The three of us cried a lot and talked until late. Then we tucked Stu into her bed and fell out ourselves—Florida in the double bed with Carla, and me on the futon with an afghan. In the middle of the night, I woke up confused and sweating. I felt overwhelmed by loss. Someone had died! But who?
Oh God. Stu’s baby. David. David Stuart.
And . . . Jamal Wilkins.
I struggled upright under the afghan, which had knotted itself around my body, pulled my knees up to my forehead, and wept. I wanted Denny—needed Denny to hold me. Yet Denny was downstairs, out cold and oblivious, no doubt. God was here, though . . .
God is gracious. That was the meaning of my name. God is gracious . . . God is gracious. “My grace is sufficient,” Jesus said. Did I believe that? I laid back down on Stu’s futon and imagined crawling up in God’s lap, a lap already cradling a baby named David and a teenager named Jamal. And Stu. And Florida and Carla. All on God’s lap. And God had His arms around us all.
I DIDN’T THINK STU would be up for going to church the next morning, but Florida just said to her, “We’re goin’.”We let her take one antidepressant, and I took the bottle with me as I hustled downstairs to take a quick shower and change out of my sweats—and discovered José eating breakfast cereal with Denny and Josh. I blinked and counted noses. The shower was running in the bathroom—Amanda, no doubt, unless there were more gremlins hiding in the woodwork I didn’t know about.
“Good morning, Señora Baxter,” José said politely. I burbled something I hoped sounded like “Hi,” but I was so startled, I probably sounded like I was gagging. I shot Denny a look that said, “What’s the meaning of this?”
Denny chewed placidly. “Gotta drop José at the el on the way to church. You play drums at Iglesia this morn-ing, José, right?”
José nodded and poured another bowl of cereal. “Sí.”
Florida and Carla rode with Stu in her Celica, and I rejoined my family, feeling as if I couldn’t be gone twenty minutes, much less twenty hours, without something going amiss. “Thought you said you had the Alamo covered,” I hissed at Denny as we trailed Josh and Amanda up the stairs at Uptown.
“I did.” Denny leveled his eyebrows at me. “Gotta trust me, Jodi.Tell you about it later.” His tone also said, “Don’t push me.”
I pressed my lips into a firm line, but they fell open when we reached the second-floor meeting room—and there was Peter Douglass, urbane and handsome as ever, sitting by himself on the far side, halfway back. My head swiveled. Avis was huddled with Pastor Clark; she must be worship leader today. Florida and Stu, who had arrived before we did, saw me staring at Peter and grinned. Florida pumped her fist surreptitiously. Yes!
Denny immediately headed over to Peter Douglass, and the two men spoke and nodded, as if agreeing to talk more after service. When Denny came back, we sat behind Florida and Stu, and I noticed Stu dabbing at her eyes throughout the entire service. But I also noticed that when we sang the Israel Houghton song, “We worship You, for who You are . . . You are good! All the time! All the time, You are good!” Stu lifted her hands and her face upward—the first time I’d ever seen her worship like that.
Now I was the one who needed the tissues.
“YOU FIRST,” I TOLD Denny, wrapping my hands around a double decaf cappucino at the Heartland Café while we waited for our nachos grandes. Denny sipped the head off an iced mug of beer—the first beer I’d seen him drink in months.
I’d been so exhausted after church that I took a long nap. Denny had finally shaken me awake at five o’clock. “Jodi! You’ll be up all night if you don’t get up. C’mon. We’re going out. You and me. Oh—Avis called. I said you’d call her back. Later.”
Yeah, I bet she did. She’d caught me after church and said, “Stu’s pretty weepy.What’s going on? My caller ID showed you called yesterday.”
“Uh-huh, big stuff. You can either ask her or I can fill you in. But”—I jutted my chin in Peter’s direction, who’d been cornered again by Denny, and grinned wickedly—“only if you fill me in, sister.”
Now I looked at Denny across the “naturally stressed” wooden table of the Heartland’s sidewalk café, still enclosed till the weather warmed up a bit more. I was curious, but the steam I’d felt when I’d first seen José at our breakfast table had dissipated. “You gotta trust me,” Denny had said. And Me, the Holy Spirit had echoed in my spirit. Hadn’t God been at work all weekend on the second floor? Had to spill down to the first floor of our house too.
“Okay, me first.” Denny shrugged. “I took Amanda and José grocery shopping, like you said. At the fruit market the kids threw a couple of cans of salsa verde, some cornmeal, and a package of corn husks into the cart, and José promised to show us how to make authentic Mexican chicken tamales.”
“You’re kidding. Amanda helped cook?”
“Uh, well, she found the salt and stuck the corn husks in some warm water to soften.” He grinned. “Wasn’t exactly the cooking breakthrough we’ve been hoping for. But José knew what he was doing.”
“Amazing,” I murmured. “José can cook.”
“I think he’s had to do a lot of things as the oldest of the Enriquez brood.Working mom, blue-collar dad who’s gone a lot driving trucks—you know. But José and I had a good talk; he kinda opened up. Amanda, bless her, pulled back and just let José and me talk. I was kinda surprised—ah! Here’s the nachos.”
A blue-jean clad waiter put a huge plate of corn chips covered with beans and melted jack cheese on the table between us. Lettuce, tomatoes, salsa, and sour cream toppings made the plate look like an ad for the Rocky Mountains.We each pulled out a crisp corn chip loaded with stringy cheese and spicy beans. “So what else?” I mumbled between crunchy bites.
Denny washed down a spicy mouthful with the last of his beer and signaled the waiter for another. Okay, two, I told myself. Don’t get your tail in a knot, Jodi. Two beers in how many months? Not a big—“He wants to go to college,” Denny said.
“College!”
“Uh-huh. Said playing together in the mariachi band has been great for him and his dad lately—they’d never been close before. But he doesn’t want to end up driving trucks. He asked if I thought he could get into U of I.”
Had to admit I was surprised. “Ironic, isn’t it? Josh gets accepted at U of I and blows it off. José’s only fifteen and he’s already hot to go. Go figure.” But I squinted at my husband. “So how does this add up to José sleeping over last night?”
Denny allowed a rueful grin. “We talked so long, suddenly I realized it was eleven o’clock, and Josh wasn’t back yet with the car. José said he’d catch the el, but my conscience wouldn’t let me send a fifteen-year-old out of my house at that hour—even a street-smart fifteen-year-old—so I called Delores, said I was keeping him overnight and would send him back in the morning. I put him in Josh’s room and made Josh sleep on the couch when he came in. Amanda just said okay and went to bed.”
“Oh.Why didn’t you just say so this morning?”
Denny leaned toward me. “Because you need to learn to trust, Jodi Marie. Me, God, your friends, your kids—for your own sake. You can’t be Mama of the World all the time. The job’s too big.” He leaned back. “You were where you were supposed to be last night, and so was I. So . . . can you tell me what’s going on with Stu?”
The loaded corn chip on its way to my mouth paused in midair. Denny was right. He had trusted me. Stepped in and covered for me last night, didn’t ask questions, just believed me when I said I needed to be with Stu, even though it meant abandoning my errands, my chores, my house—even his bed. Trust.
I FILLED DENNY IN as best I could on everything that had happened yesterday. As we walked home hand in hand, hunched in our jackets against the damp end-of-March chill, I said, “Maybe Stu comes across so Ms. Perfect all the time because she needs to—to prove to herself and to God and everybody around her that she’s really okay.” Like you, Jodi, said the Voice in my head. That Spirit of God Voice that made me get honest with myself. “Like me,” I confessed. “Trying to keep it all under control. Except, you’re right. I can’t. It’s God who’s got it all under control.”
Denny put his arm around me and gave me a squeeze. We were almost at our front door when Denny stopped. “Okay, announcement. I know how I want to celebrate my birthday.”
“Birthday?” I faked. “What birthday?”
“Uh-huh, I know. April Fool’s. But I’m serious. It’s kinda last minute, but talking with José last night triggered something in me. You and Florida were there for Stu yesterday when she needed you—and you have the Yada Yada thing that’s been going on all year with the sisters. Yet circling Yada Yada are a lot of young men—like José, and Yo-Yo’s brothers, and Florida’s boys, and even Chanda’s oldest—what’s his name?”
“Thomas—she says it ‘To-mas.’ ”
“Yeah. And Josh. And Nony’s boys.”
We stood out on our front sidewalk. I had no idea where Denny was going with this, but I could read the intense lines in his face in the dim streetlight.
“Okay, don’t laugh. For my birthday, I’d like to have a Guys’ Day Out—maybe next Saturday—and invite all the other Yada Yada husbands, and include the boys, say twelve on up. ’Cause I was thinking, I’m turning forty-four, and do I just go along, doing the same-old same-old? But talking to José last night, I realized these teen guys need encouragement. And we dads—‘Yada Yada guys,’ through no fault of our own—we need encouragement too. So, I dunno, just thought a day together, playing, eating, talking—whatever. Mentioned it to Peter Douglass this morning. He thought it sounded like a great idea.”
“He’s not a Yada Yada husband.”
Denny threw back his head and guffawed, his dimples deep. “Not yet!”