Who Do I Lean On?

by Neta Jackson

  Rats! I threw the stuffed dog into a corner with more force than necessary. I was the one buying the building, the one offering most of the apartments for second-stage housing. Didn’t I have the right to do what I thought best? And like Mabel said, most women who qualified for second-stage housing didn’t end up with their own three-bedroom apartments! But no, I was trying to please everybody.

  Double rats! Why did I—

  A light tap at my office door was followed immediately by Precious and Tanya slipping into my office, momentarily allowing chatter from the class outside to slip in with them. Precious jerked a thumb in that direction. “Since when did Edesa start teaching healthy eatin’? I shoulda put Sabrina in that class! That girl carryin’ a baby and eatin’ like a teenager with pizza on the brain.”

  I tried to read their faces but got nowhere. “Edesa’s just filling in for Estelle. Long story. Besides, Sabrina’s at school. Don’t they talk about the importance of nutrition in her birthing classes at the hospital?”

  “Huh. Don’t get me started. She’s missed so many of those classes—”

  “Precious!” Tanya hissed. “That ain’t what we came to talk about.”

  “Oh. Right.” Precious gazed somewhere over my head. “We gonna do it.”

  I looked cautiously from one to the other. “Do what?”

  Tanya giggled. “Share the apartment—if we can have the first floor, you know, ’cause Sabrina ain’t gonna be walkin’ up no three flights of stairs.”

  I hardly dared breathe. “You . . . really? You’re okay with sharing an apartment?”

  Tanya nodded. “To tell you the truth, Miss Gabby, I was kinda scared thinkin’ about Sammy and me alone in one of those big ol’ apartments. How would I ever get enough furniture to fill it up? And Sammy an’ me don’t need three bedrooms—in fact, he sleeps better if he’s in the same room as me. ’Course it’s different for Precious an’ Sabrina . . .”

  Precious made a face. “Got that right. I been relishin’ the thought of havin’ a whole bedroom to myself, an’ one for Sabrina—that girl drives me nuts, the way she throws her clothes around—and a baby room we could fix up with teddy bears or Winnie-the-Pooh or somethin’.”

  “But I told Precious if we’re housemates, we can help each other with the cookin’ and cleanin’ an’ babysittin’ too!”

  I still was having a hard time believing what I was hearing.

  “And the bedroom situation?”

  Precious shrugged. “Like she said, Tanya an’ Sammy would just as soon share a bedroom—for now anyway—so she’s cool if Sabrina an’ me have the other two. An’ I’m thinkin’ it might be better for the baby to sleep in Sabrina’s room anyway, help her remember she’s a mama now. If that baby had a room all its own, Sabrina is likely to sleep right through its nighttime feedings, an I’d be the one gettin’ up at 2 a.m. Uh-uh. Been there, done that.” She shook her head, sending her twists swinging.

  “Besides.” Tanya smiled shyly. “I like the idea of Mr. Josh an’ Miss Edesa livin’ there too. My Sammy don’t know his daddy, an’, well, it’ll just be nice to have a young man like Mr. Josh around the place. He’s good with all the kids. An’ we all love Miss Edesa and little Gracie. It’ll kinda be like . . .” She seemed embarrassed. “Kinda like the family we never had.”

  Long after Precious and Tanya had slipped out of the room, I sat at my desk talking to God. Oh, God, forgive me. I nearly made a mess of things—but just look at You, God. You took it away from me and then gave it back, better than before! Giving Precious and Tanya a chance to own the new plan is so much better than me getting all self-righteous about my “rights.” Oh, Jesus! Help me to trust You more . . .

  Another tap at my door interrupted my scattered thought-prayer. Edesa stuck her head in. “I’m leaving now. Got studying to do. But any chance Josh and I can come over to the apartment this weekend and maybe do some painting? Or, knowing Josh, he’s going to want to prep the walls. I know you haven’t closed on the building yet, but . . .”

  I grinned at her. “That’d be great. Just one thing . . . I forgot to tell Josh which apartment. It’s the third floor. Tanya and Precious will be sharing the one on the first floor. Is that going to work for you?”

  Sí, sí! I like being on the top floor. No little footsteps running back and forth overhead—oh, I hear Gracie fussing. Can “ you believe it? She slept through the whole class.” The vivacious young woman gave me a quick hug. “And gracias again, mi amiga. A larger apartment will look very, very good next time we meet with our social worker about Gracie’s adoption. Dios es bueno!” Laughing, she shut the door behind her, but her sweet presence seemed to linger. I still wasn’t used to a Spanish-speaking woman who looked African-American—her “African-Honduran” heritage, she’d told me. Edesa seemed at once exotic and earthy, sweet and salty. No wonder Josh Baxter, three years her junior, had fallen in love with her.

  My spirit was nearly bursting with joy at how things were turning out. If I trust in the Lord, He promised to make my paths straight. Amen to that!

  I turned back to my computer, looking forward to having Josh and Edesa pop over while the boys were with their dad this weekend. It got lonely when they were gone. Did I have anything else scheduled this weekend?

  I clicked on the icon for my computer calendar, which popped up instantly on the screen. My next appointment leaped out at me: Friday, Sept. 8. Court date. 1:00 p.m. Tomorrow. My buoyant spirit suddenly sank under the weight of Philip’s last words to me: “A judge may have second thoughts about giving you custody when he hears you left your own kid high and dry on the first day of school.”

  I tried to swallow but my mouth had gone dry. Was he going to challenge my custody petition?

  I wanted to talk with the boys about their dad and me going to court the following day, but it seemed like the phone rang all evening. Lee called to give me a few tips about tomorrow: Arrive early. Dress professionally but conservatively. Don’t bring a big purse—keep it simple, easy for the security personnel to see what’s in it. Nothing metal or sharp. Let the lawyers do the talking unless the judge specifically addresses me . . .

  Estelle called from Harry’s house, saying she had to drive Harry to the Medical Center tomorrow and she wouldn’t be at work. She’d already told Mabel, but wanted to let me know and ask me to pray. I started to ask her to pray about my court case tomorrow, but she was off the phone already.

  I called Jodi Baxter to pray about my custody petition, and she said Avis Douglass and several of the other Yada Yada sisters were at her house praying for Harry Bentley, and they’d be glad to pray for my custody case as well. “You doing okay, Gabby? Do you need somebody to go with you?”

  Yes! I wanted to screech. But what was she going to do, take a personal day off from teaching? Sounded like a bad idea. “I’m all right. I’ll be fine. Just pray, okay? One o’clock.”

  The boys would be going to bed soon. I made a couple of smoothies out of some leftover strawberries, two overripe bananas, and the last of the orange juice, and told the boys I had a couple of things I needed to talk to them about. P.J. looked wary, but joined Paul and me on the window seat in the sunroom just off the living room. The evening was still pleasant, somewhere in the seventies, and I opened the windows to catch the breeze coming off the lake a mile away. Underneath our windows, a cricket orchestra sawed away as the boys sucked the straws in their smoothies.

  Just start, Gabby. No matter how I did this, it wasn’t going to be easy. I blew out the breath I’d been holding. “You both know your dad and I worked out an informal agreement about where you’d live and when you’d spend time with him after you came back to Chicago.”

  P.J. shrugged. “Yeah. So?”

  “Well, I filed a petition for temporary custody, and the court date is tomorrow. I just wanted you boys to—”

  “Why?” P.J.’s eyes sparked. “I mean, why do you have to go to court and do all that stuff ? Why can’t you just leave it like it is? You said you
rself that you and Dad agreed how to work it out.”

  Paul seemed preoccupied, blowing bubbles through his straw back into his smoothie.

  I chose my words carefully. “Because earlier this summer, your dad took you back to Virginia and left you there without telling me. You just . . . disappeared, and I didn’t even know where you were.” My voice wobbled slightly. “I’m filing for custody so that can’t happen again.”

  Paul blew more bubbles. P.J. glowered at him. “Stop it, squirt!”

  Paul noisily sucked up the last of the smoothie and slumped against the throw pillows on the window seat, kicking his legs against the baseboard.

  P.J. wasn’t through. “Shouldn’t we go to court too? We’re not babies. Maybe the judge wants to ask us where we want to live.”

  “I don’t wanna go to court,” Paul piped up. “Let Mom and Dad figure it out.”

  “Paul’s right. This is something your dad and I have to figure out.” I tried to soften my voice. “But even if I have legal custody, we can still talk about how much time you spend with your dad and make changes if we all agree.”

  P.J. still glowered. “Don’t see why you moved out in the first place,” he muttered.

  Why I moved out?! Anger spiked through my body so strongly, I half expected sparks to shoot from my hair and fingertips, like some electrified humanoid. Is that what Philip had told the boys? I stood up, my back to the boys, and counted to ten before turning to face them. “P.J. and Paul, look at me. Whatever your father told you, I want you to know that I did not move out.” Locked out, thrown out was more like it! “I would never, ever leave you, especially not without saying a word.” Hot tears threatened to spill over.

  “So he lied, then.”

  Yes! I wanted to scream. He lied! He stole you away from me! But P.J. seemed to be fishing for something. I needed to be careful, not to tear Philip apart in front of his sons, to stick to my side of things. I breathed deeply and sat back down on the window seat, trying to calm down. “I don’t know what he said or why he said it. Your dad and I had a . . . a huge misunderstanding. I came home from work and discovered I’d been locked out and you were gone. I didn’t know where! I was frantic!”

  “But you called us at Nana and Grandad’s. And told us to stay there.”

  “I guessed that’s where you might be, and I was right. And it took me awhile to find a place to live so I could bring you back. But I didn’t leave you, and I never will.” I reached for both boys, pulling them close. “I love you too much to do that.”

  Paul suddenly crumpled into my lap and burst into tears. I cradled him as his shoulders shook, and to my surprise, P.J. let me pull him close as the three of us rocked together there on the window seat.

  As Paul’s sobs subsided, I let him sit up but kept my arms around both boys. “Hey, you know what? I have some good news.”

  “What?” Paul sniffed. “Is it about Dandy?”

  “Mm, no. But I think you’ll like it. Guess who’s going to move into the House of Hope with us?”

  “Ha, I know that,” Paul scoffed, wiping his nose and eyes on his T-shirt sleeve. “Sammy told me. He and his mom, and that big girl Sabrina and her mom.”

  “She’s big, all right.” P.J. snickered and stuck out his stomach. “Big with baby.”

  “Well, that’s true. They’re going to share the first-floor apartment. But somebody else too.”

  P.J. looked at me sideways. “Not Miss Turner and that Jermaine kid?”

  I let that pass. “No. Our new mystery neighbor taught your Sunday school class at the lake last week and he’s also a pretty good baseball player.”

  “You mean Josh Baxter?” P.J. actually sounded interested.

  I grinned. “And his wife, Edesa, and little Gracie, of course.

  Josh is going to be the property manager for this building—you know, fix stuff that gets broken, keep the furnace running, make sure the building stays up to code, stuff like that. In fact, Josh and Edesa are going to come this weekend to prep the walls and start painting the third-floor apartment, getting it ready to move in.”

  “But we’ll be with Dad.” Disappointment clouded P.J.’s face. “Wish we could help paint. That’d be fun.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “Don’t you have a cross-country meet on Saturday? Like, waaay out in Wauconda?”

  P.J. made a face. “Yeah. Buses leave from the school real early. Like six thirty.”

  I almost laughed. Poor Philip. “Well, the next meet that’s within spitting distance, let me know. I want to see you run.” I gave my oldest a teasing sock on the arm, which he shrugged off. But I could tell he was pleased.

  “Okay, off to bed, you two. Tomorrow’s a school day. Shoo!”

  But fifteen minutes later I slipped into Paul’s bedroom and sat on the edge of his lower bunk. “What about you, Paul? Think you’ll like having the Baxters living here?” I tousled his curly head on the pillow, so like mine, except with a boy cut.

  He snuggled under the light blanket. “Yeah, that’s cool. But I’d like it even better if Jermaine and his Aunt Mabel could move in.”

  I hid my surprise. “And why is that?”

  “’Cause”—he yawned—“then Jermaine and I could play music together whenever we wanted to . . .”

  chapter 29

  I didn’t know what time Mr. Bentley’s eye surgery was on Friday, but Mabel called a short prayer meeting in Shepherd’s Fold before Edesa’s Bible study for anyone who wanted to pray for “Mr. Harry.” As the small group gathered, I worked up the courage to say, “I could also use prayer for my custody hearing this afternoon” without offering any details—and was humbled when two of the women who’d lost custody of their own children when they were drugged out on the street spoke up and prayed for me.

  “Rev’rend Liz” Handley, the former-director-now-board-member of Manna House, showed up to cover lunch prep in Estelle’s absence. I had to chuckle seeing her bustle around the kitchen, because Liz Handley and Estelle Williams were as different as chalk and cheese. Liz was short, white, and fairly round in the face, with blue eyes and short, steel-gray hair. Estelle was a large black woman, but tall and solid, her dark hair streaked with silver and usually piled in a bun on top of her head. But she could also wear it down and wavy—I suspected Mr. B liked it that way—very womanly.

  Then again, those white hairnets and big white aprons had a way of swallowing everyone’s “distinctives” and turning them into look-alike kitchen blobs.

  Whatever Liz was making smelled good, but I couldn’t stay for lunch because my custody hearing was scheduled for one o’clock at the Circuit Court of Cook County, which had its offices in the Richard J. Daley Center in the Loop, and Lee had told me to arrive early. My stomach was in such a knot, I didn’t think I could eat anyway.

  Rather than hassle with parking, I took the Red Line, which had an El stop a mere two blocks from Daley Plaza. Passing in the shadow of the towering Picasso sculpture—which looked like a skinny iron horse head wearing two winglike ponytails to me—I merged with the stream of people flowing into the Daley Center and lining up at the security checkpoints. I tried not to stare, but the mix of humanity was eye-popping. Orthodox Jews with long beards and tassels hanging beneath their suit coats rubbed elbows with guys in dreadlocks and pants barely hanging on below their butts. Men in traditional suits and ties stood in line with ethnic women—Muslim?—wearing black head scarves that covered all but the face. What if somebody showed up swathed in a burka? A person could hide almost anything under that. Some people with ID tags were allowed to go through a special gate, avoiding the security check. Lucky them.

  The rest of us inched forward. “Empty your pockets, put everything in the bin . . . Put all purses and bags on the moving belt . . . Sir, sir? You can’t take that pocketknife in . . . I don’t care if your granddaddy gave it to you, you can’t take it in . . . Well, I’m sorry. You’ll have to leave it in the sheriff ’s holding room or get out of line . . . Next!”

>   I made it through security and took the elevator to the eighth floor. I had to ask two different people where to find the room number Lee had given me, but I finally found it with ten minutes to spare. Peeking through the small square window in the door, I saw the back of Lee’s head. Relieved, I pulled the door open.

  Lee Boyer stood up as I approached the table where he sat, giving my black skirt, black shell with an ivory embroidered cardigan, small earrings, and low heels a quick once-over and smiled his approval. “Glad you’re early. Philip isn’t here yet.” He pulled out a chair for me.

  The smallish room helped my racing heart slow down. A desk for the judge, two small tables facing it for the respective parties and their lawyers, a few chairs behind them in two short rows. No jury box. Clearly a room for a hearing, not a trial.

  Philip and his lawyer came into the room with one minute to spare. He didn’t look at me, just sat down at the other table, whispering to his lawyer. A door at the side of the room opened and a white woman entered, brown hair drawn back into a neat bun at the nape of her neck, reading glasses perched on her nose. A young male clerk scurried behind her and sat down with a transcription machine. That made six of us in the room. We started to stand—don’t they say, “All rise” or something?—but the judge waved us back into our seats. For a few moments she didn’t say anything, just studied some papers in a folder.

  Finally she looked up. “I presume,” she said, looking at Lee, “you are representing Mrs. Gabrielle Fairbanks, concerning two petitions”—she glanced again at the folders—“one for unlawful eviction, the other for temporary custody of the couple’s two sons?”

  Lee stood. “I am, Your Honor. Lee Boyer.” For the first time I noticed he was actually wearing a suit and tie. Well, slacks, sport coat, and tie.

  “And Mr. Hoffman”—she eyed the other table—“you are representing Mr. Philip Fairbanks?”