Our stay at the Baxter household buoyed me up better than a week at a spa resort, a gentle oasis of ordinary family rhythms in the middle of the train wreck that was my actual life. Well, maybe not ordinary family rhythms, since we had no kid noses or bottoms needing to be wiped, though Dandy’s “functions” and my mother’s growing dependence came in a close second. Peanut—the black-and-white kitty—must have decided I was a member of the family, because he jumped into my lap whenever I sat down.
Jodi and I even played Scrabble on Thursday night after supper, just like normal people. Leslie Stuart, Estelle’s housemate, came downstairs and beat us both. “And you’re a teacher, Jodi!” she crowed, tossing that long, corn-silk hair back with glee.
“Yeah, but I teach third graders,” Jodi protested. “My brain is stuck on third-grade spelling words, like clean and could and cure.”
“And I’m a social worker, but you didn’t see me winning with words like caseworker and caseload and colleague. ”
“No,” I jumped in, “but changing cop to copacetic on a triple word score?! Who even knew that was a word?”
Stu chuckled. “Harry Bentley, that’s who—my erstwhile client, your friend, and Estelle’s boyfriend, if she’d ever admit it. He’s been mourning the loss of his copacetic life ever since his grandson moved in with him.” Which had left all three of us gasping with laughter.
But Saturday loomed when Mom and I would need to move back to the shelter. How Mabel had been able to hold beds for us, I wasn’t sure. New faces appeared at the shelter every few days, and I knew our beds had been assigned temporarily to someone else Wednesday night when a major thunderstorm rolled through the city, drenching the normal haunts of the homeless. But when I checked my e-mail at work on Friday, I had two e-mails from Mabel—one an announcement to all staff and available volunteers regarding a staff meeting on Monday, the other to me saying she’d put our names back on the bed list, same room, same bunks, starting Saturday night. I stopped in at her office just before I left for the day to thank her.
“Glad you stopped in, Gabby. Shut the door and sit a minute.” Mabel pulled out a file with my name on it. “Stephanie Cooper says she met with you yesterday about housing options.”
I nodded, pursing my lips. That had been a little weird. The housing programs Stephanie usually worked with—Theresa’s Place, Sanctuary Place, Deborah’s Place, and others—typically targeted specific people groups: ex-cons trying to reenter society, addicts going through recovery, alcoholics doing AA, or the mentally challenged, though she’d also given me a list of shelters for victims of domestic violence, several out in the burbs and a couple in Wisconsin.
Mabel must have guessed my thoughts. “I know a case management meeting might feel a bit awkward, Gabby, since you’re also on staff here. But neither you nor I want you here for long, right? If you and your mother are on the bed list, Stephanie needs to help you set priorities and goals for getting back on your feet. You’ve got a job. Now get yourself on some housing lists.”
I sighed. “Yeah, I know. My lawyer is bugging me about getting an apartment, too, though he’s talking about a regular apartment, not the housing programs Stephanie deals with. I don’t even qualify for half of them, since I’m not an ex-con or a drug addict. And not that many take kids—just ask Tanya! The ones that do have lists from here to New York and back.”
Mabel nodded, eyes sympathetic. “I know, Gabby. Look, all of us will do whatever we—”
“Why doesn’t Manna House add an option like that for homeless single moms like Tanya—you know, a building with separate apartments, where women can make a real home for their kids, but with services that prepare them to make a go of it alone?” I stood up and started to pace. “Even Precious is about to lose her—”
“Gabby! Gabby.” Mabel’s tone pulled me up short. “That’s a wonderful idea, and one of these days—years—we’d love to do something like that when some philanthropic billionaire floats us a nice fat donation. But right now, your reality is looking for an apartment, okay?” She came around her desk and softened her words with a quick hug.
I returned the hug. “Okay. Thanks again for putting us back on the bed list. Dandy too, right? Denny Baxter said he’d drive us down tomorrow morning, so getting Mom and Dandy squared away might take most of the day. But I’ll hit the streets on Monday, I promise. After the staff meeting.”
I left her office and almost made it out the front doors when I heard, “Oh, Gabby! One more thing.” I turned, shaking my head and laughing.
Mabel was standing at her office door. “What?”
“Mabel. You always have ‘one more thing.’”
“Oh. Well, I do have one more thing. All that dog food and doggy stuff, remember? It’s got to go.”
I had talked my mother into staying at the house with Jodi Baxter the last two days, due to a recurrence of that nasty headache during the knitting club on Wednesday. Since I was out, Estelle had helped her lie down in the multipurpose room, where she’d slept again for several hours. And when I got back to the house Friday evening, dragging from the rising humidity, Jodi said my mom had had another one that afternoon, so bad it made her cry. She was still asleep.
“When was the last time your mom saw a doctor?” Jodi asked, handing me a cold iced tea as I collapsed on their back porch swing, then settling herself on the top step leading down into the postage-stamp yard. I nudged Dandy on his dog bed with my toe, but he just flopped his tail a few times. Too hot for woman and beast alike.
“Mm . . . don’t really know. She had a fall Mother’s Day weekend, and my aunt Mercy took her to the hospital to get her checked out. And another fall when the boys and I were visiting her in North Dakota earlier this month. She tripped over Dandy, and we had to ice a knot on her head, but she said she was fine.” I shrugged. “Have no idea when her last physical was.”
“You might think about getting her checked out.”
“Yeah, good idea, Jodi.” I heard the slight sarcasm in my tone but couldn’t stop. “I don’t even have a family doctor yet! And in case you haven’t noticed, my life has been a little crazy lately, what with getting thrown out of my house by my own husband, losing my sons overnight, and my mother and an injured dog dropped in my lap!” I threw up my hands, sloshing my iced tea. “When was I supposed to see a doctor?”
Jodi winced, but to her credit she didn’t walk back into the kitchen, leaving me to wallow in my own frustration. “I know. Just . . . when you can.”
We sat in silence for a long minute, with just the squeak squeak of the swing and the drone of traffic several streets over as background. Jodi picked up a stray nail and chipped at the loose paint on one of the railing posts. Finally I said, “Sorry, Jodi. I know you care. You and Denny have been super. Can’t thank you enough for hosting us this whole week and giving us a respite from the shelter. Even dog-sitting! Not many people would do that—especially when we were virtually strangers.”
Jodi glanced up through her brown bangs, looking girlish in her shoulder-length bob. “It’s been fun, Gabby—really. It gets a little lonely around here with the kids gone.”
“Well, but Amanda will be back tomorrow, right? And she’ll be here the rest of the summer, till it’s time to go back to college. She sounds like a neat kid.”
“Yeah, she is . . . when she’s not driving me crazy.” Jodi made a face. “She’s got this boyfriend, José, a really nice young man, but ’Manda can’t decide if he’s ‘just a friend’ or if she’s in love . . . oh wait! You know his mother. Delores Enriques, the nurse at Manna House. And she’s one of our Yada Yada sisters.”
Delores’s son? I grinned. It was fun getting “inside information” on the staff at Manna House. José and Amanda, hmm . . .
“Gabby.” Jodi suddenly sounded serious. “I feel awful thinking about you and your mom going back to a homeless shelter. It doesn’t feel . . . right. Don’t get me wrong. I love Manna House, I think they do a terrific job, and I’m enjoying teaching the typing class—all two weeks of it so far. But . . . I’d hate to be living there—in a bunk room, no less. Sheesh!”
I shrugged. “It’s better than some shelters I’ve heard about, where they’ve got one huge room housing thirty to sixty women, like Katrina victims wall to wall in the Superdome.”
Jodi glanced at Dandy, snoring peacefully in the dog bed. “It’s been nice having a dog around again. Dandy’s a sweetheart—right, buddy?” She reached over and gave Dandy’s ears a scratch.
He rewarded her with a few more tail thumps. “Mm. Wish Amanda could meet him. She’d go bonkers! You’d have to sneak him away when she wasn’t looking.”
Still scratching the dog’s ears, Jodi looked at me sideways. “It can’t be easy having a dog at the shelter—no yard to romp in, all those stairs to climb—and he’s still stiff from those stitches. What would you think about us keeping Dandy, at least until things settle down for you, you know, find a place of your own, get the boys back . . .”
I couldn’t believe my ears. In a heartbeat! Okay, God, where was this option when I really needed it, like before Philip got fed up with having Dandy underfoot? Don’t You have Your timing a little screwed up? But even now it would solve so many problems—like who was going to walk him if Lucy didn’t come back. And the problem of getting him up and down two flights of stairs each day . . . not to mention those media hounds who were sure to sniff him out once we got back to Manna House.
The Baxters would be a perfect family for Dandy!
But I reluctantly shook my head. “My mom wouldn’t hear of it. That dog means the world to her. She turned down a perfectly good retirement home I found here in Rogers Park because she couldn’t keep Dandy with her.”
Jodi’s eyes brightened. “Well . . . your mom could stay here too! I mean, even when Amanda comes back, we still have Josh’s old room. Really! She wouldn’t be alone, because I’m off for the summer. And Estelle lives right upstairs. She could take her on like one of her in-home-care seniors.”
I gaped at Jodi. “Are you serious?” I felt as if gold from heaven were pouring down into my lap. A safe place for my mom with people who like dogs . . . “Just until I find an apartment, though. Actually, she’s got some money. We could pay, you know, for room and board.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. She eats like a bird.”
I was so excited, I could hardly think straight. “Oh, Jodi. This is wonderful. It’s like the answers to all my prayers. Let me go talk to my mom. You think she’s awake yet?”
Martha Shepherd was packing, and Martha Shepherd wouldn’t budge. “No, Celeste. We have to go home. I promised Lucy that I’d be back.”
“Mom! The Baxters are inviting you and Dandy to stay here for a while. Isn’t that what you wanted? And it’s just until I find an apartment for us—or until your name comes up for assisted living back in Minot. Then you can go home.”
“The Baxters have been very nice, Celeste. But I promised Lu—”
Mom! Lucy isn’t at Manna House right now. She’s been gone “all week. Maybe she’s not coming back.” I hated to do it, but my mother was being totally unreasonable.
My mother calmly folded her nightgown and put it in the small suitcase. “She’ll be back. She said she’d look after Dandy. And besides, I promised . . . Hand me those underthings, would you, Celeste?”