I totally forgot to call Hoshi Friday night to find out when Mark and Nony were arriving at the airport. Just as well. Denny would not have been happy with me making Yada Yada phone calls after we got home last night, because after a great dinner at Thai Soukdee in downtown Evanston, we were definitely “in the mood”—though riding the el home with the temperature in the teens almost put a chill on it, along with the fact that Josh would be coming home sometime before midnight.
Before? Dream on, Jodi. More like five minutes after. By then Denny was snoring softly, but I was still half-awake, with one ear tuned to the noise of a key or foot-steps in the hall. Josh knocked on our bedroom door to say, “I’m home,” but I could almost bet he’d be asleep before I would.
The next morning I dialed the Sisulu-Smiths’ home near Northwestern’s campus around eight o’clock, hoping it wasn’t too early. Hoshi answered on the second ring.
“Yes, Jodi? . . . Oh, Dr. Mark and Nony arrive at 11:52, South African Airways . . . No, they plan to take a taxi.”
That sounded like Professor Mark Smith. Not the type to ask somebody to pick them up.Yet Hoshi thought the idea of going to the airport sounded like great fun. “We’ll surprise them! Yes, I’d love to go. You can pick me up?”
I wished the entire Yada Yada Prayer Group could go to the airport to give them a welcome home, but that wasn’t practical on such short notice. Hoshi and I would have to do—and Denny, too, if I could sweet-talk him into it.
He emerged bleary-eyed but still looking yummy at about nine o’clock. It took a few chugs of coffee to get his brain cells moving before he answered my query about the airport. “Why not let them just take a taxi home, if that’s what they usually do?” he reasoned, refilling his coffee mug. “Mark can afford it on his salary.”
“That’s not the point. Nony’s been gone over two months! I’m sure they’d be pleased if we showed up to meet them, even if they’d never ask.”
Denny drained his mug and shuffled toward the front door to get the newspaper. “But if Hoshi’s going, you don’t really need me,” he called back over his shoulder.
I followed him toward the foyer. “I know. I just think Mark would feel more comfortable if there was another man.” I batted my eyes at him. “I’ll make cheese omelets for breakfast if you say yes.”
He swatted me with the newspaper. “That’s shame-less bribery. And it’s my last free day before school starts on Monday.”
Yet the cheese omelets worked, and Denny pulled into the parking garage at O’Hare Airport at 11:45, close to Terminal 3. I thought they’d be coming into the international terminal and have to go through customs, but it turned out they’d landed in Atlanta that morning and had done all that. The last leg on South African Airways was a domestic flight, operated by Delta.
The three of us made our way to the baggage claim area, carrying the winter coats they’d left behind—Hoshi’s idea. “Wish we could meet them at the gate,” I said, remembering how much fun it used to be to meet people as they spilled out of the jetway from the plane. But a world full of terrorist threats had changed that forever. There wasn’t even a place to sit down while we waited.
We saw them before they saw us. Ours weren’t the only heads that turned as the Sisulu-Smith family made their way through the press of people searching for their baggage carousels. Mark Smith came first, wearing a royal blue dashiki with gold stitching around the neck and wide sleeves, and carrying two small carry-on bags. In the wake he created, Nony moved right behind him, holding both Marcus and Michael by the hand, the boys looking like clones of their father, including the royal blue dashikis. A stunning black and yellow dress of geometric patterns wrapped around Nony’s body down to her ankles, stopping just above the gold strap sandals that cradled her slim, brown feet. A head wrap in the same African print covered her hair, except for the two large hoop earrings that dangled on either side. Definitely dressed for a South African summer.
“Uh-oh. They’re going to get a rude shock when they step outside,” I murmured, following Denny as we pushed our way toward the bright splashes of colorful dress brightening up the drab baggage claim.
Denny reached them first. “Can I help you with those bags, mister?”
Distracted, Mark Smith shook his head. “No, thank you . . . what?” His mouth broke into a wide grin, spreading his thin moustache that dropped down and outlined his chin in a carefully sculpted goatee. “Denny Baxter! Jodi . . . and Hoshi! You too?”
A sudden flurry of squeals and hugs took over the conversation as the seven of us greeted each other. The boys hung back, as though not sure they remembered these people after their two-and-a-half-month absence. I hugged them anyway.
“You look very African for a man born and bred in Georgia,” I teased Mark as we waited for the carousel to start spitting out luggage.
He actually blushed. “Well, you know Nony—we all came home with at least three new outfits, all traditional South African something. Had to buy another suitcase just to bring home all the extra stuff.”
“Oh, stop.” Nony rolled her eyes. She leaned toward me. “He bought his share of souvenirs—carved wood, brasswork, stuff for the walls.”
“Well, sure. It was my first trip to Africa.”
“Hopefully not the last,” Nony murmured.
I eyed Hoshi with the slightest lift of my eyebrow. Well, Mark and Nony were back, along with the on-going diplomatic standoff: “Your country or my country?”
Mark was right about one thing—they had a lot of luggage. Even with a cart, we all had to carry something, and we filled up an entire elevator, what with seven people plus cart plus stray bags.We got out on “Da Bulls” level—Marcus and Michael wanted to stop at all the parking-garage floors so they could hear all the different sports theme songs, but their father threatened bodily harm if they hit the buttons—and Denny trotted off to get the car since Nony was practically barefoot in her thin sandals. But even the short dash to the car from the elevator foyer must have been a shock to the system by the time we slammed all the doors after cramming every-body plus luggage into the Caravan.
I was glad Hoshi climbed into the third seat with the two boys so I could sit with Nony in the middle—Hoshi, after all, would get to visit with them once they got back to the house. I asked the top-of-the-head questions: Did you have a good flight? How is your mother doing? Are the boys glad to be home? “There’s not enough time!” I moaned. “We’ll have to invite you guys over for dinner so we can hear everything about your trip.”
Nony nodded wearily. “Yes. Maybe later. I need some time to reflect, to ask God what it all means before we tell you about it.”
“And develop our pictures,” Mark tossed from the front seat.
The sky was spitting snow, and Denny had to turn on the windshield wipers. Lake effect? Or a big storm? I’d forgotten to check the weather.
“Jodi?” Nony’s low voice seemed meant for my ears only. I leaned closer. “How is Denny—after MaDear’s terrible accusation, I mean? While I was in South Africa, seeing the still-painful struggle my country is going through after the end of apartheid . . . I kept thinking about Denny and MaDear, aching for them both. And praying for them, praying for all my brothers and sisters, black and white, weeping for all the hurts still quivering in a million hearts as we take stumbling steps forward—praying that forgiveness and God’s love will one day prevail.”
A lump gathered in my throat. Nony doesn’t know. She’d still been here when Denny had walked into Adele’s beauty shop to pick me up on our anniversary, provoking a tirade from Adele’s confused mother, who thought my husband was one of the men who’d lynched her brother when she was only a girl of ten. Denny had wanted to clear things up—he wasn’t even born then! He’d grown up in New York, for Pete’s sake! Yet the incident had thrown up a wall between Adele and us. Citing a lot of painful stuff her family had had to deal with over the years, Adele had dropped out of Yada Yada, leaving us feeling guilty and not knowing what to do.
I took Nony’s hand in mine. “Thank you for the prayers,” I said. “God did something amazing around Christmas—but first we had to ask, ‘What did Jesus do?’ ” It sounded trite the moment I said it, like the WWJD catch phrase that ran rampant through Christian pop culture a few years back. I meant it, though. Not, “What would Jesus do?” but “What did Jesus do?”
Nony’s eyes glistened. I think she knew.When I had a chance, I’d tell her about Denny’s decision to ask MaDear’s forgiveness—as though he really had committed that sin against her. “Because,” he had explained to me later, “she needed to hear someone say, ‘I’m sorry.’ And because I’m not guilt-free.”
Nony looked away and I heard her murmur, “Yes, Lord! You said you came to heal the brokenhearted and proclaim liberty to the captives, to make the blind see and set at liberty all who are oppressed!”
I grinned and squeezed her hand. Nony was definitely back.
Forty minutes later we pulled into their driveway on Evanston’s north side. As the guys unloaded the lug-gage, Nony sat for a moment just looking at her house—a red-brick two-story, pretty even in the dead of winter, with bare ivy creeping up the brick and framing the windows and wheat-colored decorative grasses waving gently in the chilly breeze. She sighed. “It’s good to be home.” Then I realized how tired they all must be after their twenty-four-hour journey.
“I thought about making Japanese lunch for welcome home,” Hoshi said shyly. “But then I thought, Marcus and Michael would like something truly American.”
“Pizza!” the boys yelled in unison.
“You didn’t.” Nony rolled her eyes.
Hoshi nodded with a guilty smile. “With do-it-your-self toppings, all lined up on the kitchen counter, ready to go.”
Denny and I were invited inside to partake of the do-it-yourself pizzas, but we declined, knowing it took energy to chat, even with friends, and they all probably needed a good nap. Amanda was a convenient excuse. “We have to pick her up at the Metra station,” we said, giving every-body one last hug and climbing back into the minivan—leaving out the itty-bitty detail that her train didn’t get in till almost five.
AMANDA POPPED OUT OF the Metra train, lugging her backpack. “You both came to pick me up?” She seemed highly amused. “Good grief. I was only gone one night.”
“Two days,” her father reminded her, taking the bulging backpack and giving her a big squeeze. “Two long, gloomy days. The house was quiet, the phone never rang, no snack dishes stacked up in the living room, no undies left in the bathroom—”
“Dad!” she screeched, but he made her laugh.
I opened the sliding door and climbed in the middle seat so Amanda could sit up front—a ploy Denny and I once figured out if we actually wanted to talk with one of our offspring while in the car. “Did you have a good time with Patti?”
Amanda shrugged and looked out the window. “I guess.”
That got a sidelong look from Denny. “You guess? I thought you girls were best buddies back when.”
Another shrug. “Yeah, guess so. Once.”
This wasn’t what I expected. “Did something happen, honey?”
“Not really . . .” Her voice trailed off, and I thought she was going to leave us guessing. But suddenly she whipped her head around, eyes flashing. “It’s just . . . Patti and her new friends are so . . . so ignorant. They were, like, telling me all about the cute boys at school, and all the R-movies they sneak into, and they asked if I liked anybody, and I said kinda and told them about José—”
I pressed my lips together.
“—and they, like, got all weird because he’s Hispanic and started asking all sorts of embarrassing questions, like if we’d, you know, done it yet, and what’s the matter, don’t I like white boys anymore? And is it true Latino guys just want weird sex—”
“Amanda!” My mouth flopped open in spite of myself. “Patti said things like that to you?”
“Well, not exactly Patti. It was some of her friends we met at the mall. And she laughed, too, and didn’t seem to get it. I mean, I tried to tell them he’d been shot last spring—and right away, they started making jokes like, ‘Ooo, Manda’s sweet on a gangbanger.’ They made me so mad!” By now Amanda was practically yelling. “So I just walked away.Who cares about them, anyway?”
Denny pulled into the garage from the alley. “You walked away? What did Patti do?”
“She, like, ran after me, and we took a bus home. But I think she was upset that I’d made her leave her friends. Later she tried to ask me about José—trying to make it up to me, I guess—and I really wanted to tell her how he told the drug dealers to butt out of the park that day so his kid brother and sisters could play, and he plays a tight set of drums at Iglesia, and he wants me to have a quinceañera, and that he’s one of the sweetest guys I’ve ever met.” By this time Amanda was climbing out of the car. “But it felt like . . . like throwing pearls to the pigs. So I just told her to forget it!”
She slammed the car door.A second later she opened it again. “Oh. Thanks for picking me up.” And the door slammed again.
Denny slowly turned his head and looked at me. I know my mouth was hanging open. And for once Denny was speechless.