I was nervous when we stepped off the elevator at Stroger Hospital the following afternoon. I’d never met Leroy, hadn’t even known Estelle had a son until the fire that put him in the burn unit two months ago. What would he look like? The burns had covered thirty percent of his body, and he’d had to undergo some excruciating treatments.
Estelle led the way, turning this way and that through the maze of hallways, finally stopping at the closed door of a patient’s room. She took a deep breath, as if preparing herself, then tapped on the door and opened it. “Hello, son.” Her voice was cheery. “How ya doing today?”
A thin, dark-skinned man somewhere in his thirties was sitting in a high-backed, padded chair, facing the window. He didn’t turn around. “Okay, I guess.”
Estelle motioned me to move into eyeball range. “Leroy, my friend Gabby came with me today to see you. Can you say hello?”
Leroy didn’t look at me but mumbled, “Hello.”
“I’m happy to meet you, Leroy.” I wished I’d brought something, flowers maybe, but since he was getting discharged, it had seemed a bit silly. I moved to the window. “You’ve got quite a view here.” Mostly other buildings in the huge medical complex, but at least the sun was peeking through.
“You come to take me home, Maw?” For the first time, Leroy turned his head slowly and looked up at his mother.
Estelle shook her head. “The house burned down, baby. Remember that? Nothin’ there now. But we’re goin’ to talk to the doctor today ’bout what you need when you leave here. Tell me how you’re feelin’, son.”
Turning from the window, I got my first good look at Leroy. I could see the family resemblance. His skin was several shades darker than Estelle’s caramel coloring, but he had the same wide-set eyes and broad forehead. Not a bad-looking young man—except for the puckered, shiny skin along the left side of his neck that continued up along the side of his face. I noticed he still had a pressure bandage on his left arm—and, I presumed, around his chest and left leg under the hospital gown.
I shuddered involuntarily. Couldn’t even imagine the pain and skin grafting that he’d had to go through to come this far.
“Ah. Ms. Williams, you’re here. Good, good.” Two doctors entered the room, one male, one female, both wearing white coats and name badges. “I think we’re ready to talk about discharging our patient in a few days. He’s making excellent progress!”
Estelle made introductions, but I just smiled and stepped aside as they began talking about continuing outpatient treatment. I picked up that Dr. Jameson was a burn specialist, and his associate, Dr. Alena Sanchez, specialized in nutrition and aftercare for burn patients. I tried to pay attention as they talked over Leroy’s head about “decreased sensation” in the burned areas, the importance of keeping the areas moist with skin lotion, regular exercise so the skin didn’t atrophy, how long he’d need to wear the pressure garments, and watching carefully for any signs of infection.
“You’ll be taking him home, Ms. Williams?” Dr. Sanchez asked, her tone kind and concerned. “He’ll need a caregiver for several months, maybe a year. Good nutrition and adequate hydration will be very important for his full recovery.”
Estelle looked distressed and motioned the doctors and me out into the hall. “Look here. I’d take care of Michael Leroy twenty-four-seven if I could, but my housemate and I don’t have any extra room in our apartment. And”—she made sure the door to Leroy’s room was shut—“he needs more care than I can give him. For his mental issues, you know.”
Dr. Jameson frowned. “But I thought he was basically living on his own and taking care of himself before the incident.”
Estelle’s distress was becoming more acute. “He was, he was— but, Lord help me, he probably shouldn’t have been. I didn’t want to put him into an institution, you see, but I never thought . . .” Estelle’s hand went to her mouth, and I could see she was trying hard to stay in control. I moved close to her and took her other hand in mine. She gripped it tightly.
Dr. Jameson pursed his lips. “I see. If he can’t go home with you, we need someone from social services to sit down with us. We may be talking about a psychiatric nursing facility for a while, if we can find an available bed. Dr. Sanchez, could you see what you can set up?”
Estelle walked away as the nutritionist pulled out her cell phone and turned aside, talking rapidly in Spanish for a few minutes. I followed Estelle, just to let her know I was near. Why was she having such a hard time with this? A facility would be a good thing for Leroy, wouldn’t it? He’d be taken care of, get the kind of help he needed, and would no longer be a danger to himself or others. Wasn’t that why Estelle had moved out of the family home to begin with? Because Leroy had “gotten physical” with her during one of his schizoid episodes? Though it was hard to imagine. The man in there seemed as meek as a kitten.
“Ms. Williams?” Dr. Sanchez was calling us back. “We can meet with social services on Thursday at ten. Is that all right with you?”
Estelle was quiet on the way home, her head turned toward the passenger-side window, and I didn’t pry. Hopefully she’d tell me what was going on when she was ready. I dropped her off in front of Jodi and Denny’s two-flat in the Rogers Park neighborhood, where she shared the second-floor apartment with Leslie Stuart. “ ’Preciate it, Gabby,” was all she said before she walked slowly up the steps to the front porch, shoulders slumped, and let herself in.
We had our third house meeting at the House of Hope that week, which we moved to Wednesday night in deference to Josh, since Tuesday conflicted with the men’s Bible study that met at Peter Douglass’s home. “They’ve stolen our name,” Jodi once complained to me. “Calling themselves the Yada Yada Brothers.” Both names sounded kind of silly to me—I mean, yada yada?—and I’d told Jodi as much. After which I got a five minute etymology of the word yada, which supposedly was a Hebrew word that appeared in the Old Testament hundreds of times and meant something like “to know and be known intimately.”
Who would’ve thunk it?
Mabel met with us again, but we spent most of the time listening to Precious moan and groan about Sabrina sneaking off to see the Big Bad Dude who got her pregnant in the first place. “I’m ’bout ready to call the po-lice and get him arrested for statutory rape,” she fussed. “She still a minor and he twenty if he a day! But she say if I do, she jus’ gonna run off again with him, like she did before.”
“Oh, Precious.” Edesa moved from a chair to the floor beside Precious and put an arm around her. “Have you tried talking to this young man? He is your grandbaby’s daddy. Maybe he’s afraid of you, but if you were willing to talk—”
“He got reason to be scared a’ Precious.” Tanya nodded knowingly. “She sweet as sugar long as you on her good side. But mess with Sabrina? Uh-uh. She like a she-bear!”
We couldn’t help chuckling. But Edesa said she was serious about talking to the young man. Precious kept shaking her head but finally threw up her hands. “Okay, okay. I’ll pray about it. If God tell me to jump into the lions’ den, I’ll jump. Not before.”
We moved on to other House of Hope business. Tanya pointed out that next week was Halloween, what were we going to do with trick-or-treaters? We certainly didn’t want them traipsing up and down the inside stairs. I finally asked if she and Sammy would be willing to pass out candy in the foyer on behalf of the whole building. Her eyes lit up. “We’ll dress up! It’ll be fun.”
Josh reported on how work was progressing in apartment 2A—slowly, since he was doing most of it himself after classes and at night—and I reported that Celia Jones and Shawanda Dixon had agreed to share the apartment, and their applications for assistance were in process with the city. Before we ended I was able to squeeze in my requests about needing somebody to look after Dandy this weekend so Lucy could go on the Fall Getaway, as well as needing backup for the boys if Philip couldn’t take them the whole weekend.
Tanya offered to take care of Dandy. “He a sweet dog. Sammy will like that.”
And Josh agreed to look after the boys if Philip couldn’t keep them the whole weekend. “But he’s their dad, Gabby. Why wouldn’t he take them for the weekend?”
Humph. Good question. Why hadn’t he called me with his answer either?
I found out when I got back to my apartment after saying good-bye to Mabel and Jermaine, who’d come to hang out with Paul again. “Mom?” P.J. came out of his room. “Dad called while you were upstairs. Wants you to call him back soon as you got done with your meeting.”
About time. “Your homework done?”
“Mom! Like, he wants you to call him back right away!”
“Fine. I’ll call him. Go finish your homework.” I picked up the handset and walked toward the kitchen to make myself some tea, pushing the speed dial for the penthouse.
“Philip? P.J. said you called.”
“Yes. Uh . . . Gabby, I can’t take the boys this weekend—”
My dander flared up. “Why not? It’s just another twenty-four hours, Philip.” After Josh’s comment, I’d decided to push if Philip seemed reluctant. “You are their fa—”
“Listen to me, Gabby. I mean I can’t take them at all this weekend. Something happened.”
Now I was getting mad. Something happened? Yeah, right. Sounded like the excuses he’d give me when he had the Horseshoe Casino on the brain. “What are you talking about, Philip? You can’t take them at all? I’m not going to be here this weekend! I need you to—”
“I know. I know that. Please, just listen a minute. I can’t take the boys because it’s not safe here. Someone—I can guess who— left an anonymous note with the doorman tonight, threatening me with physical harm if I didn’t pay Matty Fagan what I owe him by this weekend. I can’t take a chance on the boys being here if something should happen to me.”
My anger dissolved into a puddle of outright fear. “Oh, Philip!” I took the phone into my bedroom and shut the door. Couldn’t chance the boys overhearing. “I’m so sorry. What are you going to do? What about you? It’s not safe for you either!”
There was a pause. “I don’t know, Gabby. I can’t stay here. I’ll probably be okay tonight, but I need to get a hotel or something until I can figure out what to do. I just want to keep the boys out of this.”
My heart was tripping all over itself. “All right. I understand. Just . . . just keep me posted where you’re going to be. Call me tomorrow, all right? I’m going to have to tell the boys something.”
Like what? I clicked the phone off and sank onto my bed. What in the world was I going to do? Philip was in danger . . . I was going out of town . . . I couldn’t leave the boys here by themselves . . . But I didn’t feel comfortable asking Josh to look after them all weekend when he was doing the solo-parent thing with Gracie too.
Arrrgh! I flopped backward onto the bed. Maybe I should cancel the weekend, forget the whole thing!