by Neta Jackson
And then we were all over both of them, giving them hugs, congratulations, and slaps on the back—well, the guys slapped Harry. “Oh, Mr. B,” I breathed into his ear when I finally got my turn for congratulations. “I am so happy for you. So . . . happy.” The lump in my throat cut off the rest of what I wanted to say, and I just hugged him hard.
Harry and Estelle insisted on serving the coffee and brownies to us all—“Estelle’s Double-Rich Double-Fudge recipe,” Harry bragged—as everyone started begging for details. “Where’d he pop the question, Estelle?” . . . “Did you have to twist her arm, Harry?” . . . “Do you guys have a wedding date yet?”
As my teeth sank into a second piece of Estelle’s brownies, I suddenly realized Harry said he’d asked Estelle to marry him last weekend—the same weekend he’d saved Philip from another serious attack by that terrible Fagan person. I started to ask Harry if he’d asked Estelle before or after that traumatic event, but held back because I saw Philip gingerly make his way through the crowded room and extend his good hand to Harry. “Congratulations, Bentley. Happy for you. And I hear I’ve got you to thank for saving my skin last Sunday. Don’t know how you sent those cops to the right alley, but—thanks.”
Harry pursed his lips a moment and then nodded thoughtfully as he slowly shook Philip’s offered hand. “Glad you’re okay, Fairbanks.” He looked hard at Philip. “But the one you should really thank is the Man Upstairs. Might not have sent those cops to the right place if God hadn’t let me go through hell.”
Philip seemed taken aback. “What do you mean?”
“My eyes. God allowed my sight to give out on me not long ago, real scary time. But I learned to use my other senses a lot more, ’specially my hearing. It was the things I heard over your phone—the buses goin’ by, other sounds—that told me where that shakedown was happenin’. Learned somethin’ the hard way— God can use anything, even the pain in our lives, to do some good.”
I was so astonished by their interaction, I had to slip away into the bathroom to gather my wits around me. I was glad Philip took the opportunity to thank Mr. B for coming to his rescue last weekend. Maybe . . . maybe that was even the reason God allowed him to end up here at the house blessing tonight. I held on to the sink, my shoulders slumping. Oh God, I’m sorry—sorry all I was thinking about was me and my feelings. Maybe you wanted Philip to be here tonight, to talk to Harry, or just to witness a group of people giving You the glory for putting the House of Hope together.
Harry’s words just a few moments before suddenly echoed in my head. “God can use anything, even the pain in our lives, to do some good.” The comment hit me with such force, I had to sit down on the toilet seat. It was true. God had caused a lot of good to come out of my pain! It didn’t excuse what Philip had done, but tonight’s house blessing for the House of Hope would never have happened if I hadn’t ended up homeless and close to losing my sons—
Knock! Knock! “Sister Gabby, are you in there?” Edesa’s voice. “People are getting ready to go home, but the Douglasses want to have one last prayer.”
“Uh . . . coming! Give me a sec.” I took several deep breaths, patted a wet washcloth on my face, and finger-combed my frowzy curls before opening the door. The group had gathered back in the living room, forming a haphazard circle. I slipped in between Jodi and Denny and took their hands.
“Ah, there you are, Gabby,” Peter Douglass said. “Just wanted to ask what’s next for the House of Hope so we can commit the next steps to prayer before we leave.”
On the spot again! I thought fast. “Well, actually Josh and I found out today that the tenant in 2A is moving out next weekend— which is good, as it frees up another apartment for the House of Hope. But that’s sooner than we thought, so we need God’s guidance in selecting our next residents. Same for the other two apartments, of course—and also pray that the tenants who move out would find good places to go.”
Peter Douglass nodded, closing with a simple prayer asking for guidance and wisdom in filling the House of Hope with the people God would bring. And then there was a flurry of goodbyes, more congratulations for Harry and Estelle, reclaiming of coats and food dishes. Jodi had been helping with the cleanup, so she and Denny and Philip were some of the last to leave. We were saying good-bye when I felt an urgent tug on my arm.
“Mom? Mom!” Paul darted eager looks between Philip and me. “If that apartment on the second floor is gonna be empty, why doesn’t Dad just move in there? Then we could see him more often and not hafta wait till Fridays!”
chapter 13
I could have throttled Paul Michael Fairbanks, then and there. No way was I going to stand there in front of Philip, P.J., and the Baxters and explain to my youngest why his father was not going to move into that apartment.
“Another conversation, another day,” I quipped, giving Paul the Evil Eye. Quickly leading the way into the hall, I opened the door into the outer foyer. “Thanks for the basket of yummy breads, Jodi. I’ll make sure the other residents get some. Glad to see those bruises are almost gone, Philip. But take care, don’t overdo it. Thanks for giving him a ride home, Denny. Thanks for coming, y’all! Bye! Bye!”
The moment the foyer door wheezed shut, I turned on Paul and P.J. “Inside. Family meeting—now.”
I marched both boys into the sunroom and pointed to the window seat. “Sit.”
They sat, looking up at me sullenly. I folded my arms across my chest, breathing heavily. It was all I could do to not tap my foot too.
“Look,” I said, “we need to have a clear understanding. Your dad and I are separated. Which means we need space from each other. And we don’t do everything together either. So no more putting me on the spot in front of him—or even worse, in front of other people— by begging for him to stay for dinner or a party or something else that’s happening here. And, Paul, you were way out of line harping about him moving into one of the apartments here—”
“But, Mom! He—”
“Quiet! I’m talking here and I want you to listen, young man. This is not an apartment building where just anybody can move in! I’m working with Manna House and the City of Chicago to provide housing for homeless single moms. So every apartment that becomes available is earmarked for moms from Manna House, until they get on their feet and can get their own house or apartment. Manna House staff will decide who lives here—not you.” I glared first at one son, then the other. “Do you understand? Do not ambush me in front of your dad or other people.”
Both boys pouted. Then P.J. muttered, “The Baxters moved in here, and they weren’t homeless. Not a single mom either.”
“That’s different. I hired Josh to be the property manager for the House of Hope and it’s helpful if he lives on the premises. Edesa’s also a Manna House volunteer. Living here, she’s like support staff for the House of Hope, same as me.”
“But, Mom . . .” Paul’s lip was quivering. He grabbed his T-shirt and rubbed it across his eyes.
My resolve to be hard-nosed started to dissolve. I dropped my arms and sank down on the window seat beside him. “Look, honey. I know our separation is hard on you. Hard for both of you. And I’m sorry. Really sorry.” I reached out and touched P.J. gently, then put an arm around Paul. “If you want your dad to do something— come to your birthday party or whatever—or if you have questions about what’s happening with your dad and me, just talk to me in private first. That’s all I’m asking. Okay?”
“Guess so,” P.J. muttered.
Paul sniffed. “But—”
“But what, honey?”
“What if it’s an emergency? Couldn’t Dad move in here then?”
“What do you mean?”
“Because I saw him again.”
“Saw who again?”
“That man. The one who sits on the park bench and watches for Dad. I saw him today, just before we came over here. He went like this . . .” Paul cocked his hand like a pistol and pretended to shoot.
I cornered Harry Bentl
ey at SouledOut the next morning after the worship service. “Mr. B, what happened last Sunday when you went to the police station? You know—after the police picked up Fagan and his crony. Are they both locked up? Off the street?”
Mr. Bentley scratched his chin, covered by the gray beard that ran ear to ear along his jawline. “Far as I know. Fagan was caught in the act of committing a felony after being indicted on previous felony charges. That’s a bail violation. The responding police took Mr. Fairbanks to the station where he signed a statement about what happened, and I backed him up based on what I heard over the phone. I’m pretty sure they’ll keep Fagan in the county jail now until his trial’s over. Both he and the other cop—”
“The other cop?” I squeaked.
Mr. Bentley’s generous mouth twisted in a cynical smile. “Yeah. Unfortunately, several of Chicago’s finest have gotten sucked into Fagan’s little gang of rogue cops. We just don’t have enough evidence against them to make charges stick. Yet.” He tipped his head and looked at me with concern. “What’s this about, Firecracker?”
I told him about the man Paul had seen watching Richmond Towers and making threatening gestures. “It sounds like the same man I saw in the park last week when I brought Philip back from a doctor’s appointment. Paul’s scared for his dad, wants him to move out of the penthouse. Is Philip still in danger, Mr. B?”
My friend didn’t answer for a moment. A hubbub of people talking and laughing around the coffee urns, kids darting here and there, and people leaving through the double glass doors filled the space around us until he spoke. “Don’t know, Firecracker. Wish I could say for sure he wasn’t, but knowing Fagan, he’s gonna make sure he gets his money back—somehow. Fairbanks’s best bet is to pay back that loan. But how that’s gonna happen . . .” Harry shrugged.
I sighed. “Yeah. A lot of problems would be solved if Philip would—could—pay off his gambling debts. Well, thanks.” Then I eyed him slyly. “So. Who won the argument last Sunday? Did Estelle go to the station with you or not? Had you already given her the ring?”
Harry threw back his head and laughed. “She did not go with me to the station. Fact is, I was going to pop the question that afternoon, until that mess with Fagan came up. So I had to do some mighty fast juggling.” Still chuckling, he glanced across the room to where Estelle was holding court around the coffee urn, showing off her engagement ring to a gaggle of eager females. “But as you can see, we got it done. Oh yeah—hee, hee—we got it done.”
Staff meeting at Manna House ran overtime the next morning due to the influx of new names on the bed list. Even though daytime temperatures still played tag in the fifties, nighttime temps had been falling below freezing, bringing more of the homeless indoors. I jiggled impatiently, eager to talk privately with Mabel about who might be our next candidates for the House of Hope.
Leafing through the stack of intake forms, Mabel sighed. “We need more case managers. Any suggestions?” She glanced around the circle of volunteers and paid staff. “Any of you want to get certified? And yes, I’m serious.”
“I think Gabby would make a great case manager.” Edesa flashed a grin at me. She and Josh tried to take turns making staff meeting on Monday mornings when they could juggle their class schedules at Circle Campus. One-year-old Gracie was no doubt the center of attention out in Shepherd’s Fold at the moment. A few residents had been at Manna House long enough to remember when the tiny girl had shown up at the shelter in the arms of her drug-addicted—and now dead—Latina mother. Gracie certainly had no shortage of adoring “aunties” willing to babysit during staff meeting.
Mabel lifted an eyebrow and smiled. “Good suggestion. But I’m guessing Gabby has enough on her plate right now getting the House of Hope up and running. Anyone else?”
No one else volunteered, and it went on the list of prayer needs. I felt torn. I’d already been wondering what it’d take to qualify as a case manager—a role that would give me more opportunity to help some of the young women like Naomi Jackson, who’d managed to work her way into my heart. Even though the young drug addict had kind of latched on to me, I felt helpless to know how to help her.
But Mabel was probably right. One thing at a time, Gabby. Like the weekend getaway I had put on the agenda for today. I not only needed final approval from Mabel in order to reserve the retreat house—a yes there, hallelujah—but I needed a couple of staff willing to go along. Huh. I already knew Estelle wouldn’t volunteer. But to my relief, Angela Kwon and Edesa Baxter both said they were interested. All I had to do now was determine how many residents could sign up.
After staff meeting I tagged along on Mabel’s heels. “Got a minute to talk about the House of Hope?” I asked hopefully as she stopped by the reception cubby where Angela had just relieved the resident who’d covered for her.
“Mm,” the director said absently, glancing through the phone messages Angela handed her. “A few minutes. What’s up?”
I followed her into her office and sank into a chair. “The second-floor apartment that’ll be vacant next weekend. It’ll need to be patched and painted, I’m sure—but knowing how hard Josh works, it could probably be ready two weeks after that, which is the first weekend in November. We need a list of viable candidates and to get them started on their applications—because hopefully the other two apartments will be vacant by the end of the year.”
Mabel Turner nodded thoughtfully. “All right. The obvious candidates are the moms whose children are here at the shelter right now. Who are . . . ?”
“Well, Cordelia Soto comes to mind. She has two—Rufino and Trina.”
“Except it’s my understanding she’s hoping to move to Little Village where she has family.”
I snorted. “Yeah, I’ll believe it when I see it. Her brother’s been stringing her along with empty promises for months. Cordelia’s so sweet. They should be falling all over themselves to make room for her.”
“So who else? Celia Jones has her granddaughter with her. How old is Keisha?”
“Ten. I think those two—Celia and Cordelia—would make perfect housemates. Cordelia’s kids already relate to Celia like a surrogate grandmother.”
“But if Cordelia’s not a candidate, next on the list would be . . .”
I grimaced. “Shawanda Dixon. The two babies are hers— Dessa and Bam-Bam. But I don’t know, Mabel. She’s a tough cookie. And the kids have no discipline.”
“Maybe an older woman like Celia is just what she needs.”
“Humph. What she needs is an apartment by herself.”
Mabel shrugged. “So assign her to 2A by herself. The board decided three should be the minimum number for a three-bedroom with subsidized rent, so she’d fall within the guidelines.”
I fell silent, my thoughts tumbling. I was hoping for a few more likable residents at the House of Hope before we took on a hard case like Shawanda. “I’m going to ask Cordelia and Celia first,” I said stubbornly. “That would give us a more stable quorum in the building before adding Shawanda to the mix.”
Mabel nodded slowly. “All right. But if Cordelia takes herself off the list, you’ll need to find someone else to share the apartment since it’d just be Celia and her granddaughter in a three-bedroom.”
I was going to hope for the best. “Who else should go on the list? Any moms like me, who need second-stage housing so they can get their kids back?”
“Well, there’s Sunny Davis. She’s got four kids farmed out to various relatives. Court won’t give her custody until she has a place to live.”
I could hardly wait to ask Celia and Cordelia if they wanted to apply for the vacant apartment at the House of Hope. Celia’s dark eyes filled with tears when I invited the middle-aged grandmother to my office and told her we’d have a vacancy at the House of Hope by the first of November.
“Oh, Gabby, honey. These old bones would be grateful to sleep in my own bed instead of a bottom bunk with Keisha overhead! That girl flops more’n a fish in the bottom of a row
boat.”
“Old bones, my foot,” I teased. “You can’t be a day over fifty.” I was guessing. Celia’s acorn-brown face was smooth and unlined, though her close-cropped nappy hair was salt-and-pepper already. But I realized I knew very little about Celia’s story—only that her daughter was strung out on drugs, leaving Celia to raise her granddaughter. And something about losing her apartment when her husband died and she could no longer afford the rent.
“Close. I’m fifty-two. But feels like I’ve lived double that. Lord have mercy, the things I’ve seen, mm-hm, help us!” She waved a thin hand in the air, and for a minute I thought she was going to “have church” right then and there. But she regained her composure and asked, “What do I have to do?”
I explained the application process the city required and left her in my office to fill out the forms while I went hunting for Cordelia.
“Haven’t seen her,” Angela Kwon informed me at the reception desk. She ran a finger down the sign-out page. “But she hasn’t signed out, so she should be around. Oh! This message came for you awhile ago, but you didn’t answer your office phone. Somebody from Wisconsin wanting to know if you still want the retreat house the weekend of the twenty-eighth. Guess they’ve got another request for the same dates.”
I snatched the note. “Yikes. Yes, we want it!” I scurried back to my office to return the call. Finding Cordelia would have to wait.
chapter 14
“The good news,” I told Mabel Turner the next day, “is that we’ve got that retreat house in Wisconsin for the last weekend in October. Are you sure you don’t want to come?”
She eyed me with the same “Are you kidding?” look Estelle had given me. “And the bad news is—?”
I sighed. “Cordelia Soto says she and her kids are moving in with her cousin around the first of November. At least that’s the plan.”