The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Rolling

by Neta Jackson

  I opened the back door. “Estelle! Come in, girl. It’s cold out there.” I pulled her in and shut the door. “Just getting back from Adele’s?”

  She nodded, hands jammed in the pockets of her long, secondhand coat, head wrapped in one of her knitted creations. “Can’t stay. Just want to ask y’all to be prayin’ for MaDear. She . . .” Estelle shook her head. “She’s not doing well. My Lord. She’s coughin’ an’ chokin’ all the time. Adele was goin’ to cancel her appointments tomorrow an’ get her to the doc, but I told her I could take MaDear. We can go by taxi and let Adele know if she’s needed. But main thing, we got to be prayin’.”

  “Sure. I’ll let the other sisters know. Thanks, Estelle.” I shut the door behind her, then leaned against it, my spirit sinking. Pneumonia again? Couldn’t be good.

  But maybe this was a good excuse to call Yo-Yo myself. I’d held off, giving Ruth or Stu a chance to connect, but I hadn’t heard from anybody if they’d gotten hold of her. I dialed her number, let it ring . . . but then her voice-mail message kicked in: “Yo, dude or dudette! Yo-Yo isn’t home and neither are the Rug Rats. You know what to do at the beep.”

  I smiled as the beep sounded. “Dudette yourself, Yo-Yo. This is Jodi. Missed you Sunday night.” I almost apologized for Ruth forgetting her, then decided not to go there. “I wanted to let you know that MaDear isn’t doing so good. Might be pneumonia again. Estelle’s been taking care of her, is asking all the sisters to pray. Give me a call when you can, okay?”

  I CALLED ADELE’S HAIR AND NAILS when I got home from school on Friday, but Takeisha, the other hairstylist, said Adele was at the hospital.

  “They admitted MaDear?” I asked.

  “Guess so. All I know is Ms. Adele got a call an’ she flew out of here like her hair was on fire.”

  I called upstairs to see if Estelle was home. No answer. I didn’t even know what hospital. St. Francis in south Evanston? That would be the closest. I started to hunt for the number, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember MaDear’s real name. Everybody just called her MaDear. Started with an S . . . Sue? Sharon? Didn’t sound right.

  But Denny remembered. “Her name’s Sally. Sally Skuggs.” His run-in with MaDear a year and a half ago, when her demented mind mistook him for the man who’d lynched her big brother back in the forties, had affected him deeply. Denny asking her forgiveness for that terrible act had bonded the two of them in a deep, mysterious way.

  We called St. Francis. Yes, a Sally Skuggs had been admitted to the ICU. No, they weren’t allowing visitors. We hopped in our car anyway.

  At St. Francis Hospital, we found our way through a maze of elevators and hallways to the ICU family waiting room. A few people gazed absently at the droning TV hanging high in the corner; others flipped through magazines or just sat. At first, I didn’t recognize anyone; then I saw Estelle’s knitted hat covering the face of a bulky woman dozing in a corner.

  “Estelle?” I shook her shoulder. The hat fell off and her eyes popped open.

  “Hey, there.” She struggled to sit up. “You the second one to come by . . . that Georgia woman been here, maybe a half hour ago.”

  Georgia? “You mean Florida?”

  “Guess that’s it.

  I grinned. Well, good. Word was getting around. “How’s MaDear?”

  Estelle shook her head. “Nobody’s telling me anything.” She lumbered to her feet, rubbing her cramped neck. “But I’ll go to the desk, have them tell Adele you’re here. Adele’s sister in there too.”

  Sissy was here? “That’s good.” I think. Sometimes Adele talked as if having Sissy around was enough to drive her crazy.

  A few minutes later, Adele came into the waiting room, still wearing her bright green T-shirt that proudly announced “Adele’s Hair and Nails” in white script, a hospital face mask dangling by its strings around her neck. “Hey.” She gave us each a tired hug. “Thanks for coming by. Florida was here a while ago. But they don’t want any visitors right now ’cept family.”

  “That’s okay,” Denny said. We found seats together. Part of me desperately wanted to see MaDear, to kiss her leathery cheek with its childish freckles, wanted to ask if Adele could smuggle us in. But I bit it back. “What are the doctors saying?”

  “Pneumonia. Again. Lungs all filled up. Mostly they’re trying to keep her comfortable.” She snorted. “You know what they say. Pneumonia is the old person’s ‘friend.’ Meaning it’s better to die of that than some long, drawn-out disease.” Adele’s face tightened and she clenched her fist. “But I want her to fight back! Beat this thing! That old woman in there, she’s one ornery woman, drives me to distraction. But . . .” Her shoulders sagged, fighting back tears. “. . . don’t know what I’d do without her.”

  We sat in silence for several minutes. Then I asked, “What can we do, Adele? Are you hungry? Do you need anything from home?”

  Adele jerked a thumb in Estelle’s direction. “You can take Ms. Angel of Mercy over there home. I haven’t been able to get rid of her.”

  Estelle jammed the knit hat down over her head. “All right, all right. I’m goin’. But I’ll be back tomorrow mornin’. Meantime, you better come up with another ‘sistah’ named Estelle right quick on that list of visitors. ’Cause I can sit with MaDear, but I can’t cut no hair at your shop. If I did, you’d be out of business in twenty-four hours!”

  21

  We played ring-around-the-rosey with the car the next morning. Denny left at six-thirty to pick up Ricardo Enriquez for the prayer time some of the guys were having before the official men’s breakfast at eight-thirty. On his way back, Denny swung past the house and picked me up a few minutes before seven-thirty so I could keep the car for a visit to the hospital that morning. When I dropped them off at the church, Peter Douglass’s Lexus was just pulling in with Carl Hickman and Mark Smith inside.

  Huh, I thought, as I watched our Yada Yada men unlock and enter the dimly lit storefront “sanctuary.” Mark still must not be able to drive after his head injury. Even though the vicious beating had happened eight months ago, he still experienced occasional confusion and short blackouts—a frustration, Nony had once confided, that made him feel as if his ankles were shackled together and the key lost.

  Oh God, forgive me, I prayed as I headed for the exit of the shopping center. It’s so easy to forget to keep praying for Mark. Please God, heal that man one hundred percent! The driver of the car behind me honked angrily as I suddenly did a U-turn back into the parking lot. Might as well get my weekly groceries at Dominick’s as long as I was here.

  By nine-thirty, Estelle and I were in the elevator heading up to the ICU at St. Francis Hospital. We had stopped at Adele’s apartment—using Estelle’s key—and picked up a change of clothes for Adele, her toothbrush, a pillow and afghan, and her personal address book. Stu had sent along a basket of goodies: hand lotion, gel hand sanitizer, facial wipes, a small notebook and pen, trail mix to munch on, a small box of Fannie May chocolates, and breath mints. She’d wanted to come with us but had several DCFS visits to make that morning. “Tell Adele I’ll be up there this afternoon!”

  Strangely enough, the ICU waiting room was almost empty, except for a dark-skinned woman with bleached-blonde, straightened hair zonked out on one of the couches. Estelle and I went to “ICU Central”—the squared-off desk area with a visual shot of every ICU room—and asked a woman frowning at a computer screen if someone could let Adele Skuggs know she had, um, “family” here.

  Five minutes later Adele met us in the waiting room. “Humph,” she said, glaring at the sleeping woman on the couch. “That Sissy still ’sleep? She been there since midnight.”

  I blinked. That skinny wraith was Adele’s sister? She looked like an aging hooker.

  “No matter,” Adele said, linking her arm into Estelle’s. “Just as well she’s out, ’cause we goin’ in.” She handed each of us a sterile face mask and marched us right past ICU Central and into a dimly lit room with its curtains pulled. />
  MaDear barely took up space in the bed. She was on a ventilator, breathing rhythmically, in and out, but even I could hear the raspy sound of each breath. For a moment, the room blurred because my eyes teared up. I grabbed the hospital-issue box of tissues from the adjustable tray table and mopped my face above the mask. If MaDear were awake, she’d probably tell me I looked like a raccoon with smeared mascara.

  The thought made me smile. Estelle was talking quietly to Adele, asking questions. But I just reached out and held MaDear’s bony hand, being careful not to disturb the IV tubes taped to her caramel-colored, paper-thin skin. Many of us in the Yada Yada prayer group had parents who lived far away, so we’d adopted MaDear—even though she hardly ever called any of us by our right name. Dementia had scrambled her mind, and she often confused us with cousins or neighbors from her girlhood back in Mississippi.

  It didn’t matter. We’d loved on her, taking her for “walks” in her wheelchair on nice days to get her out of Adele’s shop, even “elder-sitting” from time to time so Adele could get out for an evening. Now I held her fingers and thought about the big box of miscellaneous buttons that kept MaDear busy sorting them by color into an empty egg carton.

  “Hang on, MaDear,” I murmured, “hang on! Jesus, please let her stay with us a while longer.”

  On the way home, I had a little spat with God. How are we supposed to pray for someone at the end of life? Huh? Avis would say that as long as there’s life, we pray for healing. After all, God is the Creator of life, not death! But, my mind argued (ignoring Estelle, who was humming quietly in the passenger seat of the Caravan), we all have to die sometime. Don’t the preachers say at funerals, “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away”? And death is the only way we pass from this painful, imperfect life to our resurrected life—no tears, no pain, joy forever! Why keep MaDear here on earth with our desperate prayers, when she will have a clear mind and a whole body in heaven?

  When I unlocked the back door and realized Willie Wonka’s food had barely been touched that morning, the tears I’d been holding back spilled over. I sank down on the floor beside the old dog, stroking his soft head and letting him lick my hand.

  Oh God! Why do dogs and people we love have to get old?

  MOST OF YADA YADA STOPPED BY St. Francis Hospital at some point that day. Stu said she’d coordinate meals for Adele and MaDear as soon as they came home from the hospital. In the meantime, she lined up a few volunteers to take some non-hospital food to Adele and Sissy at least once a day: salads, homemade sandwiches, fruit—all the stuff one’s body craves after two days of starchy cafeteria fare.

  Denny had come home from the men’s breakfast that morning with a form he had to fill out from the Cook County Sheriff ’s Department for a background check before he could sign up with Captives Free Jail and Prison Ministry. That night at supper he said, “At least six guys from SouledOut have volunteered, so that’s three more Bible study teams. Assuming I pass the criminal background check”—he waggled his eyebrows—“I signed up to attend a training session next Saturday morning.”

  Josh helped himself to seconds of beef stew. “I dunno, Dad. Not if they count all the rules you broke in high school.”

  “Uh-uh. Nobody knows I hid the homecoming mascot to this day, bucko. Unless you’re talking.”

  I pretended to ignore their sparring and got up from the table to look at the kitchen calendar. Next Saturday was blank, so I wrote in “Captives Free training a.m.” But it was good to hear Josh joke with his dad. He’d been so glum ever since the fire.

  After the kids excused themselves, Denny and I lingered at the table over cups of decaf hazelnut coffee. “How was the Bada-Boom Brotherhood this morning?” I grinned.

  He groaned. “Don’t say that out loud. It might stick.” But he leaned toward me, eyes keen. “We had about an hour before the other guys showed up for the breakfast. Ricardo actually opened up, said how desperate he feels about finding a new job. He applied to a moving company that needs long-distance drivers, but it would mean days away from home, and he’d probably have to give up the mariachi band. It’s a tough choice. But except for the restaurant gigs, he’s been unemployed for over a year and a half.”

  I winced. Give up the band? That was the one sphere where Ricardo Enriquez seemed to come alive. Even though he’d been a truck driver for years, he had the soul of a musician. But Delores’s income from her job as pediatrics nurse at the county hospital was barely enough to keep the family of seven afloat.

  “Peter had to twist Mark’s arm to get him there, though. I’m worried about him, Jodi. Almost feels like he’s giving up. Peter got in his face, told him he needs to kick self-pity to the curb and move forward. ‘God brought you back from that coma for a reason!’ he said.”

  I widened my eyes. “Whoa. How did Mark take that?”

  “Humph. He didn’t say much. But he listened. And we prayed over him—yeah, literally. Carl rebuked Satan trying to discourage this man; made a point that the devil was dissin’ God’s man. He asked God to give Mark the courage to fight back, because Almighty God still wanted to use this man in a mighty way . . .” Denny wagged his head thoughtfully. “Never heard Carl Hickman pray like that before.”

  Wow. Neither had I. But I knew it was true. They say adversity will make or break you. Could the pain of his son be the making of Carl?

  Denny collected our empty mugs and headed for the kitchen. “By the way,” he said, lowering his voice. “What’s with Amanda? She hardly said anything all through supper.”

  I sighed. “Still hurting because José broke up with her, I think. Maybe she needs some daddy-daughter time, you know, to assure her she’s not ugly and unlovable. Mom can’t tell her that. Takes a dad.”

  TEMPERATURES HAD BEEN RISING STEADILY all that last week of February, melting the ugly snow and leaving behind the trash it had collected in its frozen grip. By the time we arrived at the church on Sunday, the parking lot boasted a miniature lake from the melting mounds of ice that zealous snowplows had piled all around the edges, and the temperature was heading for the high fifties.

  But all our laughing comments about getting out our swimsuits and wading to church died at the church door. My mouth dropped open. People stood in little groups, murmuring comments of wonder and delight as we surveyed an amazing sight.

  New chairs.

  Rows and rows of sturdy new chairs. Each one with an upholstered padded seat and a padded back, with a rack underneath to hold hymnals—not that we had hymnals—that could interlock with other chairs to make a row of any size, or be used individually.

  “Good color,” I heard someone comment. “That tweedy material picks up the coral and salmon walls, even the blue trim.”

  “Where’s Stu?” I whispered at Denny. “I had no idea the Chair Fund had collected this much money. She didn’t say a thing!” I spotted Stu and Estelle coming in just then and made a beeline in their direction.

  “Stu!” I exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell us you’d collected enough money in the Chair Fund to do this! It’s wonderful!”

  But Stu’s mouth and eyes were matching O’s. “Uh-uh. Not our Chair Fund. Last time I counted, we had about ninety-six dollars.”

  Pastor Cobbs and Pastor Clark had grins as wide as Cheshire cats, watching as people tried out the chairs, breathing out sighs of comfort and contentment.

  “Okay, pastors,” Sherman Meeks called out. “Let us in on the secret. Where did these chairs come from?”

  Both pastors laughed. “We don’t know! That’s the amazing thing. A truck just pulled up yesterday with this address on their lading bill—and what you see is what they unloaded. All they said was, ‘Sign here.’ No bill. All paid for.”

  Now the room buzzed like a queen bee convention. What anonymous person knew we needed chairs and had enough money to give the church an outright gift? Had to be someone in the congregation, didn’t it? Heads were shaking everywhere.

  “Come on, church, let’s give God some
praise!” Pastor Cobb boomed.

  Someone started to clap, and everyone joined in with spontaneous applause, punctuated with “Praise Jesus!” and “Hallelujah!” from all corners of the room. And just then my brain clicked and my eyes widened. I looked at Stu . . . and caught Avis and Florida looking at us. All of us nodded slightly, reading each other’s thoughts.

  We knew where these chairs came from.

  Chanda George.

  22

  I called Chanda as soon as we got home from church. No answer. Rats. I’d forgotten that services at Paul and Silas Apostolic Baptist ran late. But I left a voice mail: “Nice try, Chanda. We know you’re behind those new chairs that appeared out of nowhere at our church. Gotta say, a lot of weary bottoms thank you very much! Don’t worry, we won’t spill your secret. Maybe.” I laughed and hung up.

  Then I called back and got voice mail again. “Sorry, Chanda, almost forgot. Avis is suggesting that as many Yada Yadas as possible gather at St. Francis Hospital later this afternoon to pray for MaDear and Adele. See you there if you can make it!”

  Next, I called Ruth with the same message. I heard one of the twins squalling in the background. She didn’t commit, but thanked me for calling. I almost asked her to call Yo-Yo, but thought better of it and dialed her myself. No answer. Oh, right. The Bagel Bakery is open on Sunday. I dialed her work number and asked to speak to Yo-Yo.

  Yo-Yo seemed subdued. “Real sorry to hear MaDear’s doin’ so bad,” she said. “But don’t think I can make it.”

  “What time do you get off work?”

  “Ain’t that. I don’t have no way to get there.”