Philip and I barely spoke on the way home. But as I turned off Lake Shore Drive and onto the frontage road toward the curving glass and steel edifice that was Richmond Towers, I broke the silence.
“Philip, don’t go back to work. Henry’s bluffing. He’s got to be. But you need to get that CAT scan like the doctor said. Something’s wrong—you’re still in pain. I can tell. Nothing’s going to get better until you get better.”
To my surprise, Philip didn’t reply. He didn’t yell at me for speaking up in Henry’s office either. I pulled the Subaru to the curb in front of the revolving door on the backside of the luxury building but left the motor running. “I should get back to work,” I said. “Are you going to be all right getting up to the penthouse?”
Philip nodded and reached for the door handle. But something— someone—caught his eye across the frontage road in the park. I followed his eyes and saw a man sitting on one of the park benches, arms resting along the back of the bench, ankle balanced on one knee. Seeing us, a slow grin spread across his face and he gave a thumbs-up signal in our direction. Then the man got up and sauntered off down the path.
I felt Philip slump back against the passenger seat. My heart started to race. “Was that one of the men who’s been stalking you?” I didn’t wait for an answer but turned off the motor. “I’m coming up with you.”
Philip shook his head. “No . . . no, it’s okay. You go back to work.” He glanced over at me. “Thanks for taking me to the doctor, Gabby. I appreciate it.” He pulled the door handle and opened the door, then hesitated and turned back. “Do you pray, Gabby?”
His question caught me off guard. But I tried to keep my voice steady as I said, “Yes. Yes, I do pray. All the time lately.”
“Then maybe you could send up a prayer for me. I . . .” He looked away. “I don’t know what to do.”
It was four o’clock by the time I got back to Manna House. Paul was there already per our afterschool arrangement, walking Keisha and Sammy back to the shelter from Sunnyside Magnet School. Even though Sammy’s mom had moved to the House of Hope, Tanya was trying to find a job and wanted Sammy to be in the afterschool program at the shelter. I’d agreed to bring Sammy home along with Paul when I got off at five.
I was half hoping Estelle would still be there, but her sewing class was over and the dining room where they met was dark and empty—at least until the volunteer group who was scheduled to bring that Monday night’s dinner would arrive at five thirty or six. I breathed a brief “Thank You, God” that I wasn’t the one who had to schedule supper volunteers seven days a week, week after week. What a job!
But maybe it was just as well Estelle was gone. I needed some time alone in my office to process what happened that afternoon. Philip had asked me to pray for him? And that man on the bench— was Philip still in danger from Fagan’s cronies? Things between Philip and Henry were certainly a mess. Like the rest of Philip’s life right now.
Leaning my elbows on the desk, I rested my head in my hands and squeezed my eyes shut. “Oh God,” I breathed. “How do I pray for Philip? He’s got himself in such a mess! And it’s all so complicated! But You know all about it, Jesus, and in his own way he seems to be asking for Your help, so please . . .”
I meant to spend only five or ten minutes praying and was surprised when I looked up and saw I’d been crying out to God for half an hour! But one thing led to another and I’d found myself praying about our broken marriage, and my dicey relationship with Lee Boyer, and how to manage this tiger I had by the tail that we were calling the House of Hope. But when I was done I felt a certain peace leaving all my worries in God’s lap.
I’d call Jodi Baxter tonight and ask her to pray for Philip too. She probably had no idea how much I was going to dump on her when she’d agreed to be my prayer partner!
The boys asked about going to see their dad that night, but I told them he’d had an exhausting day and it’d be better to wait a day or two. Wednesday for sure. By then I hoped he’d have followed through on getting that CAT scan and we’d know if he was on the mend or needed more medical intervention. None of which I mentioned to the boys.
Philip did not call me for a ride. Was that good or bad? Either he didn’t make an appointment to get the scan, or if he did, he called a cab. Hopefully he didn’t try to make that meeting with the Cook County Board. As for Henry Fenchel’s outrageous offer to buy out Philip’s share in the business—that one had me down on my knees a few times on Tuesday.
Still, I was looking forward to our first-ever house meeting Tuesday evening. We decided to not include the kids the first time and left them on the first floor doing their homework while Tanya, Precious, and I climbed the stairs to the third floor and tiptoed quietly into Josh and Edesa’s apartment so as not to wake little Gracie, who’d just fallen asleep.
“I brought Josh’s bathrobe back,” I said, handing it to Edesa. “Philip said to tell him thanks for the loan—oh, wow, your apartment looks great!” The living room of apartment 3A mirrored my own structurally—but there the similarities ended. I’d painted mine in subdued neutral colors, but Edesa and Josh’s walls boasted what she called “hacienda colors” of rusty orange and green trim, with a warm, bright yellow in the adjoining sunroom. Several pottery vases and small woven baskets that looked South American in origin lined the mantel of the gas fireplace. Their furniture was sparse—they’d been in a tiny two-room apartment above the Hickmans—but the couch was covered by a brightly woven throw with Aztec-type designs, and live plants hung in the windows of the sunroom.
“Gracias, Sister Gabby. It’s wonderful to have so much room!” Edesa whirled around on the bare floor, brown arms outstretched, her full skirt twirling like a little girl’s. A moment later she plopped down on a floor pillow beside Precious. Even though both women were considered black—one African American, the other African Honduran—their skin tones were distinctly different. Precious was darker, like rich dark chocolate, while Edesa had mahogany skin with gold highlights. And Tanya, who was also African American, had her own lighter caramel skin.
Josh appeared from the hall lugging a couple of straight-back chairs. “ ’Desa, honey, you want that salsa you made out here? Couldn’t bring it and the chairs too.”
“I’ll get it,” Tanya offered and returned with a bag of tortilla chips and a bowl of homemade salsa verde with green tomatillos and avocados, which rapidly disappeared. Tasted nothing like the stuff that came in a jar from the store! But finally I asked Josh to start our meeting with a prayer.
“Me?” He shrugged an okay. “Well, Lord, I want to thank You for this House of Hope, for giving all of us a home here. And I pray for the other single moms and kids You want to bring here. Even if we don’t know who they are yet, we know You do and that they are part of Your good plan for this place. Bless Mrs. Fairbanks for her vision, and help us as we work out the nitty-gritties of living together. Oh, and it’d be great if You could keep the furnace and water pipes and everything working this winter. Amen.”
We all opened our eyes, grinning a little at Josh’s “guy prayer.” I leaned toward him and stage whispered, “But remember, you can call me Gabby like everyone else.”
Edesa’s husband rolled his eyes and turned red. “I know, I know! It’s just—maybe I should call you Miss Gabby like the kids do, or Sister Gabby, like my wife.”
“Whatever, Josh.” I shook my head and chuckled. “Okay, thanks, everybody, for getting together for our first-ever house meeting. I thought it’d be a good idea to have a regular time when we can work out the ‘nitty-gritties,’ as Josh called them, of living together in this building. To be honest, this is all new to me—”
“Tell me about it,” Precious snickered. “Ain’t none of us done this before.”
“Exactly. Which is why it might be good to have a meeting once a week for a while to take care of things right away. Is everyone okay with that? Is Tuesday evening good for everyone?”
“Uhh, not really,” Josh said. “I could do it on Tuesday one more week because Mr. Douglass is out of town on a business trip, but usually I go to the men’s Bible study that he and my dad are part of on Tuesday nights. Wednesdays would be better.”
“Okay. Tuesday next week, after that—Wednesdays okay for the rest of you?”
Precious snorted. “Ain’t like we all got those little black books with lots of appointments in ’em. Tuesday . . . Wednesday . . . don’t make no difference to me.”
That settled, we moved on to making a list of things to talk about. A laundry schedule for using the battered washer and dryer in the basement . . . the best way to leave messages for Josh if something needed fixing . . . rules for the kids, like cutting off loud music after ten p.m. and not running or yelling in the stairwell.
“But what about the other tenants who still live in the building?” Tanya huffed. “The guy who lives above us had his music on till one o’clock the other night! I banged on the ceiling with the broom handle, but it didn’t change nothin’. And sometimes they be yellin’ at each other like they was at a dogfight or somethin’.”
The other tenants—that was going to be tricky, since three units were still occupied. I’d met them all briefly when I’d delivered my “I’m the new owner” letter, explaining that we were turning the building into second-stage housing for homeless single moms and would not be renewing their leases. They weren’t happy about it, though I’d tried to sweeten the deal by saying if they found another place before their lease was up, they could move out without any penalties. “Maybe we need a tenants’ meeting of everybody,” I said, thinking out loud.
“Or maybe you could just tell them what’s what, since you the landlady.” Tanya folded her arms across her small chest. “I don’t see no need to meet with them other folks.”
I eyed Josh. “Okay, okay . . . but, Josh, since you’re the property manager for the building, maybe you and I could do it together?” Hated to admit it, but I might get a better hearing with some of these tenants if a man backed me up. And Josh spoke fair Spanish too.
Josh nodded, a bit reluctantly. “Well, yeah, sure, but I couldn’t do it till Saturday. I’ve got midterms this week. Speaking of which, are we almost done? I still need to study tonight. Edesa, too, right, honey? While Gracie’s asleep, you know.”
I still had a few more items on my agenda. But we’d said an hour, so better keep it. “Okay, guess anything else can wait till next week. Just one more thing. Precious suggested we have a house blessing this weekend. Maybe invite Manna House staff and volunteers to come pray. Would Saturday evening be okay? Should we make it a pot—”
I was drowned out by voices yelling out in the stairwell, accompanied by loud crashes as if somebody was throwing things. “An’ stay out, you creep!” a woman screamed, followed by the slam of a door that rattled my teeth.
“You can’t kick me out, woman!” A man’s voice. Pounding on the door. “Unlock the door this minute, you—!” A string of nasty words ran up and down the stairwell.
Edesa’s eyes went big. “Oh no, Gracie will wake up!”
Tanya rolled her eyes. “What’d I tell ya?”
Josh leaped to his feet and strode to the door. “I’ll take care of it,” he muttered.
Guess some things couldn’t wait till Saturday.