by Neta Jackson
All the instruments were still except the saxophone, rich and resonant. I forgot about Josh’s jeans. I forgot about Stu’s parents and whether they were squirming on our awful folding chairs. The words pulled at my heart . . .
O come, let us adore Him . . .
We sang no verses, just the chorus, again and again . . . until I longed to get down on my knees, like the shepherds of old, and just worship the Christ, Immanuel, come to live among us . . .
But I didn’t. Too chicken.
3
The praise team finally wound up the time of worship with a get-down version of “Joy to the World,” causing Sunday morning shoppers to peer in the windows. A few even stepped inside the door to listen, though they skittered back outside when Pastor Clark—wearing a skinny red tie that ran up and down his white shirt like a fever thermometer—stood up to welcome visitors and give announcements. “Don’t forget our next business meeting and potluck on the second Sunday of the New Year—”
“What? No New Year’s Eve service?” I whispered to Denny. He ignored me.
“—Also, volunteers from the Manna House women’s shelter here in Chicago would like to bring an announcement. Josh? Edesa?” Pastor Clark waved them up.
I was relieved to see Josh was clad in a pair of jeans with no skin showing. Edesa, as usual, glowed like polished mahogany. She was the first Spanish-speaking black person I’d ever met. Even with all my textbook education about the ugly slave trade on both American continents, it had somehow eluded me that African descendants peppered South America too—until I met Edesa. Nationality: African Honduran.
But as the two of them stood up there in front of the whole church, my heart bounced back and forth between affection and anxiety. Josh, our eldest, was a recent high school graduate, with no plans—yet—to go to college; he wanted “life experience first.” Edesa, three years older, had recently changed her study track to public health at UIC —and had been one of my Yada Yada prayer sisters ever since God threw the twelve of us together at that Chicago Women’s Conference a year and a half ago.
Josh and Edesa. Everywhere I turned lately, they were doing some kind of youth group thing together. They’d helped chaperone a group of Uptown teens at the Cornerstone Music Festival last summer. Taken kids to Six Flags Great America. (Huh! In my book, nineteen-year-old Josh was still two hairs shy of being an adult.) Now they were volunteering at a homeless women’s shelter, of all things!
Josh, of course, admired Edesa. Who didn’t? The Honduran student was a vibrant young woman—one of the sweetest I’d ever met. Thoughtful. Caring. Like a daughter to Delores Enriquez and her brood. Still, I nearly swallowed my tongue when, in a rare moment of vulnerability, my son had told me, “Mom. I . . . love . . . Edesa Reyes.” And in an even rarer moment of motherly grace, I’d actually asked, “Have you told her?”
No. She’d never encouraged him that way, he said. They were “just friends.”
Right.
“Buenos días, church!” Edesa’s bright yellow sweater and yellow cloth headband added sunshine to the rather gray day outside. “I bring you greetings from Iglesia del Espirito Santo, my home church on the West Side. I am delighted to be with you this morning—and I see many familiar faces here.” She winked at Little Andy, who hid his face and giggled.
Josh picked it up. “Edesa and I are volunteers at Manna House, a women’s shelter in Chicago, less than a year old.” He sketched the beginnings of the shelter, “home” to two dozen women with children, more or less, who were homeless or—in some cases—victims of domestic abuse who needed a place of safety.
“Right now,” Edesa said, “we have only one full-time paid staff member—our director. Our office manager is part-time. We desperately need more volunteers—especially on the weekends, to give the staff a break—including those who would be willing to spend one or two nights simply being un amigo to the women, doing activities with the niños, and simply being a ‘presence.’ ” She smiled at the gaggle of kids on the front row. “But maybe the best thing would be to hear from one of the current residents.”
Who? Rochelle? Only a few people here knew Rochelle was a “current resident” at Manna House. Wouldn’t it be risky to go public? She didn’t want Dexter to find her. Besides, I thought Rochelle was still so mad at Peter “You’re Not My Dad” Douglass for sending her to a shelter when she showed up at their apartment a third time, I couldn’t imagine she’d plug Manna House—not in front of her mom’s new husband!
But Rochelle didn’t move. Instead, Edesa took a letter from her pocket, unfolded it and began to read. “To whom it may concern: To tell the truth, I never imagined that I would end up in a women’s shelter. But I never imagined I’d be afraid of my husband either, so here I am . . .”
Did Rochelle write the letter? Sounded like her story. She whispered something to Conny, as if not paying attention. Avis’s eyes were closed, her lips moving soundlessly. Praying, no doubt.
“The shelter isn’t much,” Edesa read on. “The space could use a lot of sprucing up.” Josh rolled his eyes in agreement; the kids on the front row giggled. “But I’m so grateful the staff and volunteers have been there for me and my baby. They’ve loved on us, accepted us, given us legal help, and been a safe haven when we needed it most. Of course, we don’t want to stay here forever! But for now, we are blessed. And if you can do anything to keep the shelter going, I know you will be blessed too.” Edesa looked up. “Signed by one of our residents.”
The congregation clapped spontaneously. When the noise died down, Josh said, “Uh, I think that speaks for itself. We’re hoping to get enough volunteers so your time would only be one weekend per month. So . . . if you have any questions, please talk to us after the service. We can give more details at that time.”
Before Josh and Edesa went back to their seats, both Pastor Clark and Pastor Cobbs laid hands on them and prayed for this new shelter. I noticed Denny fishing in his pants pocket for a handkerchief and blowing his nose.
When the prayer was over, Josh and Edesa finally left the platform—and then suddenly Josh turned back. “As long as I have the floor—”
My head jerked up. Uh-oh. What was my unpredictable son going to do now?
“—we’ve had a tradition at Uptown Community on New Year’s Day—”
Oh no. He’s not going to bring that up in the middle of a worship service!
“—a Polar Bear Swim down at Loyola Beach. I know we’re a ‘new’ church now, and all the old things are on the shelf till we get things decided, but, hey, just wanted to invite anyone, especially the teens and anyone young at heart—”
Oh, brother. He’s actually inviting people to that crazy Polar Bear Swim right here in the middle of worship! And Stu’s parents are visiting too! I saw a few New Morning adults shaking their heads. Ack! What are people thinking!
“—noon sharp, ’cause I know everybody’s gonna stay up late the night before seeing the New Year in. So—” Whatever Josh said after that was drowned out by the whoops and enthusiastic catcalls of several teenagers, both black and white.
I was afraid to look at Pastor Cobbs’s face. I mean, there was nothing remotely spiritual about a Polar Bear Swim! And we were the newbies in this church—after all, we were meeting in New Morning’s new space, and—
Beside me, I felt Denny shaking. I looked at him, startled.
My husband had his head down, laughing silently.
“WHAT YOU SO UPTIGHT FOR, GIRL?” Florida rolled her eyes at me after church as we walked away from the coffee table, Styrofoam cups of hot, black liquid in our hands. “Thought you was gonna turn into a frog, the way your eyes bugged out when Josh did that Polar Bear thang.” She grinned at me unsympathetically.
“I know, I know,” I moaned. “It’s just that . . .”
Just what, Jodi Baxter? said the Voice in my spirit. Worried about what people will think? Hm, haven’t we been there before, you and Me?
Well, yeah, but—
And what’s “unspiritua
l” about the Polar Bear Swim? After all, Scripture says, “Do all things to the glory of God.”
Well, yeah, but—
Stop worrying about what people will think, Jodi, and start looking for the possibilities. Like your son.
Like my son. I looked around until I saw Josh—in the middle of a knot of kids, laughing and talking. Huh. I doubted they were signing up to be volunteers at Manna House. But just then I saw Pastor Cobbs thread his way through the mob of youthful bodies and shake Josh’s hand. Josh’s face lit up. Even from where I was standing, I heard him say, “That’d be great! Wow.”
Nanoseconds later, Amanda, butterscotch hair falling out of a butterfly clip perched on the back of her head, bounced over to me. “Hey, Mom. Guess what? Pastor Cobb thinks the Polar Bear Swim thing is great. He encouraged all of us kids to invite other teenagers, then bring them back here to the church for hot chocolate and music and stuff. Cool, huh?” She bounced off. Amanda rarely waited for an actual dialogue.
I closed my eyes and shook my head. Sheesh. When was I ever going to learn that God was a whole lot bigger than me and all my ought-tos and fear factors and what-ifs? Was God giving me a word for the New Year?
Look for the possibilities, Jodi . . .
4
So once again I found myself standing on the beach on New Year’s Day along with Stu, filling cups of hot chocolate for the shivering teenagers who had just come up out of the water after their mad dash into—and out of—Lake Michigan. The lake, which hugged the long eastern shore of Chicago like a wet, soggy blanket, rolled in unhindered. No ice this year; it’d been too warm. Not that I felt warm, standing on a beach in forty-degree weather, hunched inside my winter jacket, wishing I’d worn a sweatshirt underneath to cut the wind.
Clad in dry sweats over wet bathing suits, the teenagers piled into an assortment of minivans and cars and Uptown’s old fifteen-passenger van, driven by—bless him—a beaming Pastor Clark. I waved good-bye as the cars headed back to our shopping center church, glad that Pastor Cobb, Pastor Clark, and Rick Reilly—Uptown’s youth group leader before the merge—were going to take it from there.
“And that’s that,” Stu said, loading the two big Igloo coolers we’d lugged down to the beach. “Quite a few kids I’d never seen before. Our kids must have invited them . . .” She looked at me sideways. “Or was that the whole idea all along?”
“Maybe.” I climbed into the passenger seat of her silver Celica, blowing on my hands, and waited for her to get in. “All I know is Pastor Cobbs jumped on the idea and saw it as a youth outreach . . . Turn on the heat, will ya?”
“Who’s doing the food back at the church?” Stu steered the car up Sheridan Road until we came to Lunt Avenue, our street.
I shrugged inside my jacket. “Dunno. Rose Cobbs got on it”—I still wasn’t used to calling her First Lady Cobbs, the term of respect New Morning members gave to their pastor’s wife—“and asked somebody to do it. Say, did you get any feedback from your folks about their visit to our nameless church? Sheesh. Hope we do something about that soon. Can’t keep calling it ‘Uptown–New Morning’ forever.”
“Ha.” Stu pulled into the alley behind our two-flat, hit the garage door opener, and drove in. “I think my folks were a little shell-shocked. You’ve gotta admit, we’re not exactly a liturgical church.”
We headed for the house through our tiny backyard, and parted as Stu turned up the back steps to her apartment. “Hey,” she called back, “has anyone heard from Chanda? Are she and the kids back from Jamaica yet?”
I blinked. “Ack! Chanda! . . . No, I haven’t heard if she’s back, but school starts on Monday, so she’s gotta get home this weekend. But it was her birthday yesterday—New Year’s Eve, remember? She was complaining it never got celebrated because of all the holidays. We gotta do something for her at Yada Yada this weekend.”
“Piece of cake—pun intended.” Stu laughed. “I’ll make a cake. I think we should give Becky’s lopsided creations a rest, don’t you think? And you do your meaning-of-the-name thing, Jodi. Think you can dig up a meaning for Chanda?”
I made a face and unlocked our back door. Willie Wonka was whining on the other side. “Huh. It’s not exactly ‘Sue’ or ‘Mary,’ but I’ll give it a go. Oughta be interesting . . . okay, okay, Wonka. Come on out. Go pee. But hurry it up, will ya?”
As if the poor deaf dog could hear a thing I said.
“AH, THE MIRACLE OF THE INTERNET,” I murmured, staring at the computer screen. I’d been trying for an hour to find the meaning of Chanda’s name—putting off the job of taking down the Christmas tree, the major chore on my to-do list the Saturday after New Year’s Day—but kept running into dead ends. It wasn’t listed in any of the usual “Baby Name” sites; searching Jamaican names turned up nothing; ditto African-American. Finally, I’d just Googled “Chanda . . . name . . . meaning” . . . and there it was.
“CHANDA. Hindi, meaning ‘dignified.’ ”
From the Hindi language? Huh. Wonder where her Jamaican parents got that from? I couldn’t help smiling. Dear, funny, fussy Chanda was a lot of things, but “dignified” didn’t come to mind. On the other hand, it was amazing the significance God seemed to squeeze from the meaning of our names—
“Mom?” Josh’s voice behind me interrupted my thoughts. “You got a minute?”
“Sure.” I suppressed a smile. My nineteen-year-old actually wanted to talk to me? I had sixty minutes!
Josh, dressed in a rumpled T-shirt and sweatpants that had seen better days, sprawled into a dining room chair. He ran a hand over his tousled hair. “Well, we didn’t get that many volunteers last Sunday at church . . . three, I think. A girl—well, young woman—named Karen somebody, and Mr. and Mrs. Meeks.”
“Debra and Sherman Meeks? I mean, aren’t they too old? Sherman’s got asthma; he has to use an inhaler.”
“Mom.” Josh dialed up his patient voice. “Young, old—age doesn’t matter. Anybody can volunteer if they’ve got the right heart. Which is why I wanted to talk to you. Edesa’s going to ask again at your Yada Yada meeting tomorrow night, but I thought, if you volunteered, maybe some of the other Yadas would too. You gotta pass a background check, but no sweat.” He must have seen my eyes widen, because he threw up his hands. “Only one weekend a month, I promise! You can bring your own sheets and pillow if you like.”
If I liked? It hadn’t even occurred to me to volunteer. I was blithely assuming others would, single people probably, without family responsibilities, without—
Think of the possibilities, Jodi.
The phone was ringing. “Uh . . . let me think about it, Josh. Okay?”
“Sure!” Josh unwound his body and hopped off the chair like a human Slinky. “Thanks, Mom.” He grabbed the kitchen phone. “Baxters . . . Yeah, she’s here.” He handed me the receiver and headed for the refrigerator.
“Hello, this is—”
“Sista Jodee, is dat you? We back from Jamaica! Mi mama so happy to see de t’ree kids—first time to see de girls! An’ dey got to play wit all dey cousins, an’ swim in de ocean, an’ milk a goat. Yah, a goat for true . . .”
Chanda giggled, giving me an opening. “So glad you had a good trip, Chanda. We’re all jealous, you know! But we missed you. Hey . . . are you coming to Yada Yada tomorrow? It’s Yo-Yo’s turn to host.” If we were going to do this birthday thing, it’d be handy to know if she’d be there.
“Oh, yah mon. Such a good time we had. Got mi a nice tan too.” She giggled again. “Irie, mon! Yah, mi be dere.” And the phone went dead.
I blinked, still holding the receiver. Why in the world did Chanda want a tan? She was already brown! And was it my imagination, or had her Jamaican patois thickened up like chicken gravy?
IT SNOWED SIX INCHES THAT NIGHT, burying the Christmas tree we’d dragged out to the curb the day before. Our first real snow of the winter. But salt trucks and snowplows had cleared most of the major streets by the time Stu and I headed for Yo-Yo’s apartment Sun
day evening in her Celica. Stu cautiously navigated the slick side streets, while I balanced the cake carrier. We’d be lucky to get her three-layer red velvet cake there still layered.
“Sorry.” Stu grimaced. “If I’d known it was going to snow, I’d have made brownies or something.”
But somehow the two of us and the cake made it in one piece, and so did most everyone else. Everyone except Ruth.
“Aw,” Chanda pouted, shrugging off her winter coat and boots and twirling to show off a bright turquoise-print Jamaican dress, which she filled out. “Mi wanted to see dem babies. What are dey—six weeks? Dey must be so big now!”
“Shoulda met at your house, then,” Yo-Yo muttered. “Mine’s probably not clean enough.”
She was kidding, right? I tried to read her face with no luck. But Adele Skuggs, who styled funky cuts on everybody else at Adele’s Hair and Nails, shook her short, no frills, black-and-silver afro. “Don’t think we’ll see Ruth for a while—an’ clean ain’t got nothin’ to do with it, Yo-Yo Spencer. MaDear always said, ‘Got one, you on the run; got two, you make do; got three, there you be.’ An’ if you ask me, two at the same time probably feels like three.”
“She should just leave ’em with Ben,” Stu said. “He’s the daddy. He can take a turn.”
Adele snorted. “Yeah, right.”
We all laughed. Yeah, it was a bit of a stretch imagining white-haired Ben Garfield juggling both babies by himself all evening.
By that time, we’d all found something resembling a place to sit—on Yo-Yo’s salvaged-from-the-alley couch, a few mismatched table chairs, and the floor. But our first meeting of the New Year felt more like a party than a prayer meeting. Even Avis and Nony and Florida, all struggling with huge family challenges, just seemed glad to be there, their burdens a bit lighter in the company of sisters who knew and still cared. And, well, it was a party. We surprised Chanda with the red velvet cake, Adele had picked up a mixed bouquet of cut flowers, and I presented Chanda with the birthday card we’d all been secretly signing as people dribbled in.