Why I said yes to Lee for Sunday, I wasn’t sure. Except . . . I wanted to. It would be something to look forward to after a busy, work-related weekend. And he agreed to talk. That was important. I was tired of playing games, juggling the relationships in my life like so many slippery balls.
P.J. shrugged when I asked why he’d gone to his father’s place after school. “Just wanted to see if he was okay. You know, those threats and stuff. He’s my dad, Mom! I was glad Will came by to check on him too. Dad shouldn’t be living by himself!” P.J. threw his arms out, his eyes angry. “I just wish—never mind. I got homework to do.” He grabbed his backpack and headed for his bedroom.
I didn’t ask what he wished. Was pretty sure I knew, and I didn’t want to get into a discussion about his dad and me—though I wondered if he’d been as worried about me after his dad kicked me out and took the boys to Virginia. But I shook off the thought and followed P.J. to his room. “Okay, I understand. You were worried about your dad. But I was worried about you. I didn’t know where you were. So let’s get this straight. Cross country’s over. Lacrosse doesn’t start till spring. We need to come up with a new afterschool plan. You want to try out for basketball? A school club?”
He shrugged again. “Not really. Can we talk about this later? I got, you know, work to do.” He dumped out his schoolbooks and flopped on the bed.
I waited one second . . . two. “All right. But for now you’ve got two options. Either come right home from school and call me when you get here, or call me to let me know your plans and where you’ll be. Agreed?”
P.J. rolled his eyes. “Call you? How am I supposed to—?” And then he must have seen me grinning. Because he jumped up and threw his arms around my neck. “Mom! Are you really going to get me a cell phone? Awriiiight!”
Well, I thought, as I headed for the kitchen, that hug was worth the price of a cell phone. Maybe I’d get an extension for the house phone while I was at it, so I didn’t have to keep running down the hall to the phone table by the front door—like now, because the phone was ringing. Again.
“Hi, Mrs. Fairbanks. It’s Josh. I was wondering—”
“My mother-in-law isn’t here, Josh.”
“Your who? Oh, right. I get it.” Josh Baxter laughed nervously. “All right, start over. Hi, Miss Gabby. Josh here. I was wondering if you’d like to come up to 2A and see how the work’s coming along. To tell you the truth, I could use some help painting, and I was wondering if there’s any chance we could put everyone to work tomorrow evening instead of having our household meeting.”
“I think that’s a great idea, Josh. We’ve all got the evening carved out of our schedules anyway. There are a few things we need to talk about, but I think we can put in a couple hours of painting and do that too. Do you want to call Precious and Tanya, or should I?”
I shanghaied both my sons to our “painting party” Wednesday evening, telling them they needed to get their homework done before supper—sweetening the deal by presenting P.J. with the promised cell phone. Pregnant Sabrina was only too happy to babysit Gracie Baxter instead of painting, as long as she could put the toddler to bed in their apartment on the first floor and not have to haul her big tummy up to the third. However, Tanya’s Sammy was not willing to be “babysat” while everyone else was having fun and begged Josh to let him help paint too.
Hm. An eight-year-old with a paintbrush? I left that one to Josh to figure out.
Josh had already painted the three bedrooms and the kitchen—nice, basic colors such as Eggshell, Robin’s Egg Blue, and Summer Mist. We decided to work from six thirty to nine, and then the adults would take a half hour for “household business.” At six thirty Josh had everything ready to go, putting all three boys to work on the long hallway, Precious and me on the living room, and Edesa and Tanya in the bathroom while he worked on trim.
We didn’t get done by nine o’clock, but we stopped anyway and sent the boys to get themselves a snack and off to bed. “Thanks a lot, everyone,” Josh said after we’d washed our brushes and rollers, tapped the lids closed on the cans of paint, and settled on the floor of the freshly painted living room in 2A. “I ought to be able to get most of the rest done before Saturday. I can finish the trim after the new ladies move in.”
I’d told Mabel not to come to our meeting tonight since we were going to paint, but I suggested we ask her to come back next week since we’d have new residents, just to go over the partnership with Manna House, which was handling the social services for House of Hope residents, as well as to reiterate the house rules for all concerned. “That way we’re not focusing just on Shawanda and Celia, but making it clear these are the guidelines and rules for everyone.” And, I thought, taking the pressure off me to be the “bad guy.”
“Humph,” Tanya sniffed. “I’m thinkin’ we gonna need to go over them rules at every household meeting. At Manna House, Shawanda was always sayin’, ‘Since when was that a rule?’—like she didn’t know it’d been that way ever since Adam.”
After spending three days with Shawanda at the Fall Getaway, I felt what the young mother needed was a basic daily structure with some free time built in for herself, away from the kids—maybe one evening out each week, plus a couple mornings of preschool for her little ones. I’d already told Celia Jones that I’d meet with her and Shawanda to help work out housekeeping chores, schedules, and basic responsibilities of sharing an apartment—but that didn’t need to be done at a household meeting where everyone else was present.
Next item of business: We’d already agreed to have a potluck supper on the first Saturday of each month. This time it would also function as a “Welcome to the House of Hope” for Shawanda and Celia. After asking who could bring what, I added, “I know it’s already a busy weekend with the move and all, but I just found out it’s Lucy Tucker’s birthday on Friday. What would you guys think of having a birthday party here Friday night—maybe the first birthday party she’s had for decades. Estelle said she’d make a banana cake.”
“Why not invite her to the potluck and just add the cake?” Tanya wanted to know. “Presto! Party!”
“I know. That makes a lot of sense,” I admitted. “Except that will also be our welcome meal for Shawanda and her babies and Celia and her granddaughter. I’d kind of like to do something special just for Lucy.”
“Sí, I agree.” Edesa smiled at me. “A real surprise, just for Lucy.”
Precious jumped in. “Why not at Manna House, though? She can’t get around that good right now anyway. Take the party to her instead of having it here.”
“Well, sure, we probably could. Except—” Why was I pushing beyond the obvious? It’d be more work to have the party here. “I guess I’d like to do it someplace besides the shelter to . . . I don’t know . . . to make it more personal and homey. She’s been bouncing between the streets and the homeless shelter most of her life. I want more for Lucy—even at this late stage.”
Tanya rolled her eyes. “It’s just a party. Ain’t gonna change Lucy’s lifestyle. Once that ankle heals, she’ll be right back out on the street. But”—she shrugged—“fine. I ain’t got nothin’ else goin’ on Friday night.”
Precious nodded. “Yeah. Makes for a full weekend—but no big deal. I ain’t complainin’. Whatchu want me to do?”
Once we’d decided to throw the party, Precious, Tanya, and Edesa really got into it, brainstorming ideas to make it fun. Who to invite was a little sticky, since we couldn’t invite all the residents at Manna House. We finally decided to ask all the residents to sign a colorful poster card, which could be presented to her the following day, but keep the actual party to staff and their families. Well, Mr. B and DaShawn weren’t exactly Estelle’s family yet, but close enough.
I was half tempted to invite Philip to the party—ha!—since Lucy had played a big role in “upsetting the apple cart” of our lives after that day in the park when I’d tripped over her in the rain and ended up bringing the bedraggled bag lady up to the penthouse. Oh, you are so bad, Gabby, I chastened myself. But it was kind of funny—in a weird, sad way—to remember the look on Philip’s face and the dropped mouths of Henry Fenchel and his snooty wife, Mona, whom Philip had been trying to impress.
But I did call Philip on Thursday morning, just to see how he was doing and to ask if he’d had any luck apartment hunting. I got the answering machine on his house phone. No answer on his cell phone either, so I left a voice mail. Should I be concerned? I decided, nah, he’d probably gone into the office, which he still insisted on doing two or three times a week in spite of Henry’s lawsuit—or maybe to spite Henry because of the lawsuit. I’d try again later.
Which I did after lunch. Still no answer on either phone. Odd. But it was Harry’s phone call that evening that put me over the edge.
“Hey there, Firecracker. Do you happen to know where Philip is? He agreed to go with me to a GA meeting tonight, so I stopped by to pick him up—but Gomez at the desk said he hadn’t seen him. Gomez called the penthouse, but no answer. He’s not answering his cell phone either.”
My heart thudded. “Something’s happened,” I whispered hoarsely. “Do you think we ought to call the police?”
“Maybe, given the threats he’s been getting. But he’d have to be missing a lot longer than twelve hours for the police to take it seriously.”
“I’m scared, Mr. B.”
“Hey, hey, don’t get worried yet. He probably just forgot—or got chicken. He’ll turn up. You’ll see. I’ll ask Gomez to let me into the parking garage, see if his car is there. If not, he’s probably just out somewhere. He’s been driving with that broken arm, hasn’t he?”
But I was worried. This wasn’t like Philip—at least not recently. God, please don’t let Philip be hurt. Protect him, Jesus. You’ve started to do a work in his heart—and he needs You, Lord, whether he knows it or not!
I wandered into P.J.’s room, where my oldest was doing homework on his bed, plugged into his iPod. “P.J.?” I had to raise my voice to get his attention. “P.J.!”
“What?” He pulled the earbuds out and looked at me.
I sat down on the edge of his bed. “Honey, I’m trying to call your dad but haven’t been able to get hold of him. Did he say anything on Monday when you were over there about going somewhere this week?”
P.J. shook his head. “Just that he was going to look for another apartment.”
“Did he say anything else? Did he seem worried about work? You said he talked to his folks over the weekend and seemed upset about something.”
“Yeah, but that was the weekend. He talked to Nana on Tuesday while I was there, and Dad seemed real happy then.”
Philip’s mother had called . . . Philip seemed real happy . . .
I suddenly felt lightheaded, as if a whirlwind had picked me up and spun me around. “Uh, P.J., do you remember whether he talked to Nana before or after he called me to let me know where you were?”
“Why would that matter? But . . . had to be before because he was talking to Nana when I got there and he called you later.” P.J. gave me a funny look. “Is Dad okay?”
“I’m sure he is, honey. Just trying to figure out how to reach him, is all. Sorry I bothered you. You want a snack or anything?”
P.J. shook his head and stuck the earbuds into his ears. I slipped out of his room and closed the door behind me. Something Philip said in his phone message Tuesday niggled at me. Was it still on the machine? Or had I erased it?
I scurried to the house phone and pressed the Play button. Whew. Still there. I listened carefully—there. That part. I replayed it again: “Also, talked to my lawyer today. If I can get the money to pay off my loans, I might be able to avoid these lawsuits. I have an idea, but— well, guess you can pray it works out.”
What idea? Pay off his loans? Get money where?
And suddenly I knew. Marlene Fairbanks probably cashed in some stocks or something and bailed out her son. But I had a bad feeling about it.
Just then the phone rang twelve inches from me, making me jump. I snatched up the handset, glanced at the caller ID, and pressed Talk. “Harry? Is Philip’s car there?”
“No, but—”
“Then I think I know where he might be. I’m sure his mother sent him some money, but I’m guessing he hasn’t used it to pay down his debts.”
“I know.”
“What do you mean, you know?”
“Philip just called me five minutes ago. He’s down at the Horseshoe Casino in Indiana. That much money was just too big a temptation. He’s already lost some of it—so he called, sounding desperate, asking if I’d come drag him out of there before he loses it all.”
Having my suspicion confirmed sent me over the edge. “He’s at the Horseshoe? The spineless jerk! I don’t believe this!”
“Gabby girl, wait. This is good. Yeah, he went to the Horseshoe. But he called me. Don’t you realize what a big deal that is?”
“No. Well, maybe. I don’t know. I guess. But if he realizes what he’s doing, why doesn’t he just leave? He has his car.”
“You gotta understand addiction, Gabby. This is huge. He knows he doesn’t have the willpower to leave on his own, so he did the next best thing. Called for help. I’m on my way to pick up Denny Baxter right now, so one of us can drive his car home. Hang in there, Firecracker. Talk to you later.” Click.
The phone went dead in my ear.