Fire? At Estelle’s house? Estelle had a house?
I had to run out to pick up P.J., or I would have followed Estelle then and there. What was Mabel talking about? None of this computed. If Estelle had a house, why had she ended up a resident at Manna House? And now she was sharing an apartment with Leslie Stuart on the second floor of the Baxters’ two-flat.
I hurried back to the shelter after picking up P.J. from cross-country practice, hoping to talk to Estelle before the lunch crunch hit. But by the time I checked on Paul, who was doing his volunteer thing playing Ping-Pong with a handful of kids in the rec room, Estelle was hollering orders at her two assistants who had pulled lunch prep on the residents’ chore chart. “Tawny! Turn those burgers over! No, no, not with a fork . . . Wanda, show that girl where the spatula is!”
“Mi? Mi? How do mi know where dat ting is? . . . Ohh. Dat ting.”
Decided this wasn’t a good time to have a heart-to-heart with Estelle. I’d catch her later. But I felt a tad sorry for the new girl, Tawny, who scurried like a mouse trying to stay out of the way of the big cats. Both Wanda and Estelle were large women, and Wanda’s Jamaican patois wasn’t so easy to understand.
Unlocking my office door, I glanced back at the girl in the kitchen, now flipping burgers on the hot stove-top grill. Tawny . . . she’d been aptly named. The teenager’s skin was fawn-colored, her long bushy hair—barely covered by the ugly hairnet—a fusion of brown, tan, and gold rivulets. Hard to tell what her ethnicity was. Mabel said she’d been dumped out of the foster-care system when she turned eighteen, even though she didn’t have her high school diploma yet. But the girl had chutzpah, turning up at Jodi’s typing class twice now, saying she wanted to get her GED, maybe even go to college.
I slipped into my office and turned on the computer. Still, she’s just a kid . . . a kid with no home, no parents apparently . . . As I waited for the computer to boot up, I looked around at the excess of stuffed toy dogs still piled on every available surface in my office, left at the shelter after Dandy had made himself a “hero dog” by attacking a burglar and getting himself knife-wounded in the process. Chicago loved heroes, even dog heroes. We’d given away most of the stuff left by well-wishers, but kept the stuffed animals to give to children who ended up in the shelter.
I picked up a soft black dog with floppy ears and a pink ribbon around its neck. Would Tawny . . . ?
I never did get a chance to talk to Estelle that Monday. Forgot she taught a sewing class on Mondays, even though I’d donated my one and only sewing machine to the effort. She was busy at the far end of the dining room helping the three ladies who showed up how to lay out a pattern for a simple apron when I left with Paul at two o’clock. And I took the boys shopping that afternoon for school clothes at Woodfield Mall, “Chicago’s Largest Shopping Center.” I figured a big mall with lots of stores would be a safe bet to find what the boys needed for school, and we’d be back in time for supper and a quiet evening when I could call Estelle.
What I didn’t figure on was just how long it took to get to “Chicago’s Largest Shopping Center” from the north side. Schaumberg, it turned out, was way out past O’Hare Airport, past a half-dozen suburbs, past a huge forest preserve, and traffic on I-90 was already starting to creep with homebound traffic. It was almost four o’clock by the time we parked and found our way around the mall.
As far as I was concerned, one big department store should’ve been able to cough up the necessary gym shoes, socks, jeans, shirts, and underwear for two boys. But no, they wanted to check out all the specialty teen shops too. P.J. had shot up at least three inches in the past year, faster than he could wear out his clothes. They’d probably be just right for Paul, I mused, as the boys tried on the latest Gap jeans . . . but it didn’t seem fair for P.J. to get all the new clothes while Paul wore hand-me-downs. And both boys were going to need winter jackets and boots, though I held off on those. Good grief, it was still eighty degrees outside! Chicago’s deep freeze would definitely be different from Virginia’s mild winters, but maybe Philip could help buy some of the big-ticket items for the boys. Something to talk about when we talked . . .
If we talked.
Which reminded me, maybe I should talk to Estelle about Philip, get a second opinion about whether I should talk to him. Then maybe I wouldn’t seem so nosy if I said, oh by the way, I heard Mabel say something about your son and a fire at your house?
I parked myself on a bench when the boys got diverted by a video game arcade and called Estelle’s cell, but only got voice mail and had to leave a brief message.
The boys wanted to eat at the Rainforest Cafe at the mall, billed as “A Wild Place to Shop & Eat.” It was wild all right, and I don’t mean just the simulated rainstorms with thunder, lightning, rainbows, and animated wildlife in the “trees” hanging over the tables that punctuated our supper of Lava Nachos, Rainforest Burgers (the boys), Rasta Pasta (me), and lemonade. A gazillion other families must have had the same idea to “shop Woodfield” that day, and the place was full of kids on too much sugar.
By the time we got back to the car with our bulging packages, I had a splitting headache and a bulging balance on my new Visa card. The light was blinking on the answering machine when we walked in the door of the apartment, but I didn’t bother to listen to the messages before falling into bed. Probably Estelle calling back. Right now I didn’t want to talk about Philip or anything. Whatever it was could wait.
I should have listened to the messages.
Prying my eyes open with my first cup of coffee the next morning, I pushed the Play button and got the first beep. “Hey, Gabby. Jodi here. Just checking in to see if you’re okay. I want you to know I’m praying for wisdom about you-know-what. And a sense of peace too. Love you!” Sweet. At least she wasn’t mad at me for walking out on her at church on Sunday. And smart enough not to mention what she was praying about in case the boys checked the messages before I did. I should’ve called her first . . . well, I’d do it today.
Philip’s voice caught me up short as the next message beeped. “Gabrielle, please pick up if you’re there. Can we get together like I mentioned last Saturday? What about four o’clock this Friday? Before I pick up the boys. Can we meet somewhere? Let me know.”
Now my eyes were wide open. I quickly glanced at the boys’ bedroom doors that opened on the hallway, hoping they hadn’t heard. Both still closed. I hit Delete before the next message played. Didn’t want the boys to know Philip had asked me to talk in case I decided not to. What did he want? He was polite enough on the phone message. Actually, he’d been pretty decent when he dropped the boys off on Saturday. Even offered to follow me so I could take the rental car back and have a ride home. Or was that a first attempt to have “the talk”? Just him and me in the Lexus on the way back from the rental car place—
Third beep. “Gabby? It’s Mabel. Call me tonight if you get this. Estelle won’t be in tomorrow. She had a family emergency. I need you to put together a lunch team for tomorrow, maybe the next day too. Let me know what you can do.”
Oh no! Another emergency? Mabel said “family emergency,” so it had to be about Estelle’s son . . . Leroy, she said his name was. Poor Estelle. Was this related to the fire at Estelle’s house over the weekend? Hopefully this wasn’t something worse. But whatever it was, I needed to hustle if I was going to put together a lunch team for today, or I’d be cooking lunch by myself.
I managed to get the boys up and moving and P.J. dropped off at cross-country practice in time to get to work ten minutes early that morning. I headed straight for Mabel’s office, leaving Paul to sign us in and figure out his volunteer activities by himself.
“Mabel!” I burst in without knocking. “What—?”
Mabel was on the phone. She held up a manicured finger. “Yes, yes . . . Thanks, Harry. Tell her not to worry. We’ll cover things here . . . Okay. Keep us posted.” She hung up and turned to me, rubbing worry lines out of her usually smooth forehead.
“Was that Mr. Bentley?” I asked. “Sorry I didn’t call back last night . . . didn’t get the message until this morning. What’s wrong? Is Estelle okay?”
Mabel nodded. “Yes, that was Mr. Bentley and yes, Estelle is okay.” She sighed and absently tucked her straightened bob behind one ear. “It’s her son, Leroy. He’s in the burn unit at the county hospital with third-degree burns over a third of his body.”
I gasped and sank into a chair. “But what happened? You said something yesterday about a fire, but Estelle didn’t seem all that upset. So how—?”
Mabel held up a hand. “Two different episodes. Estelle came in yesterday, said there’d been a minor kitchen fire at the house. Leroy was okay, but she was worried that he’d caused the fire—on purpose or accidentally, she didn’t know. She hadn’t heard from him for several days . . . happens when he doesn’t take his meds. He has a long history of mental problems, you know.”
I was about to say, “I didn’t even know Estelle had a son until yesterday!” but Mabel didn’t stop for my little snit.
“She told me yesterday maybe she should put Leroy in a mental health facility before he hurt himself. She’d been resisting that idea for years. Then . . . well, I don’t know all the details. Harry was listening to his police scanner, heard the address of a major house fire yesterday afternoon and recognized it as Estelle’s house—the family home, I mean, where Leroy lives. Harry called Estelle right away, but by the time they got there, the house was basically a total loss, and an ambulance had already taken Leroy to Stroger Hospital. Estelle’s with him now, of course. And she’s all over herself for letting Leroy stay in the house on his own too long.”
I could hardly speak. “Is he . . . is her son badly burned?” Just burning my hand on the stove was painful. I could hardly imagine how Estelle must feel, knowing her son was in terrible pain.
Mabel shook her head. “Don’t know.” She straightened and pushed back from her desk, all business again. “Well. Main thing we need to do is put together some lunch teams to cover for Estelle. Can you work on that this morning? Start with Precious—she’s done it before. But someone will need to check on the menus and food supplies on hand. Estelle usually takes care of all that.”
And now it was in my lap. Which was okay . . . though I wanted to ask Mabel why Leroy was living alone. Why didn’t Estelle live with him—it was her house, wasn’t it? And how come she ended up here at Manna House a couple of years ago? But Mabel was already back on the phone.
I found Precious in the schoolroom, trying to update her résumé. But before I could say what I’d come for, she pounced. “Girl, you just the sistah I need to see. Can you proofread this for me? I gotta find a job an’ soon. Money I had is all run out, and Sabrina gettin’ bigger all the time. That baby gonna be here ’fore we know it.” The thin, strappy woman eyed me sideways from beneath the fall of short kinky twists that fell across her forehead. “An’ I don’t mean ta ride on ya, but anything happenin’ ’bout this grand idea of yours ta turn that building into a place for us single moms? Me an’ Sabrina, we gonna need someplace ta live, an’ quick, ’fore that baby gets here.”
I ran my fingers through my own mop of red curls, my head spinning. Yes, I needed to get moving on the next steps for the House of Hope, but I wasn’t even sure what came first—buying the building or approaching the city? And in the meantime, Philip had thrown me off center asking to talk . . . and now Estelle was out of commission and I was supposed to make sure Manna House served lunch to the fifteen or twenty residents who weren’t out for the day, plus staff . . .
I blew out my pent-up frustration. “Uh, Precious, we’ve got a situation.” I quickly filled her in on Estelle’s absence and the need to put together a lunch team. “You know your way around that kitchen better than I do. Can you help me put together a lunch team today? If you’ll find a couple extra hands—”
Precious was already halfway out the door. “No, you go find the warm bodies. You think they gonna listen to me if I tell them they gotta cook today? You’re on staff. They’ll listen to you. I’ll go hunt up Estelle’s menu and see if we got the goods.”