by Neta Jackson
Turning on my stocking feet, I stalked down the hallway, past Amanda’s bedroom on one side and the dining room on the other, past the one and only bathroom . . . I came back to the bathroom. The door was closed. I knocked tentatively.
“Busy!” came a female voice on the other side of the door.
“Amanda? It’s Mom. I’m home.”
“Oh, hi, Mom! Glad you’re back,” said the disembodied voice of my fourteen-year-old.
“Come see me when you’re out—I’ll be in my bedroom.”
“Okay.”
I continued on down the hall and peeked into Josh’s room. No sign of life, except for the mold and unsightly creatures probably breeding in the piles of dirty clothes, CDs, schoolbooks, magazines, and snack dishes littering every inch of the floor. My mouth tightened. Didn’t Denny tell the kids to clean their rooms on Saturday?
Probably not. Nagging was my job. Everybody was on vacation when Mom went away for the weekend.
I headed for our bedroom at the back of the house, tempted to slam the door with gale force, but I thought better of it with “company” in the house, so I left it open a crack. Throwing myself onto the bed, hot tears welled up and wet the comforter. I grabbed a tissue from the bedside stand and dabbed my eyes, then blew my nose.
Some homecoming.
“Mom?” My fourteen-year-old stood silhouetted in the doorway. “Ohmigosh. You’ve got big black smudges under your—” Amanda, her butterscotch hair twisted in a clump on the back of her head and gripped with a big white plastic claw, sat down on the edge of the bed and squinted at me. “You okay?”
I rolled my eyes and allowed a self-deprecating grin. “Yeah. Never learned the art of bawling without ruining my mascara. I’m fine. Just, you know”—I jerked my head in the direction of the living room—“disappointed.”
She looked confused. “Why? Dad’s just watching the game with some guys.”
“I know. I just . . . never mind. How was your weekend?”
“Great! Dad took me out for brunch Saturday—we went to the Original Pancake House up in Wilmette. So cool, Mom! I had one of those Dutch babies—couldn’t even finish it.”
I smiled, trying to ignore the pang in my chest. It’d been a long time since we’d been to the Original Pancake House, a virtual North Shore museum of stained glass as well as to-die-for breakfast creations. “I’m glad, honey. That’s neat.”
“Oh. What time is it? Gotta go. The youth group is having a meeting at four-thirty about our service project trip to Mexico. Josh is already over there.” She bounced off the bed then leaned over and pecked me on the cheek. “ ’Bye.” And she was out the door.
Thirty seconds later she was back. “The game isn’t over. Can you give me a ride to the church?”
I sighed. Welcome back to the real world.
WHEN I GOT BACK FROM TAKING AMANDA over to Uptown Community—it was only about a mile, but Denny and I didn’t like her walking alone, even in the afternoon—the game was over, the guys were gone, and Denny was dutifully cleaning up the living room. “Hey,” he said as I walked in. “Thanks for taking Amanda. Hope you didn’t mind. It was a great game—Cubs won by seven runs!” He had that hopelessly silly look of the sports addicted.
I shrugged. “Didn’t mind. Got to steal a quick hug from Josh— who knows when I’ll get to see him otherwise.”
Denny balanced several bowls in each hand as he headed for the kitchen beyond the dining room. “Yeah. He’s taking this ‘youth leader’ role for the Mexico trip pretty seriously. Hey! You sit down,” he called back over his shoulder. “I’ll finish this up, then I want to hear about your weekend! You want some coffee? Tea?”
“Tea.” That would be nice. I settled in one of our secondhand overstuffed chairs in the living room—decorated in a charming hodgepodge that Denny called “early attic.” I felt my spirit relax. I’d gotten myself worked up over nothing. The kids were gone . . . Denny and I could have some time to ourselves now . . . everything was okay.
Five minutes later Denny came back with the teapot, two mugs, the honey bear, and a couple of spoons on a tray. “Okay,” he said, handing me one of the steaming mugs. “Tell me about your conference.”
Now that I had his attention, I hardly knew how to tell him what had happened this weekend. So I just started at the beginning— our unexpected roommate . . . getting assigned to a prayer group for the weekend . . . wearing our jeans to the banquet (“You’re pulling my leg!” he said, his eyes getting big; then he burst out laughing) . . . the news about José getting shot and the all-night prayer chain . . . and finally, our decision to keep the prayer group alive to pray for each other.
Denny set aside his mug and pulled me over to sit beside him on the couch. I nestled down into the crook of his arm, feeling warm and safe. “Sounds like an amazing weekend. How did it go rooming with Ms. Johnson?”
Ms. Johnson? I pulled back to look at him. He had a smirk on his face. Of course. That’s what I always called Avis at school. She was the principal, my boss, after all. “Good. Good. We got along great.” But suddenly I felt a bit schizophrenic. All weekend she had been “Avis”—a friend, a “sister.” And yet, now that I thought about it, I didn’t know a whole lot more about her than I did before the conference. Except that she could lose herself in worship—totally unlike her calm, reserved, everything’s-under-control presence at school. I knew she had grandkids—their pictures were all over her office at school—but she’d never said anything about a husband. Was she married? Divorced? Never married?
How had we managed to get through the entire weekend— and all that sharing in the prayer group—and I still had no idea if there was a Mr. Avis?
I just sat in the crook of Denny’s arm, thinking . . . when I spied a stray brown bottle on one of the lamp tables. “Denny?” I turned to look at him again. “What’s with the beer? I mean, I thought we agreed, no beer in this house.”
“Oh, is that what we did? I thought it was you saying you didn’t want any beer in the house. Though you don’t seem to mind the occasional bottle of good wine.”
“Yeah, but . . . that’s different.” Denny knew my background; why was he being so cavalier about it all of a sudden? I was too little to remember much about my father’s drinking—just the feeling of panic when the yelling started, my big brothers holding me in one of the back bedrooms, covering my ears to drown out the sounds of my father shouting at my mother and the crash of things getting thrown around. But then my father got saved at a little Bible church—saved and “delivered from the demon of alcohol,” my mother often said. After that, drinking of any kind —along with smoking, gambling, and cussing—was right up there with the seven deadly sins. To my mother’s delight, we became the church-goingest family in Des Moines, and everyone had marveled that Sid Jennings was a changed man.
Denny, on the other hand, came from a mainstream church background, where drinking wine and even beer was an accepted part of the social culture. By Denny’s own admission, he’d been more of a church attender than a Christ follower till college, even got a little wild with the weekend parties. But then he’d had a real renewal of his faith with a Christian college group on the university campus—somewhat to the bewilderment of his parents, who were a little worried he might turn “fundy.”
Denny’s parents had graciously offered to buy the wine for our wedding reception, nearly giving my parents apoplexy. We managed to convince the senior Baxters that not serving wine at the reception dinner would be more “sensitive” to my family, who didn’t drink— and besides, would save tons of money.
They gave us two nights in a luxury hotel instead.
“How different?” Denny’s tone was not confrontive, but also not concerned.
“Just . . . different.” I felt on the defensive. “People don’t go out and get drunk on wine. But you hear about all these stupid beer parties at the universities, and . . . and, who do the cops pull over for DUIs? Beer drinkers!” Now I was finding my groove.
“Hey, hey, hey! Wait a minute.” Denny’s tone went up. “When did we jump from drinking a beer while watching a Cubs game to getting pulled over for drunk driving?”
“Well . . . it starts somewhere.”
“Jodi Marie Baxter. You’re being unfair. I’m totally on the same page with you about drunkenness! It’s wrong. It’s stupid. The Bible warns against it. But drinking a glass of wine with our meals—as you do from time to time—or drinking a beer with the guys in my own living room is not a sin. I didn’t even buy it. Larry brought it, and I made the decision that to make a big deal about it would be to push him away, a ‘holier than thou’ thing. Especially when we drink wine from time to time. What kind of hypocrisy is that?” He paused. “Besides, remember that Bible study we did on Jewish festivals? Wine is a symbol of harvest, of God’s blessings. You know that.”
“Wine, not beer,” I said stubbornly.
Denny stood up abruptly. “Oh, good grief, Jodi. Let’s not fight about this. It’s really not a big deal. Look, you just got home . . . I’m glad you had a good time . . . the kids and I managed fine . . . this is the first time the other coaching staff have been to my house, and they had a great time . . . Let’s leave it at that.” He picked up the tray and headed for the kitchen.
I sat motionless on the couch, wishing I still had his arm around me, wishing I hadn’t said anything. Tears threatened again, but I blinked them back stubbornly. Maybe Denny was right. Maybe I was inconsistent. Still . . . I didn’t like him drinking beer in our house, not with the kids around, for sure, and I wished he wouldn’t. For me, if nothing else.
The clock on the mantel of the gas fireplace struck six. I shook myself. I needed to go over my lesson plans for tomorrow—we were working on one-digit multipliers in math, and I’d wanted to develop some games to make it fun—and do the prayer group e-mail list.
A surge of energy got me up off the couch. The prayer group. If we were going to hang together as the Yada Yada Prayer Group, I needed to get on the computer and send out that list.
11
I settled down at the computer in the dining room— might as well do the list first, I reasoned, before the kids got home, suddenly remembering that they still had homework— and got out my notebook with the page the prayer group had filled out. As I started to type in names, addresses, and e-mails, I couldn’t help but guffaw. I could practically guess whose e-mail address belonged to whom, even without looking at who wrote it down.
[email protected] . . . Avis, of course.
[email protected] . . . guess who.
[email protected] . . . oh, that was funny. Ruth, the Yiddish Dish. Ha!
[email protected] . . . had to be Adele’s shop.
Nony’s was easy: [email protected].
Stu’s was blatant advertising: [email protected].
I felt a little silly typing our family e-mail address on the list: [email protected]. Denny’s idea, of course, when the Chicago Bears were hot. But now it sounded like a children’s picture book. Oh well.
Hoshi had a Northwestern University address, and I didn’t have anything for Delores or Edesa yet. Chanda and Yo-Yo did not have e-mail—hopefully Adele and Ruth would help us stay in touch with them somehow.
“Whatcha doin’?”
I turned to see Denny leaning in the doorway between the dining room and kitchen. His gray eyes were gentle, a little sad—that puppy dog look he got when he wanted everything to be okay.
“Making a list, checking it twice . . . to see who’s been naughty or nice.”
That got a laugh. So I told him about our conference prayer group wanting to stay in touch, even choosing a name for ourselves.
“The Yada Yada Prayer Group?”Now his eyes were crinkled up in silent laughter, the corners of his mouth twitching.
“Don’t laugh,” I ordered, but I was grinning myself. “If you met all these women, you’d see it fits this group perfectly.”
“And it means . . .?”
“Don’t have a clue. ‘Whatever.’ ”
Denny moved behind me and massaged my neck. “Hungry? You want to go out for a bite somewhere? Kids aren’t back yet . . .”
The last bit of tension between us seemed to evaporate. It was tempting . . . but. “Sounds great . . . but I want to get this done before Josh and Amanda get back and tell me they’ve got a ten-page paper due tomorrow morning, and will I please get off the computer?” I looked up hopefully. “But a toasted cheese sandwich sounds good. With horseradish. And a pickle. If you’re offering.”
“Coming up.”
Denny went back into the kitchen, and I stared once more at the blinking cursor on the screen. Okay, I had the list done and ready to send, but I needed to make an address subgroup so I could send it with one click. And maybe I should summarize what different women had asked prayer for during the weekend and send that, so we could keep praying for those situations.
The foster family who has my little girl seems to have disappeared.
Flo’s words popped into my head so strongly, I actually looked around, thinking she was standing right there telling me again. Ohmigosh. If we were going to be a real prayer group, we certainly should be praying for that. But . . . Flo had only told me because I’d blundered into her business. Would she mind if we prayed about it as a group? Why would she?
At least I could ask.
Working quickly, I created a subgroup in my address book called “Yada Yada,” then copied the list into an e-mail message and hit “Send.” Then I called up a new message:
To: Florida Hickman
From: Jodi Baxter
Subject: Prayer for your daughter
Flo! Hope you got home okay. How are the boys?
I’m wondering . . . could Yada Yada pray about finding your daughter? Ever since you told me that the foster family has disappeared, I’ve been thinking THIS is the very reason we need to continue the prayer group. Please consider letting the group know how we can pray. In the meantime, I will pray . . . hard.
I stared at the message on the screen, realizing how little I knew this woman. Then a troubling thought crossed my mind: if Flo had e-mail, that meant she had a computer. A computer . . . but no beds for the kids?
Odd.
BEEP . . . BEEP . . . BEEP. I automatically flung out my arm and hit the snooze button on the alarm. For a moment, I was confused. Had the prayer group decided to pray before breakfast again? Had my snoring chased Florida out of the bed again?
Then I felt movement in the bed, and Denny’s arm pulled me close under the comforter. I smiled sleepily as I pressed my back against his warm, bare chest. This was definitely better than sleeping by myself in the corner of a king-size hotel bed, even without maid service.
Five minutes later, the alarm went off again, and I flung off the comforter. Monday morning at the Baxter household had begun.
One hour and thirty minutes, four rounds of banging on the bathroom door, two slices of burnt toast, one shoe hunt, pooling pocket change for city bus fares, and three wails of “Where’s my whatzit?” later, I headed out the front door for the fifteen-minute walk to Bethune Elementary. I felt like a bag lady in walking shoes, a bulging backpack (extra sweater and flat shoes to change into) slung over one shoulder, a huge canvas tote bag full of rectangle shapes (baking pan, old Christmas card boxes, box of cereal, and the like) for my students to measure the perimeter of rectangles in math, and my smaller canvas lunch-bag-with-water-bottle in the other.
“C’mon, hon! I’ll give you a ride,” Denny called, letting the engine of the minivan run while he cleaned bird poop off the windshield. My mistake. I’d left the car parked on the street last night after picking up the kids from church. Usually there weren’t any parking places on the street—at least we had a garage off the alley— but yesterday, there it was, a parking place right in front of the house. An urban miracle! It would’ve seemed a shame to leave it empty.
But I forgot about the bird poop.
“No thanks! Need the exercise.” I lifted the tote bag in a half-attempt at a wave and set off down the sidewalk at a good pace. Walking was my fifteen minutes of mental space between household chaos and school chaos every day.
I hummed as school kids passed me on the run, their book bags bumping on their backs like loose turtle shells. “Hi, Miz Baxter!” a few of them called. But for the most part, they seemed to function on the principle that school hadn’t started yet and therefore they weren’t obligated to acknowledge adults. That was all right with me. All too soon we’d all be on the conveyor belt that pulled us through the school day. Bells ringing . . . announcements on the loudspeaker . . . passing out worksheets . . . moving desks into modules for science projects . . . the constant hum of thirty eight-year-olds, like a classroom of crickets . . .
I’m coming back to the heart of worship . . .
It’s all about You, Jesus . . .
I realized I’d been humming some of the worship songs from the conference. The words carried me along like inner breezes.
The playground was full of kids running—always running— backpacks and jackets dumped along the tall chain-link fence or against the deep red brick of the old school building. The May sunshine tempered a chill wind coming off Lake Michigan and prowling through any available open space.
I pulled open the double doors and stepped into the relative quiet of the before-school hallway. Glancing into the school office, I saw Avis talking with one of the secretaries. She caught my eye, and I gave her a smile, but I thought, Good morning, Ms.Johnson. Back to the real world.
But to my surprise, she held up her index finger in a wait-a-minute signal.
I lowered my tote bag to the floor. In less than a minute, she came out, dressed in a cranberry suit and chunky gold earrings. Were school principals supposed to look that smashing?
“Hi, Jodi.” She smiled, but I wasn’t sure if it was a “friendly principal” smile, or a warm now-we-know-each-other-a-little-better smile. “Recover from the weekend yet?”
“Not sure I want to. It was . . . great.”