by Neta Jackson
“Oh honey, just because Roger broke your engagement doesn’t mean you’re not worth the wait. Those’re two separate things.”
Grace just hugged her knees for a long moment. Then she sighed. “Guess I know that, logically. But it doesn’t feel that way. Sometimes I think God is punishing me for that abortion by dangling the promise of marriage in my face, then snatching it away again.” She turned her head slightly to look at Estelle. “What do you think about all this?”
Estelle seemed to be studying her. For several long moments she didn’t say anything. And then, gently, “What do I think? I think that if you’re looking for a new theme, you might start by meditating on the meaning of your name.”
Chapter 31
Grace shut the door behind Estelle, then stepped over to the window to watch her neighbor walk across the street and disappear into the two-flat. Meditate on the meaning of my name? Odd thing to say after she’d just spilled her guts about the painful memories that’d been haunting her recently.
Frankly, after scraping her insides raw and bawling like a baby for the past hour, she felt exhausted. She didn’t even have the energy to go back to the piano, much less “meditate.” Maybe after a nap she’d feel like practicing again …
But even though she stretched out on her bed and turned on a fan to create a soothing white noise, Grace couldn’t fall asleep. Estelle’s words kept tumbling through her thoughts. “Meditate on the meaning of your name …”
Wasn’t like it was all that complicated. Her name was Grace. “We’re saved by grace”—she’d heard that a lot growing up. Salvation was God’s work, not ours, wasn’t that it? That was the thing about Christianity—salvation was a gift we accepted by faith, not a list of things we had to do to earn it.
She hadn’t especially liked her name as a teenager. Grace … It had seemed too religious, like waving “I’m a Christian” in people’s faces, especially when she wanted to just blend in with the other kids at school. Too old-fashioned too, when other girls in her class had cool names like Nicole and Tiffany and Amber. At least she hadn’t been named Faith or Hope like two of her friends in the music program at Greenville College. The girls had joked that she should change her name to Charity—“Then the three of us could go on the road as a gospel trio!”
By comparison, the name Grace felt pretty harmless.
But Faith and Hope had married college sweethearts and she’d lost touch. Of the three, she was the only one who’d moved professionally into the contemporary music scene. The name Grace actually worked for her in that context. It created a subtle “respectability” and spiritual tone that helped build her reputation as a solid Christian artist—at least that’s what her first agent at Bongo had told her. “Don’t make up some crazy stage name,” he’d warned. “Stick with Grace Meredith. It’s a good name.”
In spite of her meandering thoughts, she finally fell asleep until the familiar throb of the guitar-strum ringtone woke her. A heavy weight on her stomach seemed to pin her down as her hand groped for the phone—“Uhh, Oreo, get off me!”—but she finally found it and yawned, “Hello?”
“Grace? That you?”
Grace sat up, pushing the cat off the bed. She could barely hear the caller because of the background racket on the other end. “Yes, this is Grace. Who’s this?”
“Estelle Bentley! Sorry for the noise. I’m at work and it’s the middle of lunch … ’scuse me a sec.” Estelle’s voice dropped into the background. “I already said, no seconds till everybody’s been served … Yes, that’s the rule!” Then she was back. “Sorry ’bout that. Here, let me find a quiet corner …”
Phone to her ear, Grace turned off the fan and wandered toward the kitchen to make some coffee.
“Okay, I’m back,” Estelle said. “You still there?”
The background chatter and banging dishes in Grace’s ear had muted. “I’m here.” She filled the carafe with cold water, spooned coffee grounds into the filter basket, and turned the coffee maker on.
“I’ve been thinkin’ about our talk this mornin’, and I wondered if you’d like to come to work with me tomorrow.”
Grace blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Come to work with me tomorrow—visit the Manna House Shelter, I mean.” Grace heard a deep-throated chuckle on the other end. “I know, I know, it’s last minute an’ all that, but a while back you said you’d like to hear more about what I do. Hearin’s one thing, but seein’s a lot better, an’ Friday’s always a special day. There’s a young lady I’d like you to meet, ’bout your age, she leads a Bible study here Friday mornings. Powerful good stuff. Anyway, God dropped it into my spirit to ask if you’d like to visit tomorrow, might be a real pick-me-up for you right now …”
Grace rolled her eyes. She had a natural suspicion of anything that smacked of “God told me…” “Uh, I don’t know, Estelle. My assistant is coming tomorrow, we’ve got some work to do, and I—”
“Well, bring her too! Been wantin’ to meet her, anyway. It’s just a few hours, ’cause all I gotta do tomorrow is make lunch, don’t have any classes to teach in the afternoon. Rain’s s’posed to let up tonight, be a beautiful day tomorrow. It’d do you some good to get out and about—oh. Speakin’ of rain … did I leave my umbrella hangin’ on the railing outside your front door?”
In spite of the fact that Estelle’s call felt like being swept along by a tsunami, Grace actually liked the idea of getting out of the house and visiting the shelter where her neighbor worked—though it took two cups of coffee to unfog her brain and think about it. She called Sam to see if she’d like to come with her—“Or if not, you could come to work later, say around two?”
“No, no, I’d love to come with! What time do you get back from Curves … nine? And she wants to leave at ten? Tell you what, I’ll be there at nine, get a bunch of fan mail answered for an hour, and then do whatever else we need to do when we get back. I’ve heard of Manna House before, but never been there.”
True to her word, Sam was waiting on her front steps at nine the next morning dressed in jeans, white tee, and a skinny jean jacket when Grace pulled up in front of the house after her stint at Curves. Sam hefted the big black umbrella still hanging from the railing as Grace came up the walk. “Yours?”
At ten o’clock, when Estelle yoo-hooed outside where she was waiting in the RAV4 with the motor running, Grace locked up the house and headed for the Bentleys’ car. She knocked on the driver’s side window with the handle of the black umbrella. “It’s sunny today,” she grinned, “but you’re going to need this again one of these days—it’s April after all.”
“Thanks.” Estelle chuckled, hauled the folded umbrella through the window as Grace and Sam climbed in from the other side, and a minute later headed east toward Lake Shore Drive.
“Thanks for inviting me too,” Sam said from the back seat. “I’ve often heard about Manna House but don’t know anything about it. Who are the women you serve?”
Estelle practically hooted. “Who aren’t the women we serve! We got our share of drug addicts who’ve hit bottom, prostitutes who’re trying to get away from their pimps, some single moms who just couldn’t make ends meet, and others whose circumstances took a nose dive in this economy through no fault of their own. Even one woman who used to live in one of these fancy high-rises”—She pointed out the window at the luxury towers they were passing along Lake Shore Drive—“who got kicked out by her husband and ended up with blocked credit cards and no place to go. She also happened to be our program director. Now that’s a story.” Estelle chuckled to herself, and Grace wondered what the rest of the story was, but the Manna House cook was already on to other stories of women who’d been in and out of the shelter.
To Grace’s surprise, they’d been on Lake Shore Drive only a few minutes when the little black SUV took the Irving Park Road exit into the Wrigleyville North neighborhood, jogged a few streets, and pulled up in front of a brick church crunched between a Laundromat and an apartment buildin
g.
“A church?” Sam said, gawking at the fairly new building as they got out. But several women were lounging on the stone steps, a couple of them smoking, as Grace and Sam followed Estelle toward the building.
“Hey, Miz Estelle! What’s fer lunch?” a weathered-looking white woman of indeterminate age hollered.
“Menu’s posted in the kitchen!” Estelle said mildly, pushing a doorbell.
“See ya got some new helpers,” another snickered. “Guess I don’t need ta show up for lunch duty today.”
“Mm-hm. No lunch duty, no lunch,” Estelle shot back, her grin taking out any sting. “These are my guests, Grace and Samantha.”
To Grace’s surprise, three of the step-sitters stood up to shake their hands, and the others gave a nod or “Nice ta meetcha.”
A buzzer allowed Estelle to pull the solid oak door open, leading into a pleasant vestibule. She introduced them to the receptionist sitting in a glass cubicle—a pretty, young Asian woman—signed them all in, then led them through two swinging doors into a large room. “Hey, Precious!” Estelle called to a thirtysomething black woman who was pushing an odd assortment of overstuffed chairs, loveseats, and folding chairs into a semicircle facing a large mural on the wall opposite the doors. “Mind giving my guests a tour? We have some time before the Bible study, unless you’ve got kids to look after.”
“Nah, they’re all home with Sabrina … Hi! Name’s Precious.” The thin, wiry woman pumped their hands with a firm grip. “C’mon, I’ll show you around.”
As Grace and Sam tromped after their guide—starting with the main floor, which contained the big lounging area, and behind it a schoolroom, a small playroom with toddler toys, a tiny prayer chapel, and a TV room—they learned that Precious had once been a “guest” at Manna House, but now lived with her daughter and grandson at the House of Hope, a six-unit building designated as second-stage housing for single moms with kids. “But I volunteer here at the shelter whenever they need me—and they always need me for somethin’!” The wiry woman laughed. “Usually come Friday mornin’s to give Edesa a hand an’ take care of her babies so she can teach the Bible study, ’cept my Sabrina kept ’em today. You two stayin’ for the Bible study?”
Grace followed Precious up a flight of narrow stairs to the second floor. “I guess so. Whatever’s going on today.” She was surprised to see how neat everything was in the bunkrooms—six rooms, four bunk beds in each, beds made up, with a central lounge and bathrooms and showers off to one side. A few of the bunks were occupied by women napping or reading or doing their nails, which made her feel like an intruder. Grace was relieved when Precious led them back down the stairs, past the main floor, and down to the lower level, which housed the dining room and kitchen, where Estelle was bustling around behind a steel counter. They only had time for a quick glance at the side rooms—a rec room with a Ping-Pong table, a laundry room, and somebody’s office—when Estelle hollered, “Almost eleven! Edesa’s ready to start. I’ll be up in a minute.”
A smattering of women of different ages had settled into the semicircle, though several others were still scattered around the room reading magazines or playing cards or snoozing. “Guess attending the Bible study isn’t mandatory,” Sam murmured to Grace as they settled into two folding chairs in the second row.
“Buenos días, mis amigas!” beamed a pretty black woman standing in front of the semicircle, taking Grace by surprise. She was definitely dark-skinned, with tiny braids similar to Sam’s twists pulled back from her broad forehead, but her accent was heavily Spanish. “Welcome everyone. I am Edesa Baxter—and I see we have some visitors with us today … Oh, there you are, Estelle. Do you want to introduce your guests?”
Grace squirmed, wishing they hadn’t been singled out. She already felt awkward, like tourists come to gawk at the homeless. But Estelle, wearing her big white apron and funny net cap over her topknot, just said, “This is one of my neighbors, Grace, and her friend, Samantha. Came by to see where I work. I been tellin’ ’em how well I feed y’all, so don’t make me a liar!” Everybody guffawed, and Grace relaxed.
“Does everybody have a Bible? Precious, could you …”
Precious was already passing out a stack of hardcover Bibles, asking, “Spanish or English?”
Grace and Sam each took an English Bible.
“We’re starting a new study on the Gospel of John,” Edesa said. “Does someone want to read the first eighteen verses of the first chapter?”
As the verses were read by a woman with a raspy smoker’s voice, Grace noticed the painted mural on the wall behind Edesa for the first time. A shepherd—the biblical kind, in robe and beard and sandals—was surrounded by a flock of sheep. But unlike the pictures of the Good Shepherd she’d often seen in Sunday school growing up, these weren’t a flock of white wooly sheep, but a ragtag flock. They were all shades of black and brown and not-so-white, and their wooly coats looked the worse for wear—all matted and mangy and bloody.
Grace glanced surreptitiously around the semicircle at the women frowning at the pages in front of them as the scripture passage was read. A strange feeling crept down her spine. A few of the women were dressed neatly, their hair combed or braided, but many looked hard beyond their years. Scars on arms and faces. Faces lined by weather or worry. Clothes mismatched or the wrong size. A few with too much makeup. A fairly ragtag bunch. Like the sheep in the mural.
She looked back up at the painting. All the sheep had their faces turned up toward the Shepherd, and the Shepherd was looking at them, smiling, love shining from his eyes. Just love. And maybe gladness too. Like he was thinking, “These are my sheep, and I love them no matter who they are!”
The reader had stopped and Edesa was talking again. Grace realized she hadn’t been paying attention and tried to focus. “Look at verse seventeen again. ‘The law was given through Moses … but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.’ Can anyone tell me what you think this means?”
A hand waved. “Well, wasn’t it the Moses dude what brought down them Ten Commandments from God?”
“Yeah, an’ you probably done broke ever’ one of ’em,” someone snickered. Laughter swept the group.
“Exactly!” Edesa said, beaming like a teacher who just got the right answer. “The Old Testament is full of ‘the law’—but scripture also says that if we break even one of the laws, we’ve broken them all. Because it’s impossible to keep God’s laws in our own strength. And there’s a verse in the third chapter of Romans that says, ‘All of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.’”
“Yeah, well,” a steely-eyed woman muttered, “I may’ve done some drugs in my time, but at least I didn’t go hookin’ an’ thievin’ like some people I know.”
The woman next to her backhanded her on the arm. “Girl, you better watch your mouth! Whatchu know about it? You don’t know nothin’!”
Grace eyed Sam beside her. This was definitely not like any Bible study she’d been to at County Line, or any other church for that matter. She wondered what Sam was thinking.
“That’s just it!” Edesa said, acting as if this was exactly the discussion she’d been hoping for. “It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done—or who I am, or what I’ve done—the law that came through Moses can’t save us. Even so-called good people don’t measure up. Check out Isaiah 64, verse 6.” She first read from her Bible in Spanish, then translated in English, ‘All our goodness is like a pile of filthy rags.’” She wrinkled her nose. “Trapos apestosos—like stinky rags. But what does the first chapter of John say came through Jesus?”
“Grace an’ truth,” the raspy voice read again.
“Sí, that’s right. And, mis amigas, let me tell you something. People talk about getting justice—getting what we think we deserve. But if some of us got what we deserve … uh-uh. I’d rather have mercy—not getting what I deserve.”
“Ain’t that the truth” … “Now you’re talkin’.” Several women wagged their h
eads.
“But grace,” Edesa went on, closing her eyes and lifting a hand in the air, almost as if talking to herself, “grace is something else. Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more—and grace also means there is nothing we can do to make God love us less.”
A silence settled over the room. Even the women who hadn’t come into the semicircle seemed to stop what they were doing and take in what she’d just said. The words echoed inside Grace’s head. “Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more—and grace also means there is nothing we can do to make God love us less.”
“O, gracias, Señor,” Edesa began to pray … but tears were slipping down Grace’s cheeks. “Think about the meaning of your name,” Estelle had said. And there it was. She’d carried her secret for so long, so afraid people would think less of her, and yes, even afraid that God was still angry with her for having that abortion. And ever since, she’d been trying to make up for it, trying to be that “good girl” she knew she wasn’t, trying to be “good enough” to deserve God’s love again.
She’d never really understood the meaning of her name.
Grace.
Chapter 32
Grace was quiet on the ride home, letting Sam, and Estelle, in the front seat, chat like old friends.
The rest of their time at Manna House had been interesting, beginning with Estelle’s lunch, something she called Mexican lasagna consisting of layers of corn tortillas, rice, black beans, hamburger, corn, cheese, and who knew what all. Delicious. They’d sat at a table with Precious and several of the shelter guests, but didn’t get to talk much because a heated argument erupted about who was to blame for a mine disaster in West Virginia that’d been in the news the past few days. “Somebody oughta go ta jail for all them safety violations,” groused a middle-aged woman with frowzy brown hair. “Lookit all them widows an’ orphans what lost their husbands an’ daddies. Gonna end up in a shelter just like this.”