I woke early the next morning . . . with P.J.’s last words ringing loudly in my ears. I burrowed my face into the pillow, fighting back tears. Oh, God, I really don’t know what to do. I’m trying to trust You with my kids, but I’m so scared I’ll lose them again . . .
I was still feeling rattled when I got to work. It was Wednesday—Nurse Day—and I had to thread my way through a dozen or more residents in the dining room waiting to see Delores Enriquez, the county hospital nurse who donated her time one morning a week to take care of basic medical problems. Locking myself into my broom-closet office, I tried to shut out the noisy chatter outside and get to work. But my talk with P.J. ate away at me, like a big slug of Drano corroding my insides.
I stared at the cursor blinking from the computer screen as P.J.’s words mocked me. Why can’t I live with Dad? If you and Dad aren’t gonna get it together . . .
“Oh, God,” I moaned, leaning my elbows on the desk and pressing my fingers against my skull. “I can’t do this. I don’t want to lose my kids!” Had P.J. told his dad he wanted to live with him? Philip hadn’t said anything last night . . . except that threat about telling the judge I’d “abandoned” my kid in the parking lot on his first day of high school.
Stupid, stupid, stupid . . .
Lee Boyer had assured me my custody petition was a slam dunk. But what if it wasn’t? What if Philip challenged it? What if the judge gave the boys a choice where they wanted to live? What if . . . what if P.J. said he wanted to go back to Virginia and live with Nana and Grandad, so he could continue going to George Washington Prep with all his old friends? Would the judge let him?
Nausea swept over me and I pulled the wastebasket within upchuck distance. The feeling passed, but now all my nerves felt as if they were going to jump out of my skin. I paced back and forth in the tiny office—five steps this way, five steps back—running a hand through my snarly curls. I should’ve just ignored P.J.’s snit and made the best of it, waited it out. Standing up for Jermaine isn’t worth starting a landslide that might take my kids away from me.
I immediately winced at my selfish thought and sank back into my desk chair. “Oh, God,” I moaned again. “I need some help here. I feel like I’m going crazy!”
Come to Me . . .
I made myself sit still. Those were the words that kept coming to me when I’d started reading the gospel of Matthew, even before Philip kicked me out. That’s what Jesus said. “Come to Me . . . and I will give you rest.”
I sat quietly for a few minutes. What did it mean to “come to God and find rest” when I was on the verge of being a nervous wreck? I needed someone to pray with me. That’s what a prayer partner was for, wasn’t it? I picked up the phone and dialed Jodi Baxter’s number—and got her voice mail. Of course. School had started and she was teaching a room full of squirrelly third graders at Bethune Elementary.
Well, I could pray with Estelle. I opened my office door and peeked outside. Estelle usually came in early on Wednesday to help Delores with sign-ups and teach her knitting group. But . . . no Estelle. Only Precious and Diane-of-the-Big-Afro behind the kitchen counter, banging a few pots and pans. I slipped up to the counter. “Where’s Estelle?”
Precious pulled a plastic container from the refrigerator and plopped it on the counter. “What do I know? Mabel just said Estelle had an emergency doctor’s appointment—eye doc or something—and could I throw some food together for the lunch crew. Huh. How come I always end up coverin’ lunch when Estelle don’t show up? Don’t nobody blame me if it’s Leftover Surprise today.”
Emergency doctor’s appointment? Eye doctor? For herself or Harry?
Well, okay. Guess I needed to “get my own prayers on,” as Precious would say—when she was in a better mood anyway. But I had to get out of my office. Felt as if the walls were closing in on me. And I had an idea how to stop my mind from spinning like a Tilt-A-Whirl and get focused.
Five minutes later I was sitting in my red Subaru, parked— hallelujah—under a leafy locust tree along the side street around the corner from Manna House, windows open to a slight breeze, listening to the gospel CD Josh Baxter had given me:
. . . The earth all around me is sinking sand On Christ the Solid Rock I stand When I need a shelter, when I need a friend I go to the Rock . . .
Listening to the CD and spending some time praying helped calm my spirit enough that I was able to get through the day. I even worked up the courage to step into Mabel’s office at one point and ask, “How’d it go this morning?”
The director gave me a little smile. “Okay. Good, actually. P.J. got in the car and said, ‘Hi, Miss Turner. Hi, Jermaine.’ Didn’t say anything the rest of the way, but we’ll take what we can get, right? Oh—he also said, ‘Thanks’ when he got out.”
My spirit hiked up a notch. That was more than I expected out of P.J., given our bum talk the night before. And he did get into the car when I drove into the school parking lot at five that afternoon, sliding into the front seat and turning on the radio full blast. We waited five minutes for Jermaine, who climbed wordlessly into the back. The radio filled the car, negating the need for any conversation and I let it alone.
But I did call Jodi that evening and asked her to pray with me about the whole Jermaine-P.J.-ride-to-school-live-with-me-or-Philip-custody-hearing-coming-up stew mushing around in my spirit. “Sheesh,” she said. “I’m the same way, Gabby. I let the what-ifs get me all in a panic, when nothing has happened yet. Remember that verse we talked about? ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart—’”
“Yeah, I’ve got it taped on the kitchen cupboard. It’s that part about ‘lean not on your own understanding’ I need to work on.”
She sighed. “Me too.” But she prayed over the phone, thanking God “that Gabby can trust You to make her paths straight like the verses in Proverbs promise.”
“Thanks, Jodi,” I said when she’d finished. “By the way, Estelle didn’t come to work today. Do you know anything about an emergency eye doctor’s appointment?” I figured Jodi might know since Estelle and her housemate, Stu, lived on the second floor of the Baxter’s two-flat.
“Really? No, but come to think of it, I haven’t seen her this evening. I’ll run upstairs and ask Stu what’s up and call you back.”
Jodi called back in ten minutes. “Stu doesn’t know much either—but it’s not Estelle. It’s Harry. Stu says he called Estelle this morning before she was even out of bed, like six or something, and the next thing she knew, Estelle was throwing her clothes on and muttering, ‘I told that man to get himself to the eye specialist, but did he go? No, the stubborn old goat’—or something like that.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. I could just see Estelle stomping around, telling Harry a thing or two even if he wasn’t there. But my laugh quickly died. “Sounds like it might be serious. She still isn’t back? I wonder if we should call her, find out what’s wrong.”
“Good idea. But let’s pray for her and Harry first, okay?”
I called Estelle’s cell phone two times that night and left a message both times, but didn’t get a call back. Both boys already had homework—and I hadn’t been able to convince Paul to use the afterschool time to get his done and earn a free evening—so I spent most of the evening making sure they were doing their work and not getting distracted by their iPods or the TV. Couldn’t believe it, though, when the house phone rang and it was for P.J.—from a girl. Good grief, school had just started two days ago and girls were calling him already?
“Can you believe it?” I told Angela when I signed in at the reception desk the next morning. “P.J. got a call from a girl last night. He’s only been at school two days. And since when do the girls call the boys?”
Angela laughed and handed me a couple of messages. “Oh, Gabby. You’re showing your age. Girls call guys all the time these days, even make the first move. Equal opportunity, you know! And besides, that P.J. is pretty cute. Give him a few years and he’ll be breaking hearts right and left.” She winked and answered the incessant phone. “Manna House. Can I help you?”
I pushed that image—a trail of broken hearts in P.J.’s wake— out of my head before it sent me into a deep depression and glanced at the messages as I headed downstairs to my office. A phone call from Peter Douglass, asking if the shelter could use a couple more computers. And a handwritten note from Sarge, saying a newbie had come in last night and asked for me by name. I squinted at the name: Naomi Jackson.
Naomi . . . Naomi Jackson. I vaguely remembered a girl by that name. By the time I got to my office, I remembered. White girl, tangled brown hair with blonde streaks under a brown felt cap. Pierced nose—maybe her lip too, couldn’t remember—and high as a kite on something! I’d only been working at the shelter a few days and did her intake, shaking in my shoes because I had no idea what I was doing. Mabel had been out, but took over when she came back, and I’d been impressed how straightforward she’d treated Naomi—no-nonsense, firm, kind.
But the kid had only stayed one day. The craving for a fix had been too strong.
That was almost three months ago. The staff had wondered if she’d come back. I was glad she had—but why in the world was she asking for me?
I went looking for her and found her curled up in an overstuffed chair in Shepherd’s Fold, sound asleep. I gently shook her arm. “Naomi?”
The girl opened her eyes, seemingly confused about where she was. She still had the same stud in her nose—none in her lip, though—and streaked brown-and-blonde hair pushed up haphazardly under the same brown felt cap. But this time a black eye and facial bruise ran halfway down her cheek.
But she wasn’t high. Recognition lighted her eyes and she half-smiled—only half because the swollen cheek hindered a full one. “Hey, Mrs. Fairbanks. You ’member me?”
I sat down in the chair next to her. “I do. I’m glad to see you came back, Naomi.”
“Yeah.” She wagged her head. “Shoulda come back sooner, but . . .”
“What happened to your face? Who beat you, Naomi?”
“Aw, it ain’t nothin’. My pimp, he got a little excited when I told him I was leavin’—but I mean it this time, Mrs. Fairbanks. I gotta get off the streets.” She grabbed a throw pillow and hugged it to her chest, rocking it like a rag doll. “Them streets gonna kill me if I don’ get off that smack.”
I watched her for a few moments, feeling helpless. How did one help a girl as far gone as Naomi? But I wanted to—wanted to gather her in my arms and hold her, rock her, kiss her hair, tell her it was going to be all right. But what did I know? I was the program director. Not a case manager or social worker. Not her mother either.
“I got a note from Sarge saying you wanted to see me. I’m surprised you remembered my name.”
The girl blushed. “Aw, that’s ’cause you was the first person I met when I came here the last time. I remembered that. You talked to me like I was a real person.”
I had? All I could remember was being scared to death because she was high on drugs and might do something. “I’m glad . . .” I said, distracted momentarily by the double doors swinging open and Estelle coming in. I stood up, hoping to catch her. “Be strong, Naomi. It might be tough for a while to stick it out—but you’ll be glad you did. I’ve seen some mighty big miracles happen here. Including me.”
The girl squinted up at me. “You? Naw. You look like a good person—not like me.”
“You don’t have to be good to have God do a miracle in your life,” I murmured—and suddenly bent and kissed her on the forehead. Probably not kosher. But I didn’t care. How long had it been since she’d had a kiss from someone who wasn’t trying to get something from her?