by Neta Jackson
By now, everyone was laughing. As Harry Bentley handed out wide pieces of triple layer cake, I grinned happily. My sons were enjoying themselves. My sons were home. This party was a great idea, surrounded by our new friends. If only—
I glanced at Philip, cake in hand, head tilted as he listened to Paul, who was talking to his dad with his mouth full. Like a blip on a radar screen, my heart caught. This was how it should be—the four of us celebrating the boys’ birthdays, together with friends. I had wanted so much for Philip to get to know my new friends and coworkers at the Manna House shelter. But our worlds here in Chicago had spun into different orbits, until they’d collided like meteors in space, reducing my sphere into jagged hunks of debris.
At least it felt that way, until God started to put my world back together again. There was still a big hole where that meteor hit, but at least I was functional again. Moving forward.
So why now? Maybe I should be glad Philip stayed for the party. Maybe he was realizing the penthouse wasn’t a pie in the sky after all, up there by himself. Glad he could see so much life and love closer to the ground.
The blip got stronger. Was he having second thoughts about us? Not that I would ask him straight out! The party was drifting back down the hallway to the living room again, but on impulse I planted myself in front of Philip before he followed. “Hey. Thought you were only going to stay a few minutes.”
He looked at me. Those eyes. “I didn’t say that. You said that.”
“But this is my party for the boys, Philip. You had them since yesterday; now this is my time. What’s going on?”
He took a last bite of chocolate fudge cake, chewed, swallowed, and then set his paper plate on the makeshift table. The look on his face . . . he almost seemed wistful. “Nothing’s ‘going on,’ Gabby. This birthday party for the boys—our boys—is nice. Real nice. Just wish you’d let me know about it. Paul obviously wanted both his parents to be here. P.J. too. Even if things aren’t working for us right now, we can—”
“Mom? Dad?” Paul, his curls damp on his forehead with the humidity, appeared in the doorway. “They’re letting the baby open her presents. Can we open ours? Those boxes on the window seat are for us, aren’t they, Mom?”
But Philip’s words were still echoing in my ears. He’d called me Gabby. And did he really say “right now”? Meaning what?
“Mom?”
“Yes. Yes, of course, honey. Coming.”
Paul disappeared again. I sighed. “Might as well stay while they open gifts,” I said over my shoulder as I followed our youngest down the hall. This was so . . . awkward. Frankly, I wished the floor would open up and swallow Philip. Or me.
But it was hard to stay morose while Gracie was gleefully tearing paper off her packages. First a sorting toy, then a cute squeezable doll, a stuffed penguin, cute pink overalls, and pink tights with ruffles on the rump. Josh and Edesa opened the last few, because by this time Gracie was happily playing with the wrapping paper and the boxes.
Denny Baxter rubbed his hands together. “Okay! So who gets those big boxes on the window seat in the sunroom? Do we draw straws?”
“Back off, bud.” Jodi backhanded her husband on the arm. “This is Gabby’s show.”
Jodi and I had managed to “wrap” the boxes in brown paper from grocery bags to hide the contents, and I’d stuck a big red bow on the top of each. Trying to ignore the big plastic bags sitting nearby with the Sports Authority logo, I said, “P.J., your birthday was first. The square one is yours.”
For a moment, I saw P.J.’s fourteen-year-old cool veneer slip, and he also ripped off the brown paper and packing tape with gusto. Digging through inflated plastic padding, he lifted out a gleaming blue-and-gold lacrosse helmet, and matching gloves and shoulder pads. Lane Tech colors. “Uh . . .” He looked at his father. “Dad just got us some lacrosse equipment—and some shoes too.”
Huh. Figured. I’d steeled myself for this.
“Well, guess we both know what you like,” I said brightly. “Don’t worry. We’ll exchange it for some other gear.”
“Can I keep the stuff Dad got? He let me pick out what I wanted. He got Paul some too, so we can practice together.”
It was getting harder to maintain brightness. “We’ll work it out, honey . . . Paul? You want to open the long box? No duplicates this time.” My laugh fell flat.
Paul didn’t seem to notice. “Yeah! You wanna help me, DaShawn?” Paul and Harry Bentley’s grandson tore off the brown paper, then Paul stepped back, reading the box, his eyes big. “Mom! A Casio keyboard?! Awriiiight! Anyone got a knife? I wanna open it!”
Josh Baxter produced a pocketknife, and a few moments later Paul slid out the gleaming keyboard. “Wow, Mom! Just what I wanted! Can we set it up?”
I didn’t know anything about keyboards, but Josh seemed to know a great deal, and before long had it set up on the window seat, plugged in, and Paul was running his hands over the keys.
“Josh used to run the soundboard at SouledOut Community Church,” Jodi murmured to me. “He had to set up a lot of keyboards!”
I was glad but already distracted by what was happening at the window seat. “Look at Jermaine.”
Mabel’s nephew had drawn alongside Paul, reverently touching the panel of buttons. “You play?” he asked Paul.
“Yeah. Some. Mostly my own stuff. Do you?”
The older boy’s face was alight. “Yeah. Wanna do some stuff ?”
“Sure!” Paul, on his knees in front of the keyboard, scooted over, and within moments Jermaine was pounding out something on the bass keys while Paul trilled a tune on the treble keys. Soon people were crowding around, listening and clapping as jazzy music filled the apartment.
Satisfaction seeped deep into my spirit. Well, one bull’s-eye out of two tries wasn’t bad. But just then I smelled Philip’s familiar Armani aftershave and heard a whisper in my ear. “Good heavens, Gabrielle. Don’t you realize that skinny black kid is a fairy? I don’t want Paul hanging out with a sissy!”
“Philip!” I snapped, anxiously looking around to see who might have heard.
“Okay, okay.” Philip put up his hands as if backing off. “I’m just saying . . .”
chapter 4
A fly droned in my ear. I brushed it away, unwilling to own that it was Monday already. Moving air from the window fan felt cool after the oppressive humidity that had hung over the city all weekend. Morning light filtered through the miniblinds, but the sun rose how early? Surely it couldn’t be time to get up yet.
I cracked an eyelid. The digital alarm said 5:56. Ahh. A good half hour before the alarm. I curled my arms around my pillow, willing myself to fall asleep again. After all, once Monday started—
The fly came back, louder than the fan . . . then stopped.
Argh! I sat up straight and frantically ran fingers through my tangled cap of natural curls. All my life I’d lived with the morbid fear that one day a fly or mosquito or bee would crawl into the reddish-brown corkscrews that haloed my head and hide there. Make a nest. Raise a family.
People with sleek, straight hair didn’t have to worry about that.
The fly had to go.
Turning on the bedroom light, I slid out of bed, grabbed a slipper, and stood stock-still. Zzzzzzz. There. I waited until the little bugger landed on the wall . . .
Swat!
Success.
But now I was wide-awake. Wrapping a thin kimono around my silky black boy-shorts-and-tank-top sleepwear, I padded out of my tiny bedroom at the rear of the apartment into the kitchen and started the coffee. After an inch had dripped into the pot, I poured a first cup, added milk from the fridge, and sat down at the little kitchen table while the rest of the pot was filling.
Monday already. It should have been a good weekend, except Philip’s stupid comment about Mabel’s nephew had upset me to no end. What if Mabel had overheard? Or Jermaine? Sure, the boy was a bit effeminate, but that didn’t mean anything. Not at fourteen—did it? So wha
t if he had a passion for music instead of football! I thought it was neat that Paul had found a kid who shared his creative genius, even if Jermaine was a couple of years older. Couldn’t Philip see that?
I should talk with my boys about this, before Philip’s mind-set poisoned their attitudes too.
Still, the welcome-home-birthday-party combo on Saturday had been fun . . . well, if I hadn’t been so distracted by Philip inviting himself in when he brought the boys back. And ruining my birthday surprise for P.J. by buying similar stuff at the Sports Authority. At least Paul had been ecstatic about the Casio keyboard. A splurge on my part. Had nearly wiped out my last check from Manna House. But the life insurance money from my mother should arrive any day now. She would’ve approved of the keyboard for Paul.
Sunday was good too. I thought the boys had enjoyed their first visit to SouledOut Community Church. “Start now, baby,” Estelle had told me. “Take ’em to church every Sunday. Tell ’em it’s part of the package. They’ll get used to it.” I hoped so. We’d been sporadic attenders at best back in Virginia, mostly for Christmas, Easter, weddings, and funerals. It helped that the boys already knew some of the folks at SouledOut, since half the people who had come to their party were members there. Well, maybe Mr. Bentley wasn’t a member, but he’d been pretty regular since he’d started romancing Estelle Williams. Such beautiful people at SouledOut, a lovely mix of brown and black and white and tan. And even one redhead lately. Me.
Now it was Monday. P.J. started cross-country practice at Lane Tech today. Had to get him there by nine and pick him up at ten thirty—which meant I had to leave staff meeting a little early. I had a rental car for now until I could buy a car, but he’d have to learn how to take the bus sooner or later. The kids still had three weeks until school started, but fall sports practices started early. Lacrosse was a spring sport, so P.J. had signed up for cross-country to help him stay in condition. But, oh, Lord, I was so lucky to get the boys registered for school last week! Lane Tech College Prep for P.J.—just a day school, praise God—and Sunnyside Magnet School for Paul, a K-through-eight school right in our neighborhood. No, not luck. An answer to a lot of prayer. Thank You, thank You, Lord . . .
Getting the boys in school had been first on my agenda when their grandfather arrived in Chicago a week ago with the boys. After P.J.’s summer lacrosse camp was over at the end of July, Mike Fairbanks had decided to drive their big Suburban from Petersburg, Virginia, in order to bring the boys’ bikes too. Over Nana Marlene’s protests, no doubt. Philip’s mother still clung to the belief that P.J. and Paul were returning—must return—to George Washington College Prep boarding school in the fall because, well, that’s what the Virginia Fairbanks males did. In fact, Philip had left the boys’ bikes with his parents when we’d moved to Chicago last spring, assuming the same thing. “They’ll need them when they go back to school, Gabrielle.”
But now the bikes were here, courtesy of Philip’s father. Locked in the basement of this six-flat. A symbolic reality that Chicago was now home for P.J. and Paul too. Bless Mike Fairbanks, God. Why was it only now, when my marriage with Philip was falling apart, that his father had become my advocate?
I refilled my coffee cup and let the hot liquid do its magic on my recalcitrant brain cells. Staff meeting . . . Should I bring up the idea about buying this six-flat and turning it into second-stage housing for homeless moms like Precious and Tanya? So far I’d only mentioned my crazy idea to Mabel. And my lawyer. Barely. But I needed some idea of what I was going to do when that check from my mother’s insurance arrived—
“Mom?” Paul’s sleepy voice made me jump. My twelve-year-old stood in the kitchen doorway in his pajama bottoms and skinny, bare torso.
“Hey, kiddo. What are you doing up? I was going to let you sleep in a bit longer.”
“I’m thirsty.”
“Okay. You want water or some O.J.?”
“Just water.” Paul plopped into a kitchen chair, elbows on the table, chin in his hands. “Mom, how come you gave Grandma’s dog to that old bag lady—Lucy what’s-her-face? It’s not fair. Dandy’s like family!” He stuck out his lip, ignoring the glass of water I put in front of him.
Ah. Dandy. Knew I’d have to answer for that sooner or later. “You really want a dog, don’t you, bud.” A stall, I knew.
“Yeah. But we already had a dog . . . well, kinda. When Grandma—” The corner of his mouth curled into a small smile. “Did the homeless people at the shelter really call her ‘Gramma Shep’?”
I smiled. “Sure did.”
He sighed. “Cool. Anyway, when Grandma died, I thought Dandy would come live with us! I would’ve taken care of him.”
I laid a hand on his arm. “I know you would, bud. But your dad, well, he didn’t want a dog in the penthouse, you know that.”
“Yeah, but . . . since you guys . . . I mean, since you . . .”
Suddenly Paul’s face took on the stricken look of a child who had just backed into the elephant in the middle of the room. His lip trembled. Before I could say anything, he tore out of the kitchen, tipping the chair over in the process, and slammed the door of his bedroom. I grabbed the glass of water before it tipped over too, waited thirty long seconds, and then padded quietly to his bedroom and opened the door.
Paul was sprawled on his bottom bunk, face in the pillow, shoulders shaking. “Aw, honey . . .” I sat on the edge of the bed and gathered him into my arms. “I know, kiddo, I know. It hurts.”
We sat that way for several minutes, while he cried in my lap. Then he sniffed and sat up, glaring at me reproachfully. “Why do you guys want to get divorced anyway? What about P.J. and me?”
Divorce. Had Philip used that word around the boys? I swallowed. “I . . . we haven’t said anything about divorce, honey. Just . . . we need some time apart right now. To work things out.” Oh, God. Am I getting his hopes up? After what Philip did, do I even want to work things out? Help me, Lord. I don’t know what to say!
There I was again, jumping right into the “help me!” prayers. But sometimes that’s all I knew what to pray.
I drove the gray Nissan I’d rented into the parking lot of Lane Tech. The high school campus sprawled on the southwest corner of Addison and Western Avenue. Wide front lawn, classic brick building with several wings, athletic field, outdoor stadium, surrounded by city on all sides. Definitely a change from George Washington Prep, with its white-pillared campus tucked into the rolling countryside around Petersburg.
No uniforms or blazers here. Instead, the kids spilling out of other cars with their gym bags looked like a regular United Nations. Unlike other neighborhood high schools, Lane Tech College Prep took applications from all over the city and had a long waiting list. Fortunately, P.J.’s lacrosse camp this summer had helped shoehorn him into the list this fall. Lane Tech had an up-and-coming lacrosse team.
“Do you know where to go, kiddo? Want me to go with you?”
“No, Mom! I’ll find it.” P.J. piled out of the Nissan with his gym bag, wearing running shoes, shorts, and a T-shirt. Where did he get that confidence? New city. New school. Didn’t know a soul. First year of high school, no less. When I’d started high school in Minot, North Dakota, I knew half the kids already from middle school.
Must be his dad’s genes. Well.
I rolled down the passenger side window. “P.J., wait! Remember, I’ve got a ten o’clock staff meeting. I’ll leave early, but it might be eleven by the time I get here. Meet me right here in the lot, okay?”
“I’ll be fine, Mom. See ya.” P.J. trotted off, gym bag over his shoulder.
A voice piped up from the backseat. “Can I ride up front with you, Mom? I’m twelve now.”
I glanced at Paul in the rearview. “Sorry, bud. I checked it out. Backseat for twelve and under, not under twelve.”
Scowling, Paul flipped his seat belt buckle and slid over behind me, where I couldn’t see him. “Seat belt,” I reminded, waiting until I heard it click before jockeying the car
out of the lot. I’d given my just-twelve-year-old the choice of staying at the apartment and playing with his keyboard until I got home at two, or coming with me to the shelter. To my relief, he chose to come. And the shelter had a rec room with a Ping-Pong table, a TV, and games.
We rode in silence for a mile or so as traffic moved in starts and stops along Addison. Suddenly Paul said, “Hey! Is that Wrigley Field? Where we went that time to see the Cubs?”
The huge ballpark loomed in the distance like a poignant memory. Memorial Day weekend. Our first weekend together as a family after picking the boys up from school in Virginia. Still full of hopes and dreams for our new life in Chicago. “That’s it. That was a fun day, wasn’t it?”
No answer. But I turned my head just enough to catch his face pressed against the window behind me, watching the curved walls of Wrigley Field slide past as I turned the corner by the Addison El station and headed north. I knew what was going on in his mind. Would we ever have a fun day like that again, all of us together?
A few blocks north of the ballpark, the Manna House shelter was tucked into a neighborhood known as Wrigleyville North. I parked on a side street, leaving plenty of exit room between me and the next parked car. I’d gotten blocked in once when I drove Philip’s Lexus to work and had to leave it on the street overnight.
Another one of my so-called sins that contributed to the downfall of my marriage. Well, maybe not, but it didn’t help.
“How come the shelter looks so much like a church?” Paul gazed up at the building as we waited at the top of the wide steps to be buzzed in. The brick building was less than a year old, and at its peak the wooden beams of a cross stretched top to bottom and side to side inside a circular stained-glass window.
“Because the old church that used to house the shelter burned down, so they rebuilt it along the lines of the original building— oh! Here we go.” As the buzzer sounded, I pulled open the big oak door. “Hi, Angela!” I waved at the young receptionist in the glassed-in cubicle as we crossed the foyer. “Will you sign me in? And you remember my son Paul, don’t you? He’s here with me today.”