Geraldine Wilkins-Porter, still staring at me from the wall mirror, took a deep breath and pressed her lips together. I managed a weak smile. “Uh, yes. Her son . . .” I could hardly breathe. The name Jamal had almost popped out of my mouth. “Hakim is in my class at school.”
“Oh.” Adele scrunched her eyes at me. Did she recognize the name? Did she put it together with the mother of the boy I’d struck and killed with my car last summer? But—snip, snip—she carried on. “Well, feel free to abscond with MaDear. She’s driving Corey crazy back there.”
Gratefully, I pried my feet forward, found MaDear muttering in her wheelchair near the nail stations, and wheeled her quickly out the front door with a squeaky, “Bye!” Took my sweet time bringing her back too. We window-shopped, stopped at several vendors and got something—flavored ices, nachos, a messy tamale—and only turned back when MaDear fell asleep so soundly from food and fresh air I had a hard time keeping her from tumbling out of the chair.
The bell over the door jingled as I wrestled the wheel-chair back into the shop with MaDear a dead weight. Adele left her new customer—a twenty-something get-ting a weave, praise God—and helped me get MaDear settled in the back room. Then she folded her arms and studied me.
I squirmed. “What?”
“So that was the mother.”
I nodded. “Did she, uh, say anything?”
“Uh-huh. Wanted to know how I knew you. So I told her.”
“Oh. About Yada Yada?” Oh dear God. What about Yada Yada?
All she said was, “Uh-huh.”
“Did she say anything about—you know, the accident and her other son?”
“Nope.” Adele gave me a once-over with a critical eye, then went back to her weave. “ ’Bout time you made another appointment, Jodi Baxter. That hair got split ends all over the place. Should do something about those raggy nails too.”
I COULDN’T GET HAKIM’S mother out of my mind the rest of the day. I hadn’t seen her since she’d threatened to take Hakim out of school—though at Avis’s intervention she had finally agreed to leave him in my class and allow some counseling to help him deal with the losses in his life. But could I do it again? Meet as teacher and parent and talk calmly about Hakim’s progress—or lack of it—with The Accident hanging like a sword of doom over our heads?
I don’t even remember the walk home from Adele’s shop, just that I got home in one piece, totally ex-hausted. The mail had come, but I didn’t even take it out of the box. I just wanted to fall into bed and drown my anxiety in a good, long nap. Instead I found myself on my knees beside the living room couch. Pray Scripture, Jodi, said the voice in my head. “Be anxious for nothing . . .”
Yeah, right. About as effective as “Don’t scratch it” or “Can’t eat just one.” Still, I got my Bible and looked up the verse in its context: Paul’s letter to the Philippian church, chapter four. I read the passage a couple of times, realizing what a difference the surrounding verses made.
“Okay, God,” I said aloud, my voice muffled in a couch cushion, “Paul said I don’t have to be anxious, but instead to tell You everything that’s on my heart. So I gotta admit I’m really nervous about the parent-teacher conferences next week—and it blows my mind that I ran into Hakim’s mother today, at Adele’s shop of all places! I really need some wisdom and courage to meet her again. This scripture also says, ‘with thanksgiving,’ and somewhere else it says, ‘in everything give thanks.’ Does that mean to thank You that we ran into each other today? I don’t know what You have in mind, but I do want to trust You to work it all together for good. And help me fill my mind with everything that’s good and perfect and beautiful, like verse eight says, so I don’t have room for all the anxious thoughts that—”
“Hey!” yelled a familiar voice from the back of the house. “Anybody home?”
“Denny!” I screeched, launching myself off my knees. I’m sure my dash to the kitchen broke somebody’s world record, a startled Willie Wonka hard on my heels.
I HADN’T EXPECTED MY family back so early in the afternoon—hadn’t washed the bedding, hadn’t fixed supper, hadn’t put on any makeup—but nobody complained. Certainly not me. I was so glad they were home, I kept wanting to hug them—which got old pretty quick for Amanda and Josh, who began fighting about who got the phone first. Denny seemed content to sprawl on the couch with one arm around me and an iced tea in his other hand. “Remind me not to divorce you,” he murmured into my hair. “I’m not ready to be a single parent.”
A waft of English Leather tickled my nose as I snuggled closer. Gosh, I was glad he was home.
Eventually I did have to untangle myself, stick the bedding in the washer, and think about supper. I suggested eating out at Siam Pasta, but the kids groaned. “We’re dying for home cooking, Mom!” What mother in her right mind could resist outright flattery?
Oven-roasted chicken with rosemary, baked potatoes with sour cream, and frozen green beans with lemon pep-per—the easy-but-yummy formula—I listened to Josh and Amanda tell how chilling it was to stand on Ground Zero and see all the flowers and notes that people still left every day, honoring the people who had died on 9/11. They had wanted to visit Ellis Island, but the Statue of Liberty was closed for security reasons, and they ended up on Museum Mile along Fifth Avenue.
“Yeah. I wanted to see the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” Josh grumbled, “but Amanda bullied us into visit-ing El Museo del Barrio.”
Amanda snapped him with her cloth napkin. “We voted! You lost! Besides, you know you liked it.” She turned to me, eyes alight. “It was all this Latino art, Mom—mostly Puerto Rican and Caribbean. So cool.”
Denny and I exchanged glances.Yep, things were back to normal.
AMANDA RAN UP THE back stairs the next morning to see if Stu wanted a ride to church, but she came back saying Stu didn’t get home till late last night and would be coming later. Fine by me. After missing the Good Friday service, I was eager not to miss any of the Easter worship.
Last year—our first Easter at Uptown Community Church—the entire congregation had hiked to the lake carrying colorful bunches of balloons with “Resurrection messages” attached, then let them go, up, up, till they disappeared in the direction of Cleveland. I’d loved the simple beauty of the celebration and was hoping we’d do it again—though when we Baxters topped the stairs to the second-floor meeting room, the room was devoid of any balloons, color, or any decorations whatsoever. Not even an Easter lily. In fact, the windows shades had been pulled down and the room was quite dim.What in the world . . .?
The room was packed. Figured. The weather guy had said a possibility of rain, yet temperatures were already a pleasant sixty-two degrees, luring even the reluctant out of their stuffy houses and apartment buildings. I poked Denny. “Look.” Carl Hickman was there; the whole Hickman family, in fact. Florida was beaming like she’d just won an Oscar. She probably deserved one. Avis was back too, but I couldn’t catch her eye. She was too busy whispering back and forth to Peter Douglass as they sat together on the far side of the room.
The lights went out and we scurried to find a seat. A not-so-young guy I’d never seen before with a short, graying beard and hair slicked over a high forehead sat down at the piano, and the room hushed.With a plaintive, Bob Dylan kind of voice he began:
Was it a morning like this
When the sun still hid from Jerusalem?
And Mary rose from her bed
To tend the Lord . . . she thought was
dead . . .
Sheila Fitzhugh, who’d loaned me the slinky black dress last year, came up the middle aisle, doing a sorrowful dance in the role of Mary Magdalene. Then a “Peter” and a “John” joined her as the words of the song beckoned:
Was it a morning like this
When Peter and John ran from
Jerusalem? And as they raced for the tomb
Beneath their feet, was there a tune?
Did the grass sing? Did the earth rejoice
to feel You again?
Goose bumps danced on my arms as the window shades flew up and sunlight spilled into the room. “Peter,” “John,” and “Mary” linked hands and began to dance like the floorboards tickled their feet, the youth group suddenly emerged from the kitchen with the missing balloons, and the bard at the piano raised his voice in triumph:
Over and over like a trumpet underground
Did the earth seem to pound, “He is risen!”
Over and over in a never-ending round
He is risen! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
The atmosphere in the room had gone electric. Everyone was on their feet, the praise team and Uptown musicians took over, and we sang God’s praises in song after song. Everyone had their hands in the air. How could a person just sit when Jesus had conquered sin and death . . . just for us?
I tried to find the guest musician before we all set out for the lake with our balloons, but he must have slipped out. I overheard some folks talking who’d heard the song recorded by Sandi Patty—but this guy, Jim Croegaert, was the original songwriter. “How’d he end up at Uptown Community?” someone laughed. “We’re not exactly on the tour schedule for Christian musicians.”
“He’s local. Lives here in Chicago. A friend of Pastor Clark from his old rock-’n’-roll days.”
Old rock-’n’-roll days? Hmm. So Pastor Clark had a past—ha! I wrote down the guy’s name, hoping he had some CDs.
“Jodi,” Florida said, charging up to me. “Peter Douglass got my Carl over there in a corner—don’t know what about. You be prayin’, you hear? That man needs some resurrection, and my naggin’ ain’t it.” She craned her neck around. “Where’s Avis? You think she’s avoiding us? There she is. Stu! You come on too.” Florida grabbed both of us by the hand and made a beeline for Avis, who ducked behind a gaggle of teenagers with balloons.
“You stop right there, Avis Johnson,” Florida commanded, dragging Stu and me the other way around the herd of balloons and blocking her way. “Let’s see it.”
Avis was trying to repress a grin and feigning innocence all at once. “See what?”
“Whatever you’re hiding. Out with it.”
Avis started to laugh. Impatient, Florida grabbed her left hand and held it up. “I knew it!” she crowed.
My mouth dropped. Stu whistled. A large diamond engagement ring circled Avis’s long, slim finger—the finger where she’d still been wearing her gold wedding band since Conrad’s death. Heads turned as the three of us shrieked and tackled Avis with a big hug.
“Oh, thanks,” Avis wheezed when we finally let her go. “Remind me not to hang around you girlfriends if I want to keep something quiet or dignified.”
Florida snorted. “You got that right. It’s our duty not to let you get too dignified—uh-oh, my family’s goin’ out the door with them balloons.You guys comin’ to the lake?”
“Uh, can’t.” Stu looked at me apologetically. “Gotta go home and start cleaning my stuff out of the guest room.” We all stared at her as she pulled a business letter out of her shoulder bag. “This came in the mail yesterday. Didn’t get it till this morning.” She took a deep breath. “Becky Wallace is being paroled next weekend—to my house.”