though her mouth was still full of food. She looked at the girl quizzically.

  “Mr. Perry gave me a ride home,” said the girl, wearing the sly smile that Tamara was really beginning to dislike. She added, “Mrs. Jackson said that it would be all right because he don’t live far from us at all, Tamara.”

  Tamara was struggling to swallow the peanut butter, which now seemed very dry, and her suddenly tight throat was protesting. With a strained look, she forced the lump down and then said hoarsely, “That was nice of Mr. Perry.”

  Tamara was so mortified, she literally wanted to disappear at that moment, and adding to her distress, Isaiah Perry stood behind Sienna now, smiling as if he was finding great humor in her suffering.

  Tamara was mistaken in her estimation of him, though, because Isaiah was simply enjoying looking at Tamara right then. The woman’s face was glowing, and she looked especially attractive to him sitting there on the sofa, obviously embarrassed, with a smidgen of jelly smeared on her top lip. Stepping out of the entranceway, he said to Tamara teasingly, “Why, thank you, Ms. Britton. We missed you tonight at Bible study.”

  Tamara swallowed a quick drink of water before attempting to clear her raspy throat once more. “Y-y-you did?”

  “We did. Only our soloists were rehearsing again this evening, and so many of us got to attend the lesson again tonight. I was disappointed when Sister Jackson told me that you would not be coming tonight. You missed an excellent study. Pastor Walker really took us deeper into the concept of God’s Love.”

  “He did?” she asked. Inwardly she winced with frustration at her continuing inability to communicate with Isaiah. It was as though her vocabulary consisted of only one- or two-word sentences. Just as before, Tamara’s brain seemed suddenly vacuous; there were no words of expression available, no well thought-out concepts in her memory for her to discuss, no funny witticisms for her to draw on—nothing for her to make any conversation of merit at all.

  The ensuing silence lasted only a moment, though, because when Sienna looked from one adult to the other and sensed their obvious discomfort, she began to chatter in a clear attempt to keep the conversation flowing.

  She smiled at them both and said brightly, “Well, I know I was likin’ choir practice tonight. Guess what, Tamara?”

  “What, Sienna?” she managed to croak weakly.

  The girl pushed out her small chest and smiled widely. “I’m singing a solo on Sunday.”

  Tamara gave the girl a genuine smile. “You are? Well, I’m not surprised, because you really are a gifted singer.”

  Sienna grinned even more widely then and said, “I know.”

  With a husky laugh, Isaiah asked, “You’re not too humble, are you, Sienna?”

  “Humble? What’s ‘humble’ mean?”

  He looked at Tamara, and simultaneously they smiled at each other, both seeming to get the irony. It was quite fitting that Sienna would not know what the word “humble” meant, since she clearly was not displaying any humble tendencies.

  “Are y’all laughing at me? What y’all smilin’ about?”

  “We’re not laughing at you,” Isaiah said. “We are just agreeing silently that humility is just not a trait that you have a lot of right now, Sienna.”

  “I got humbility,” she said sincerely. “I do . . .”

  The two adults looked at each other and once more began to laugh in earnest. “It’s ‘humility,’ Sienna,” said Tamara.

  “Oh, humbility, humility, whatever—y’all know what I’m talkin’ ’bout,” the girl said, now wearing a put-upon pout. “I’m going to hang my coat up.”

  After throwing Tamara a mischievous glance, she added, “Mr. Perry, you might as well give me your coat. Go ’head, just sit on the couch right there for a minute and talk to Tamara. She needs some company . . . ’cause she never has any.”

  For the second time that night, Tamara’s mouth fell open, and again she found herself struggling to regain her composure while watching the petite girl take the man’s coat and scurry from the room, leaving the two of them together.

  “Well, I suppose you can sit down if you want,” she said, even more self-conscious than before.

  Ignoring the lack of enthusiasm in her invitation, Isaiah replied cheerfully, “I think I will for a few minutes, if you don’t mind.”

  Tamara stiffly faced the television and tensed inwardly when she felt the weight of his body on the couch beside her. That Sienna was up to no good, she thought agitatedly. In fact, she seriously suspected that Sienna had orchestrated the entire event with Isaiah this evening. After all, Sienna had made it no secret that she believed that Tamara should be dating, and it was becoming clearer by the day that the girl favored Isaiah Perry as the perfect man for her to start with.

  “Well . . . ,” said Isaiah, his husky voice cheerful as ever.

  “Well,” answered Tamara, silently chiding herself again for her recurring inability to do anything other than parrot his words.

  “I wish that you could’ve made it to Bible study,” he said.

  “I do, too.” Almost miraculously then, Tamara began to think with clarity about the last Bible session she attended. The minister’s message had left her unsettled and full of questions.

  Momentarily forgetting about her discomfort, she said, “To tell the truth, Isaiah, I’m having problems truly understanding parts of what Pastor Walker is talking about.”

  Isaiah looked concerned. “Really? Maybe I could help, if you’d like to talk about it . . .”

  Tamara paused a minute and then said, “Well, I understand about love, I think. It’s when two people fall for each other and then they get together. I’m just not sure what Jesus’ love for us has to do with it all, and mostly I’m not sure why He loves us anyway.”

  Isaiah laughed and said, “Ms. Britton, are you sure that’s all love is—when two people fall for each other?”

  “Isn’t it?” she asked.

  “Well, yes, it is. But then, what about the love between a sister and a brother, or from one friend to another, or how about between a parent and a child?”

  She laughed to herself a little. “You’re right; I suppose that is love, too.”

  “You suppose?”

  “Well, I know it is. I am guessing a big part of love is when you do things for others and they do things for you as well.”

  “So it’s all about what you do, huh?”

  Tentatively she replied, “Well, yes . . . I think it is, anyway.”

  Isaiah turned and looked at Tamara. “You are exactly right, really, Ms. Britton—Do you mind if I call you Tamara?”

  She looked shyly into his eyes and said, “Oh, of course not . . . You may call me Tamara . . . I’m right?”

  “Yes, you are right. Love is about what you do, and that is why the greatest love that we will ever know is the love of Jesus, just for that very reason.”

  “Could you explain that, please?”

  “God loves us like a father, just like our parents love us and just like you are growing to love Sienna. Love often gives them the heart to do for us whether or not they feel like it or, more importantly, whether or not we have earned their gifts and support. That tendency of a parent to give time, attention, love, whether or not their child deserves it, is called grace, and it is grace that God gives us as well.”

  Tamara sat silently, listening intently to his words.

  “Just like children, we continue to do wrong. Sometimes we do it out of ignorance, and sometimes we do wrong even when we know what’s right; that seems to be just the nature of our h
umanity. But the wonderful blessing is that God loves us anyway and, through His grace, continues to bless us through His Word, and many times He even walks with us when we don’t know Him yet.”

  “He does? But I still don’t understand why Jesus died and what His death has to do with saving us.”

  The man gave her a long look and then asked, “I hope that you don’t take this the wrong way, but you are not a Christian, are you?”

  Tamara dropped her head. “Not really. I’ve been to church before, but I don’t really know much about the Bible, nor do I understand much about the whole God and Jesus thing.”

  “Okay, I will do my best to explain it to you in my own words, but every person needs to study the Word of God, ‘eat of the word,’ as the Scripture says, for themselves. Each person’s walk with God is a personal one, since only He knows what a person has been through in his life and what lies in his heart. Understand?”

  “Yes, I do,” she said sincerely.

  “Okay, listen, now. God sent His son to die so that we may live. Before Jesus died, we had to go through another to get to God. In the Old Testament it tells of how men had to give sacrifices or ask certain anointed people to pray to God for them, but when Jesus gave up His life on the cross for us, died, and rose again in three days, God sent his Holy Spirit down to live in each of us.”

  “You mean His spirit is in me, too?”

  “Yes, Tamara, His spirit is in you, too. Each of us has the Holy Spirit dwelling inside, and God is only waiting for us to ask so that we can feel the fullness of His quickening power within. We all have the power to love immensely, to give of ourselves unselfishly—to let God’s light shine through us. In this world, we are His body, and He works His miracles of love through us. And so, Tamara, we all have the ability to love unconditionally, just like God loved us enough to give us his son, and Jesus loved us enough to die for us.”

  “That’s very powerful,” Tamara said, and she smiled brightly, feeling happy with this newfound knowledge about God’s spirit residing in her.

  “Yes, it is, Tamara, and when you really understand and feel it in your heart and in your gut, it’s life-changing. God our Father loves us just as we are loved by our very own parents, and just as Jesus, who is our spiritual brother, loves us and gave His life just so that we could be in the family—Alleluia!”

  Isaiah’s face was animated, and his deep-brown skin glowed in the low lights of the living room. Tamara couldn’t help but notice that he was quite a handsome man, and tonight she found it very comforting that he was so open about his obvious love for God.

  “What up, y’all?” said Sienna, entering the room again, oblivious of the deep conversation that the two of them were having.

  “What up, Sienna?” said Isaiah, smiling broadly at the young girl.

  Even though Tamara smiled, too, the enchanted moment was broken, and she was suddenly acutely aware of her grungy appearance: her now dry and unstyled hair, her bare, rained-on-and-dried face, and her old gray sweats and white-socked feet. Her confidence had waned just that quickly, to almost nothing, and now all she wanted was for Isaiah to get up off her sofa, get his coat, and go home.

  The lighthearted mood of moments before had slipped away elusively, and Tamara felt intruded upon now by Isaiah, Sienna, God, love, and everything else new in her life. In fact, an unfamiliar pang of resentment prickled at her as she watched Isaiah and Sienna interacting so easily together, leaving her feeling more isolated than ever in her concerns. Turning her gaze away from them, she felt vague insecurities plague her once again as she wondered if all the changes were more than she could handle at one time.

  33.

  Heartbreak Hotel

  Tamara stretched and yawned loudly. Trying to keep her eyes open was proving difficult this morning. Overly tired today, she regretted staying up later than usual last night to finish watching a television program with Sienna. Yet lately Tamara had been feeling guilty about all the time she spent away from home, so she took extra pains to find time for the two of them to be together. She knew that Sienna had already experienced some sort of neglect in her life, and there was no way she would purposely make her feel uncared for again.

  Riding with Jay toward the north side of town, she drowsily sipped from the cup of cappuccino she had purchased at the Quick Stop. Although she and Jay normally did not do emergency field work, this morning they had volunteered their response to a hotline call on one of the families they’d worked with the past few months. The two of them had put quite a bit of time and effort into keeping this family together, and it was their hope that whatever situation they might find once they arrived at the home would be fixable, allowing them to salvage the family unit if at all possible.

  “Tamara, you must really be tired!” said Jayson playfully. “Two cups of coffee in one day? That’s wa-a-ay out of your comfort zone!” he added teasingly with a short chuckle.

  Tamara smiled tiredly and yawned again. “You’re right about that, Jay . . . I am tired.”

  With a sudden look of disdain marring his handsome face now, Jayson asked disapprovingly, “What did she do now? I know that little Miss Thang got something to do with this!”

  “Her name is Sienna, Jay, and actually she doesn’t have anything to do with it. I stayed up late of my own accord, watching television.”

  For a minute he looked at her skeptically, then relenting, replied, “Okay, then . . . my bad. It’s just that ever since she’s lived with you, she’s either up to something or smarting off, and the person who seems to suffer the most for her bad behavior is you, Tam.”

  Tamara sighed, took a sip of the still-hot coffee, and then replied, “You know that’s not really true, Jay; it’s an exaggeration of what’s happened, and things are getting better between the two of us. Last night we watched a movie, just spending time doing something together, since I’m not around much.”

  Jayson spun around and looked at Tamara with raised eyebrows. “But, Tamara, the only reason you are not around much is because you are working.”

  “I know that, Jay, but Sienna is just a young girl, and she does not necessarily understand that. A few weeks ago she actually told me that she got tired of staying home by herself, and after thinking about it more, I realized she may be lonely, and that may be why she misbehaves so often—she may be trying to get attention, you know?”

  Dryly he asked, “And that’s why you were up late, huh? Trying to make sure she got some attention.”

  “Well, I guess you could say that,” Tamara admitted grudgingly.

  With a knowing shake of his head, Jayson mumbled under his breath, “See, I knew she had something to do with it.”

  Tamara ignored Jayson’s muttered comment. His constant negativity about Sienna was really beginning to bother her. “Look, Jayson, I appreciate your concern. I know you’re worried about me, but I’ll be just fine. Remember, Sienna’s just a kid, and she’s the one who’s gone through a hard time, not me.”

  “Tam, I keep trying to remind myself of that, but all I can think of is what a hard time she’s putting you through, and that seems unfair.”

  Glad to be able to change the subject, Tamara saw that they were quickly approaching the Smith family’s neighborhood, and said, “Jayson, here it is . . . turn left here. Then we need to find Congress Avenue, right?”

  Jayson turned the Chevy Malibu in at the trailer park. He was familiar with this neighborhood and quickly found the street they were looking for.

  Totally alert now, Tamara sat up straight in the car, carefully watching the house numbers as they were driving by. “This is it; I remember now . . .”

  Jayson pulled the blue Chevy into the short driveway by the small white trailer. A couple of old bikes and broken pieces of toys were scattered along the side of the house, and the windowless screen door flapped open wide, hitting the back of the railing with a rhythmic bang each time the wind blew.

  Glancing quickly at Tamara, Jayson turned his black leather cap to th
e back and grabbed his clipboard from between the seats. He took a deep breath and said, “Okay, sister girl, let’s go.”

  Inexplicably tense now, Tamara squeezed her shoulders high up around her neck and then relaxed them. The extra caffeine she just drank was probably why she felt a little wobbly, too. Inhaling deeply to shake off her jitters, she jumped out of the car and followed Jayson to the door.

  Jayson rapped hard on the door. When there was no reply, he knocked again even harder, and this time the flimsy door swung open wide. He raised his eyebrows, shot her a quizzical look, and then, with a shrug of his shoulders, stepped into the house.

  Once inside the small trailer, Tamara’s mouth fell open in disbelief at the disarray that greeted them. Following closely behind Jayson in the shadowy dimness, she could see garbage and debris littering the floor and the furnishings. The home felt cold. And it was dark.

  “Try the lights, Tamara,” said Jayson.

  With a leather-gloved hand she flipped the switch, and her stomach clenched when nothing happened.

  Jayson’s face was barely visible in the dim room as he gave her a sobering glance. “This ain’t lookin’ good at all, Tam.”

  “Oh, God, Jayson,” said Tamara with a confused expression on her face. “I don’t understand . . . How can it even look like this in here? We just were out here a month ago and it was spotless!”

  For almost six months now, they had been working with twenty-five-year-old Belinda Smith, the head of this single-

  family household, who had struggled with a drug problem on and off for years. Her two children; a girl named Santez, who was seven, and the little boy Jamez, who was five, had been removed from the home on several occasions already. The children were still receiving counseling to help them cope with the neglect they’d already experienced too much of in their young lives.

  The final attempt by the state to keep the family together was their contracted Care Agency Stabilization Services, which had begun a few days after the young mother had completed the mandatory drug rehabilitation program. Then Tamara and Jayson set up monthly wellness home visits by nurses from the community health center, enrolled Belinda in job training services, and helped the young mother find affordable day care for her children.