The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Real (42 page)

I PROBABLY WOULD HAVE existed on cold cereal, toasted cheese sandwiches, and tomato soup all that week if Stu hadn't suggested eating suppers together. As it was, we scarfed down black-bean enchiladas, chicken breasts in mango sauce, and homemade vegetable beef soup before tackling the quilt each evening.Our conversations had been sufficiently low-key and chummy that I dared raise a question.

“Stu, you didn't share about, you know, the abortion and Andy Wallace's birth date at Yada Yada last Sunday. Did you decide not to? If you did, that's okay,” I added hastily. “Just wondered.”

She shrugged and pushed food around on her plate. “No, I wanted to, but so much was going on, never seemed to be a good time to announce, ‘Okay, listen up everybody, I had an abortion.” She smiled ruefully. “But actually, I'm okay with it. Not that I want to hide it. Just . . . maybe it's something better shared one on one—at least at first. In fact, I called Nony the other night and had a long talk with her. She told me about this program—Rachel's Vineyard or something like that—that does retreats for women who have been wounded by abortion. I'm thinking about doing something like that.”

“Oh, Stu. That sounds great.”

Stu's features softened, the way mine do after a soothing face rub. “Nony gave me some scriptures to pray, too, when I'm tempted to get down on myself. This one especially: ‘The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves those with a contrite spirit.' I've been praying that one from Psalm 34 every day.”

The phone rang—as usual. Denny's once-a-day phone call, perfectly timed to interrupt dinner. He always seemed surprised and delighted that he actually found me at home, “resting” like the doc had said. “You sure you're okay? Not sick or anything?”

“I'm fine. Really.Wonka and I get out for a walk a couple of times a day; otherwise I've been working on this Yada Yada quilt for Avis and Peter, and doing les-son plans for school.” I wandered out of Stu's earshot. “Just . . .”

“Yeah? Just what?”

“Nights,” I whispered into the phone. “They get awfully long without you.”

“I know, babe. Me too.” His words were so low and sweet, I wanted to eat 'em with a spoon.

Between Denny's phone calls, suppers with Stu, time to get caught up on my lesson plans for the last weeks of school, and seeing Avis's quilt coming together, my spring break moved along better than I had imagined. Except for one thing . . .

Parent-teacher conferences—coming up next week, the last marking period before the end of the school year. Normally I looked forward to meeting with parents, sharing their children's successes, looking for things to encourage in each one. Yet as I wrote out my reports, a growing sense of dread settled in the pit of my stomach.

What am I going to say to Hakim's mother?

Not just because Geraldine Wilkins-Porter had read me the riot act at the fall parent-teacher conference when she discovered
I
was Hakim's teacher, though God knew my knees turned to jelly every time I thought about it. And not because Hakim had been having any “big” problems. He still startled and delighted me with occasional moments of brilliance, such as the time we took apart our broken electric pencil sharpener, and Hakim put it back together so it would work. And his weekly sessions with the school social worker seemed to minimize his mood swings.

But overall? Hakim was still falling behind the other students academically, especially in reading and writing. I'd practically begged his mother to let him stay in my classroom, so sure I could help him. I hadn't, though—not that much.
So what was that about, Jodi? Why did it
feel so important to try?

IT MEANT MISSING GOOD Friday service at Uptown, but by late Friday evening, Stu and I had Avis's quilt top pieced together—including a blank muslin square smack-dab in the middle, per Delores's instructions. “Ah, that is for God's timing,” she'd chuckled when we'd called to ask why a
blank
square.
Oh, yeah,
I remembered, grinning sheepishly.
A square to embroider their
wedding date.

“Shall I send José up to get it?” Delores asked. But Stu said she had to do a foster-care evaluation down in the city on Saturday, so she offered to drop it off.

That left a long, empty Saturday stretching out before me. Stu would be working, Denny and the kids wouldn't get home till late, and the fresh April day—awash with blue sky, billowy white clouds, and a promising green fuzz busting out on all the trees—was too smashingly beautiful to stay inside and clean another closet.

I pulled on jeans and sneakers and caught Stu just as she was heading for the garage. “Stu! Drop me off at Adele's Hair and Nails, will you? I'm going to take MaDear for a walk.”

She frowned at me. “What about afterward? That's a good mile walk back home.”

“Stu! I'm not an invalid. I'm so rested I'm gonna rust! I'll be fine. But I won't be fine if I stay inside this house one more day.”

“Okay, okay,” Stu grumbled and headed the car for Clark Street.

Dropping me off at Adele's Hair and Nails only took Stu five minutes out of her way, and I gave her a wave as the Celica disappeared into the southbound traffic. Gosh, it felt good to be out! The air felt sun-kissed, chasing about on a light breeze. The food vendors were out—a sure sign of spring. Chunky wheeled carts, some with faded umbrellas, sat on the street corners, signs beckon-ing
Fajitas de Pollo
and
Nachos Grande.

I grinned to myself as I pulled open the door to Adele's Hair and Nails. Maybe MaDear and I would just have to get some of those nachos.

“Hi, Adele!” I called out, as the door tinkled shut. Adele had a customer in the first chair swathed in a black plastic cape, snipping away at the back of her hair. “Hope you don't mind me just dropping in. Can MaDear come out and play?”

“Hey, Jodi.” Adele chuckled. “Sure. Help yourself. She's in the back—Geraldine, honey! You gotta sit still, or I'll cut something you ain't expecting.”

I'd been grinning at Adele, but at the customer's name my eyes snapped to the mirror. The startled eyes of Geraldine Wilkins-Porter, Hakim's mother, stared back at me.

“Oh!” I stammered. “Uh, hello, Ms. Porter. I . . . didn't realize that was you.” I wanted to back out the door, but my feet seemed nailed to Adele's floor.

Adele looked at me, then back at her customer's startled face in the mirror. “Mm-hm. You two know each other?”

41

G
eraldine Wilkins-Porter, still staring at me from the wall mirror, took a deep breath and pressed her lips together. I managed a weak smile. “Uh, yes. Her son . . .” I could hardly breathe. The name
Jamal
had almost popped out of my mouth. “
Hakim
is in my class at school.”

“Oh.” Adele scrunched her eyes at me. Did she recognize the name? Did she put it together with the mother of the boy I'd struck and killed with my car last summer? But—
snip, snip
—she carried on. “Well, feel free to abscond with MaDear. She's driving Corey crazy back there.”

Gratefully, I pried my feet forward, found MaDear muttering in her wheelchair near the nail stations, and wheeled her quickly out the front door with a squeaky, “Bye!” Took my sweet time bringing her back too. We window-shopped, stopped at several vendors and got something—flavored ices, nachos, a messy tamale—and only turned back when MaDear fell asleep so soundly from food and fresh air I had a hard time keeping her from tumbling out of the chair.

The bell over the door jingled as I wrestled the wheel-chair back into the shop with MaDear a dead weight. Adele left her new customer—a twenty-something get-ting a weave, praise God—and helped me get MaDear settled in the back room. Then she folded her arms and studied me.

I squirmed. “What?”

“So that was the mother.”

I nodded. “Did she, uh, say anything?”

“Uh-huh. Wanted to know how I knew you. So I told her.”

“Oh. About Yada Yada?”
Oh dear God. What about
Yada Yada?

All she said was, “Uh-huh.”

“Did she say anything about—you know, the accident and her other son?”

“Nope.” Adele gave me a once-over with a critical eye, then went back to her weave. “ 'Bout time you made another appointment, Jodi Baxter. That hair got split ends all over the place. Should do something about those raggy nails too.”

I COULDN'T GET HAKIM'S mother out of my mind the rest of the day. I hadn't seen her since she'd threatened to take Hakim out of school—though at Avis's intervention she had finally agreed to leave him in my class and allow some counseling to help him deal with the losses in his life. But could I do it again? Meet as teacher and parent and talk calmly about Hakim's progress—or lack of it—with The Accident hanging like a sword of doom over our heads?

I don't even remember the walk home from Adele's shop, just that I got home in one piece, totally ex-hausted. The mail had come, but I didn't even take it out of the box. I just wanted to fall into bed and drown my anxiety in a good, long nap. Instead I found myself on my knees beside the living room couch.
Pray
Scripture, Jodi,
said the voice in my head.
“Be anxious
for nothing . . .”

Yeah, right. About as effective as “Don't scratch it” or “Can't eat just one.” Still, I got my Bible and looked up the verse in its context: Paul's letter to the Philippian church, chapter four. I read the passage a couple of times, realizing what a difference the surrounding verses made.

“Okay, God,” I said aloud, my voice muffled in a couch cushion, “Paul said I don't have to be anxious, but instead to tell You everything that's on my heart. So I gotta admit I'm really nervous about the parent-teacher conferences next week—and it blows my mind that I ran into Hakim's mother today, at Adele's shop of all places! I really need some wisdom and courage to meet her again. This scripture also says, ‘with thanksgiving,' and somewhere else it says, ‘in everything give thanks.' Does that mean to thank You that we ran into each other today? I don't know what You have in mind, but I do want to trust You to work it all together for good. And help me fill my mind with everything that's good and perfect and beautiful, like verse eight says, so I don't have room for all the anxious thoughts that—”

“Hey!” yelled a familiar voice from the back of the house. “Anybody home?”

“Denny!” I screeched, launching myself off my knees. I'm sure my dash to the kitchen broke somebody's world record, a startled Willie Wonka hard on my heels.

I HADN'T EXPECTED MY family back so early in the afternoon—hadn't washed the bedding, hadn't fixed supper, hadn't put on any makeup—but nobody complained. Certainly not me. I was so glad they were home, I kept wanting to hug them—which got old pretty quick for Amanda and Josh, who began fighting about who got the phone first. Denny seemed content to sprawl on the couch with one arm around me and an iced tea in his other hand. “Remind me not to divorce you,” he murmured into my hair. “I'm not ready to be a single parent.”

A waft of English Leather tickled my nose as I snuggled closer. Gosh, I was glad he was home.

Eventually I did have to untangle myself, stick the bedding in the washer, and think about supper. I suggested eating out at Siam Pasta, but the kids groaned. “We're dying for home cooking, Mom!” What mother in her right mind could resist outright flattery?

Oven-roasted chicken with rosemary, baked potatoes with sour cream, and frozen green beans with lemon pep-per—the easy-but-yummy formula—I listened to Josh and Amanda tell how chilling it was to stand on Ground Zero and see all the flowers and notes that people still left every day, honoring the people who had died on 9/11. They had wanted to visit Ellis Island, but the Statue of Liberty was closed for security reasons, and they ended up on Museum Mile along Fifth Avenue.

“Yeah. I wanted to see the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” Josh grumbled, “but Amanda bullied us into visit-ing
El Museo del Barrio.”

Amanda snapped him with her cloth napkin. “We voted! You lost! Besides, you know you liked it.” She turned to me, eyes alight. “It was all this Latino art, Mom—mostly Puerto Rican and Caribbean.
So
cool.”

Denny and I exchanged glances.Yep, things were back to normal.

AMANDA RAN UP THE back stairs the next morning to see if Stu wanted a ride to church, but she came back saying Stu didn't get home till late last night and would be coming later. Fine by me. After missing the Good Friday service, I was eager not to miss any of the Easter worship.

Last year—our first Easter at Uptown Community Church—the entire congregation had hiked to the lake carrying colorful bunches of balloons with “Resurrection messages” attached, then let them go, up, up, till they disappeared in the direction of Cleveland. I'd loved the simple beauty of the celebration and was hoping we'd do it again—though when we Baxters topped the stairs to the second-floor meeting room, the room was devoid of any balloons, color, or any decorations whatsoever. Not even an Easter lily. In fact, the windows shades had been pulled down and the room was quite dim.What in the world . . .?