by Neta Jackson
AVIS’S THIRD-FLOOR CONDO—she and Peter had moved into a lovely, red-brick building that had been renovated—felt like a secret hideaway tucked up among the treetops, although in winter only bare branches sheltered her exposed windows from the third-floor apartments across the street. But the gleaming wood floors, patterned area rugs, bookshelves, and tan-and-black leather furniture always invited me to unclutter my mind and drink in the calm.
However, Avis’s apartment was anything but calm by the time all of us Yada Yadas crowded into the Douglass’s living room that evening, talking all at once. Oh, wait. I didn’t see Becky Wallace! When I asked Florida if she was coming, she shrugged. “Doesn’t have a babysitter for Little Andy. Told that girl she shoulda stayed put.” Oh dear. No car, no babysitter . . . surely she could figure out something.
Edesa showed up without Carmelita’s baby. My soon-to-be daughter-in-law grinned at me. “Josh is babysitting. He might as well get used to changing diapers.”
I giggled nervously. Hearing “Josh” and “changing diapers” in the same sentence was one more shock to my system. But I gave her a hug and whispered in her ear, the same message I had phoned to Josh early that morning. Her eyes teared up as she smiled and hugged me back.
With only a week until Christmas, the turnout for Yada Yada surprised me. Of course. Hoshi was back! Chatter swirled around her. Did she have a chance to talk to her parents again before she left? Did she think her aunt or younger sisters would come to Chicago to visit? When did her campus training begin? Where was she staying?
“She’s staying with us for the moment,” Avis broke in, coming into the room carrying a cake loaded with whipped cream and fruit. “This is a welcome-home treat, Hoshi. I hope I didn’t mas-sacre it too badly.”
Hoshi’s eyes widened when she saw the cake. “A Japanese Christmas cake!” She laughed when she saw the questions in our eyes. “Many Japanese celebrate Christmas, even though most are not Christians. But my family usually bought our Christmas cake.”
The cake was a marvel, like a sponge cake with strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and peaches not only on top but in the middle. Where Avis found fresh berries in Chicago in December was beyond me. Florida poked me as Avis cut the cake. “Didn’t know Avis could make anythang ’cept mac ’n cheese,” she murmured.
I snickered. “You’re so bad, Flo.”
Avis finally managed to call us together by beginning our prayer time with the chorus to “O Come, All Ye Faithful.”We all joined in the slow, worshipful words: “O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Hi-im, Chri-ist, the Lord.” As the chorus ended, Avis rephrased the words and we kept singing: “For He alone is worthy, for He alone is worthy, for He alone is worthy-y, Chri-ist the Lord.”
After worship, Hoshi shared more about her plans to join International Student Outreach on American campuses, starting with her training in January. “But I am so happy to have a few weeks just to be with Yada Yada, my first spiritual family. Although, I was hoping Nonyameko would be here. Is she not coming after all?”
“Yes! She’s coming!” several of us chorused, although I was worried. We still hadn’t heard when, exactly, the Sisulu-Smiths were arriving.
“Dat sista better come home!” Chanda folded her arms. “’Cause we planning a big reunion party on de New Year, an’ mi already bought a dress an’ shoes.”
“But that was before we knew Edesa was gettin’ married,” Yo-Yo protested. “I don’t want to get dressed up twice in the same week—”
The whole room hooted and burst into laughter. The most any of us had seen Yo-Yo “dressed up” was a new pair of overalls at Avis’s wedding.
“—unless I can wear my overalls to—”
“No!” five voices cried at once.
“Not to de wedding,Yo-Yo Spencer.”Now it was Chanda’s turn to protest. “Dis time we all gettin’ decked out for dis wedding, an dat means you, too, sista girl.”
“But it’s just at the shelter.”
“All de more reason,” Chanda sniffed. “Mi want me t’ree kids to show some respect for a wedding, even if it’s not in de church.”
“Kids, schmids.” Ruth rolled her eyes. “A wedding we’re having with babies, kids, husbands, oy vey! Maybe the reunion should be just Yada Yada.” She fanned herself.
“Perdóneme!” Edesa squeaked. She looked on the verge of tears. “I did not want our wedding to upset plans for the reunion. We chose Christmas weekend because we knew Yada Yada’s reunion was scheduled for New Year’s, so Nony could be here . . . ”
My heart melted. Ever since Josh and Edesa had announced their intentions, I’d been fussing about the date, wondering why they didn’t wait until after Christmas—and all the time, Edesa had been willing to sacrifice the more reasonable time, even sacrifice Nony and Mark’s presence, so it wouldn’t conflict with our reunion.
I confessed, right then and there, and asked Edesa to forgive me. Now Edesa really was crying, and we hugged and rocked a long time.
“Ahem!” Adele cleared her throat, arms across her bosom. “I think we should appoint a reunion committee to make plans, tell us what’s going to happen, and the rest of us will show up. And leave Edesa and Jodi off the committee—they have enough to do with the wedding coming first.”
“Leave me off too!” Estelle rolled her eyes. “I have a wedding dress to make!”
Adele’s suggestion met cheers and applause. In quick succession, Adele, Stu, and Chanda volunteered—and Avis was shanghaied.
We closed the meeting with prayers of praise for bringing Hoshi back to us and then gathered around Edesa, laying hands on her and blessing this huge leap in her life, from single student to mother and wife. And daughter-in-law, I thought.
As the prayers ended, Stu asked Edesa, “Are you registered for wedding gifts? What do you need?”
“Registered?” Edesa looked confused. Stu explained about registering at her favorite stores so people could get gifts she wanted and needed.
Edesa laughed. “We need everything! But especially things for the baby.”
“Everything?” Ruth snorted. “If it’s everything you need, then it’s everything you’ve got. You can have it all—changing table, dia-per pail, baby swing, baby clothes. In fact, get pregnant on your wedding night if you want—we have doubles! But it’ll have to be a boytshik. ”
15
I choked. Edesa squirmed. Everybody else laughed. Good grief. That was my son’s sex life Ruth was talking about! Of course, I supposed it could happen . . . I Ack! No, wasn’t going to go there. I had too many other things to think about this week. Like five full days of school bumping right up against Christmas Eve. Like finding a dress to wear to my son’s wedding. Like seeing that Josh and Edesa got moved in with the necessities to set up housekeeping. Not to mention Christmas shopping and a wedding gift . . .
Josh called Monday while we were eating supper to ask if he could borrow our minivan to move his stuff into the Hickmans’ studio apartment. “Then I can stay there until Saturday morning, when we can move Edesa’s stuff.”
“Sure. I can help,” Denny said. “What time’s the wedding again?”
I had picked up the bedroom extension, and was glad Denny asked. Had they ever given us an actual time?
“Five o’clock. But we’re doing a Christmas party for the kids at the shelter at one. Hopefully that’ll give enough time to clean up from the party and decorate for the wedding.”
A Christmas party for the shelter kids before the wedding?! I stuffed my face into a pillow to keep from telling him they were out-and-out, absolutely, totally and completely crazy!
“Mom? You still on the phone?”
I untangled from the pillow. “Um, right here.”
“Remember you asked if there was anything you could do to help? Well, we thought of something. A huge favor, actually.
Chanda George gave us two nights at the Orrington Hotel in Evanston for a wedding gift. So we’re wondering if you�
�d be willing to take Gracie after the wedding. We’d come back for a while on Christmas Day, eat Christmas dinner with you guys, hang out for a while, then go back to the hotel . . . ”
My mind scrambled. Take care of a baby? For a whole weekend? How long had it been! I didn’t know anything about Gracie’s schedule, if she slept through the night, or anything. “Uh, two nights at the Orrington! What a nice wedding gift from Chanda.”
“Yeah. But about Gracie . . . ”
I took a deep breath. “Of course, Josh. That’s a great idea, for you and Edesa to have a honeymoon weekend. I’d be happy to do that.” God, please make that be true.
“About Christmas, though. Edesa and I don’t have time or money right now to do Christmas shopping, for obvious reasons. What if we Baxters don’t exchange Christmas gifts this year? Maybe just stocking stuffers; that’d be fun. Besides, you taking care of Gracie for us Christmas Eve will be a huge gift to us.”
“Makes sense,” I heard Denny say. “We haven’t been able to do much either since your mom got her wings clipped by that fall. If you two actually show up for Christmas dinner the day after your wedding”—he chuckled—“we’ll consider that your gift to us.”
I should’ve felt disappointment. No gifts under the tree? But instead, relief eased itself into my spirit and put its feet up. Wouldn’t it be wonderful not to have to go shopping? Well, except for a dress to wear to the wedding, and some practical wedding gifts. But besides that, it felt . . . right. More time to spend together. More time to reflect on the manger under the tree . . .
Huh. Who do I think I’m kidding? I’ll be lucky to slide into that wedding like a bobsledder.
“Oh, one more thing,” Josh was saying. “I invited the grandparents—and I think they’re both coming. Harley and Kay said not to worry about them. They’ll fly in and get a hotel. But Grandma and Grandpa Jennings will need a place to stay. I told them they could have my bed at your house. Hope that’s okay.”
HARLEY AND KAY. Denny’s New York, “call us by our first name” parents were the epitome of retirees happily spending their children’s inheritance, traveling to Europe for six weeks every year, plus taking a cruise to Alaska or the Caribbean or some other exotic port. I was surprised they were even in the country.
My parents, on the other hand, were stay-at-home “Grandpa and Grandma” folks with limited income. They’d had a year and a half to get used to the idea that Josh’s fiancée was not only Honduran but black. They’d privately expressed a few worries about a “mixed marriage” and “what about the children?” But when they’d met Edesa at Amanda’s high school graduation, they’d immediately fallen in love with her. “She’s a real Christian,” my dad had said.
But it blessed my socks right off that they would make the six-hour drive from Des Moines to Chicago in the dead of winter. I prayed all week for no snow, even though my students were prob-ably praying for a white Christmas. The temperatures hovered close to zero, and for once I was glad. Too cold to snow. It warmed up Thursday and we got several new inches—but Friday’s temperatures hiked into the forties and melted it all.
Thank You, Jesus!
By the time I got home from school on Friday—walking on my own two feet, though I still wore an elastic bandage around my left ankle—my folks were upstairs with Amanda at Stu and Estelle’s apartment, drinking coffee, inhaling Stu’s infamous cranberry bread, and oohing and aahing over the nearly finished wedding gown and Amanda’s red bridesmaid’s dress. My mother’s cheeks were pink, and my dad—his dome shinier and his shoulders more stooped than the last time I saw them—had a twinkle in his eyes.
The party had begun.
I’d given up on finding a dress to wear to the wedding and had decided to go with Stu’s suggestion to accessorize my slinky black dress. But that evening my mother pulled me aside. “I know you said we aren’t exchanging gifts this Christmas, honey. But . . . I thought you might enjoy having this.” She thrust a package at me. “It was your grandmother’s.”
“Oh, Mom.” I opened the tissue paper. Inside was a cream-colored, lacy shawl, hand-crocheted out of silky thread. Pale pink roses and swirls had been crocheted into the delicate pattern. A long silky fringe hung from each end. It would go perfectly with my slinky black dress and Stu’s zircon bracelet, necklace, and dangle earrings. “Oh, Mom, I love it. Thank you so much.” But even as we hugged, I knew what it was. God’s provision.
DENNY TOOK THE minivan Saturday morning to help Josh move Edesa’s clothes and other belongings to their new home. “You should see this apartment, Dad,” I giggled, serving a streusel coffee cake for breakfast, hot and dripping with brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon in honor of their visit. “Just don’t call it a hole-in-the-wall—even if it is. The baby has more furniture in there than they do. At least someone gave Josh and Edesa a queen-size mat-tress and box springs, though right now the bed’s on the floor.”
Right after breakfast, my dad got the turkey ready to pop into the oven the next day for Christmas dinner, while my mom and I made pies and cut up bread and onions for stuffing. By twelve noon, we were in my parents’ car heading for Manna House, where we’d agreed to meet Denny, give the grandparents a tour of the shelter, take in the Christmas party, and help any way we could with wedding preparations.
Estelle was still putting final touches on the dresses and said she’d bring them later, in time to help Edesa and Amanda dress. I brought a garment bag with Denny’s suit and my dress, figuring jeans were more appropriate for a kids’ Christmas party anyway.
“Grandpa! Grandma!” Josh said, bounding across the multipurpose room and enveloping his grandparents in one big hug. “Edesa! Look who’s here!”
Edesa, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, with her thick, kinky-curly hair bunched into a ponytail at the nape of her neck, looked up from the knot of kids hanging on her and broke into a wide smile. She ran over and gave each of my parents a warm hug and kiss. “Abuelay Abuelo, you have come! Muchas gracias. ”
“What did she say?” my dad murmured.
Josh laughed. “She called you Grandmother and Grandfather.” He looked around. “Edesa, where’s Gracie? I want my grandparents to meet her.”
Four-month-old Gracie was nodding off over the shoulder of one of the shelter residents, but Edesa reclaimed her to show her off. All around us, residents and staff bustled about, setting up chairs, shooing the children downstairs to the recreation room, hanging up last-minute tinsel garlands, and bringing up a punch bowl and plates of Christmas cookies from the kitchen downstairs.
As my parents chuckled and cooed at the baby, I wandered over to the Christmas tree in the corner and fingered the branches. Artificial. I grinned. Good for Manna House. The tree looked real enough, covered with multicolored minilights, handmade snowflakes, paper chains, and salt dough decorations—probably made by the children of the Katrina refugees, most of whom were still waiting for more permanent placement.
I stepped back. Odd. There were no gifts under the tree. For a kids’ Christmas party? It was one thing for the Baxters to forgo Christmas gifts this year, but these kids—
“Don’t worry, Mom.” Josh’s voice murmured in my ear. He must have read my mind—or my body language. “Weiss Memorial adopted our shelter as their Christmas project this year. Some of their staff and volunteers are bringing gifts for the party. But I asked them to show up at one-thirty, after our little Christmas program, so as not to distract the kids. Now . . . could you and Dad give the grandparents a tour of Manna House or something so Edesa and I can finish rehearsing our little pageant with the kids? We’re still trying to clean up some of their language, like—”
“I get it, I get it. I teach third graders, remember?”
I rounded up Denny and my parents and took them on a tour of the new facility, dodging assorted children running up and down the stairs, all the while thinking maybe it was a blessing my parents were getting hard of hearing.
By the time we got back to the multipurpose room,
the chairs were filling up with shelter residents, staff, and volunteers. Volunteers . . . I hadn’t given much thought to Rev. Handley’s invitation at the dedication. Then again, I hadn’t had much time to think about anything in the last five weeks! I really did need a vacation or a retreat or someth—
Someone grabbed me from behind in a bear hug. I wiggled around. “Precious McGill! I was hoping I’d see you!” The former shelter resident who’d come to stay at our house after the fire beamed at me from beneath a head full of tiny braids. “Precious, this is my mom and dad—”
Precious pumped their hands. “Well, now, that’s right nice! Ain’t this the bomb? Oh, gotta go. They ready to start, an’ we first on the program.”
I had no idea what “first on the program” meant, but I soon found out. A choir of about nine youngsters—mostly girls, but two self-conscious boys—gathered in front of the rows of chairs and sang “Mary Had a Baby,” with Precious as choir director. I was amazed at the sound she drew from those kids—most of whom were not only homeless but had been traumatized by the Katrina Hurricane. “She named Him King Jesus, yes, Lord . . . people keep a-comin’ an’ the train done gone . . . ” The song was soulful, a mixture of hope and pathos.
Then a little African-American girl around age six or seven, with five fat braids sectioning her hair, stood front and center while Precious put a CD in a boom box and turned up the volume. In a sweet voice, the little girl began to sing: “Happy Birthday, Jesus”—a song I recognized from the Brooklyn Tabernacle Christmas CD. I saw a smile begin on my father’s face as he listened, and then grow wider as the child sang. “ . . . and the presents are nice, but the real gift is You . . . ”
The little choir ended with a side-swaying, hand-clapping “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” bringing most of us out of our seats, swaying and clapping along. I could tell my parents were enjoying themselves.