12

That afternoon at the last bell, it took only ninety seconds for twenty-seven third graders—three were absent—to disappear from Room 3C, leaving behind the usual glut of forgotten items: two hooded sweatshirts, an overdue library book, several hair bands and barrettes, a red sock (a sock?), somebody’s copy of the math homework page, even a blue-and-red backpack. I peeked inside the backpack. Johnny Butler’s, of course. His backpack resided more hours in the classroom than it did at home. Unfortunately, his parents never seemed to notice.

Piling the left-behind items into my Darn-Lucky Box covered with gold foil—I charged the kids a quarter to redeem items, and they were “darn lucky” to get ’em back—I glanced at the clock: 3:05. I’d had no time to contact Denny at the high school during the day, and now he’d be busy with after-school baseball practice. I wracked my brain, trying to remember if anything was happening tonight in the Baxter family that would curtail my going to the hospital, but my mind was blank.

That was either a good sign or a bad sign.

Taking a chance, I made a quick trip to the office and told Avis (though I remembered to ask the school secretary, “Is Ms. Johnson available?”) that I was pretty sure I could go tonight and would pick her up at six-thirty. That was a leap. Okay, God, I’m counting on You to grab Denny by the scruff of the neck and haul him back home by six—and please don’t let him bring half the team home for supper. Well, it hadn’t happened yet, but I wouldn’t put it past him.

Back in my classroom, I consulted my lesson-plan book to see what I could do now to get a jump on the next day. Following my finger down the language arts column, I found “contractions.” “Ha!” I announced to the empty room. These kids were pretty good at contractions already—ain’t . . . cain’t . . . gonna . . . whassup—though I doubted I’d find those in the third grade syllabus. I finally decided to make a puzzle out of strips of heavy paper so the kids could play with words like do not and is not that could be joined together, with “wild apostrophe” cards to cover the dropped letter. As for math, the kids had enjoyed measuring “real” rectangles, so I toyed with the idea of having a contest to see who could bring in the most interesting “rectangle” the next day—the class could vote and the winner would get a prize. Could be risky, though. No telling what the kids might come up with—and I didn’t want to incur the wrath of a parent whose jewelry box went “missing.”

For science, we were supposed to compare “consumable versus recyclable” household items. Jotted down another list of stuff to bring from home. Toothpaste . . . bath soap . . . shampoo . . . would do for consumables. The recyclables were easy too: newspaper . . . metal can . . . plastic grocery bag . . . glass bottle . . .

Glass bottle. Yesterday’s upset with Denny dusted itself off and tightened my face. Sure hoped I could find an empty bottle besides the brown beer bottles I’d stashed under the newspapers in the recycling bin on the back porch.

I smacked the side of my head with the flat of my palm. Nope. Don’t go there, Jodi. Denny said it isn’t a big deal, so don’t make it a big deal.

By four o’clock I was ready to change back into my walking shoes, gather up my bags, and head out of the school. The afternoon sun had warmed up to a comfy sixty-five degrees, and the walk home was pleasant—though if I had three wishes, I’d use two of them to be walking along a country road (one) and to be ten years old again (two).

On second thought, I didn’t really want to be ten years old and have to go through puberty and pimples again.

“Hellooo,” I called out as I let myself in the front door, mentally rehearsing what I could make for supper and keep hot if I had to leave. “Anybody home?”

Willie Wonka’s nails scrabbled down the hall and slid to a stop around my dropped bags, snuffling and sniffing in each one.

“Hi, Mom.” Amanda’s voice floated from the dining room. “Just me. Josh and Dad are still at school . . . Hey, who’s ‘FlowithFlo’? We got a strange e-mail message from somebody, but I’ve never heard of her. Should I delete it?”

THAT’S IT, I DECIDED, as I slowed the minivan in front of Avis’s apartment building. I’ve got to get my own e-mail address. Nearly gave Willie Wonka a heart attack by pounding down the hall screeching “No!” with—I hoped—the accuracy of a heat-seeking missile. Amanda had looked startled then rolled her eyes when I ordered her away from the computer. But, I’d reminded her, she wasn’t even supposed to be on the computer unless Denny or I were home.

But it all worked out. The e-mail from Florida had simply said, “Okay to put my girl on the list. Her name is Carla.” No signature; no context. (No wonder Amanda felt suspicious.) But I felt nonplussed; sounded like Florida was leaving it to me to write up the prayer request and send it to Yada Yada. But I didn’t know diddly-squat about the situation! Why didn’t she write it up and send it herself? She had the list now.

But as I stared at her daughter’s name—Carla—on the screen, my attitude softened. What did it matter, really? I didn’t have to say much. We just needed to pray that Florida could find her little girl, her Carla.

“Mom? Are you crying?” Amanda’s voice behind me had sounded alarmed.

“No . . . no,” I’d sniffed. “Well, maybe a little. Tell you later.”

But I hadn’t had time to tell her. I didn’t want to write up the prayer request in a rush, so I told Amanda she could use the computer now and went into the kitchen to scare up supper. By the time Denny and Josh got home—by six o’clock, thank You, God—I had the makings for tacos on the counter assembly-line style, apologized for not giving Denny advance warning about going to the hospital this evening to see Delores’s son, but did he mind if I took the minivan?

“No problem,” he’d said. “But it’s going to be dark by the time you get home. Want me to go with you?” I could tell he was a little worried about me driving in an unfamiliar neighborhood—with good reason. Even though we’d lived in the Chicago area for twenty years, even though we’d lived on Chicago’s north side for nine months, I had never once been to Cook County Hospital.

But armed with a map Denny printed off from the computer, I kissed everybody good-bye—even Willie Wonka—and set out for Avis’s address. But—as usual—I couldn’t find a parking place, except a nice empty spot in front of a fire hydrant. Taking a gamble, I pulled in, left my hazards blinking, and dashed into the foyer. D. Wilson . . . T. Coleman . . . A. Johnson . . . that was it. I punched the white button beside her name.

The intercom crackled. “If that’s you, Jodi, I’ll be right down.”

I grinned and ran back to the minivan so I could move it if a police car snuck up on me.

“Hi!” said Avis a few minutes later, opening the passenger-side door and climbing in. “Glad you found me okay.” I noticed she was carrying her Bible, a big thick thing. It hadn’t even occurred to me to bring mine—though if it had, I probably would have brought my pocket-size one. Avis clicked the seat belt. “Which way are we going?”

“Down Lakeshore Drive into the Loop”—the name of Chicago’s downtown, circled by a loop of elevated trains—“then out the Eisenhower Expressway.” I didn’t know if that was the fastest way, but it kept me on major arteries. I glanced at Avis. “You been to Cook County Hospital before?”

She nodded. “Long time ago, though, in the old building. Haven’t been there since they built the new one. I think it’s called Stroger Hospital now—after the county commissioner.”

That was news to me. I don’t think I could have told anybody who the county commissioner was, and now they’d named a hospital after him.

The traffic was still pretty heavy as we headed into the heart of Chicago proper, but the lake was beautiful once we got on Lakeshore Drive heading south. Bikers and skaters filled the bike path that snaked for miles along the shore. On the other side of the drive was the Gold Coast, where classy old apartment buildings rubbed elbows with businesslike steel-and-glass condos. I reminded myself that I was driving and to keep my eyes on the road because I was tempted to gawk at the penthouses on top of the older buildings.

“I have this fantasy,” I confessed to Avis, “of marching into one of those buildings someday and asking whoever lives in the penthouse if I could please just come up and look around. Ever want to do that?”

She bent her head and looked up as the buildings flashed by. “No. Never thought about it.”

Okay. That one didn’t fly. I didn’t really want to talk about school—somehow I wanted Avis to be Avis tonight, not Ms. Johnson. So I told her about Florida’s e-mail. That got her interest, and we talked about what to say to the group. Before I knew it, Avis was praying out loud for little Carla—her eyes open, talking just like Jesus was sitting in the backseat. “Jesus, we know You know where Carla is, and we pray for a hedge of protection around her right now. You know the foster family, too, and why they’ve gone missing. Thank You, Holy Spirit, for the work You’re going to do in reuniting Florida’s family. Thank You!”

I think we prayed right through the city, out the other side on the Eisenhower Expressway heading west, right off the exit ramp at Damen Avenue—just like Denny’s computer map said—until we saw the huge hulk of the hospital loom just two blocks south of the expressway. The sign said, “John H. Stroger Hospital of Cook County.”

THE ELEVATOR DOOR PINGED OPEN, and Avis and I got out on the sixth floor in the middle tower. It had taken a good while to find a parking spot in the parking structure, then we took an elevator to the ground floor and walked and walked—the length of a football field at least—past the outpatient pharmacy, past out-patient clinics for ophthalmology . . . oral surgery . . . pain control . . . clinic after clinic, each with its own waiting room with rows of connected black-and-tan steel benches, divided into “chairs” by steel armrests and individual vinyl pads on seats and backs. Finally, we came to the main reception area, stark and functional, and got our visitor passes. I’d seen signs for the ER pointing to the other end. Did the hospital extend a similar length in that direction? It felt like a skyscraper lying on its side.

“This might be a new hospital,” I murmured to Avis in the elevator, “but they sure didn’t waste any money on carpets or wallpaper or green plants to soften all this glass and steel.”

The young woman at the sixth-floor reception desk—still not a plant in sight—efficiently told us how to find our way to the patient rooms. After a few rights and lefts, we stopped at a nurses station and asked for José Enriquez. A nurse in a blue-print tunic looked at the sign-in sheet. “He already has several visitors . . .” She let her voice trail off, as if hoping we’d offer to leave or wait. But we just let it hang there. “Guess it’s all right if you don’t stay long,” she finished.

The door to José’s room was slightly ajar. We heard a multitude of voices inside. I hung back and followed Avis into the room. In the first bed, a man in his late twenties or early thirties—dark-haired, nutmeg complexion—spoke rapid Spanish with two older women, one of whom kept fussing with his sheets and shaking her head. Probably his mother.

Beyond the curtain that hung between the two beds, I saw a man—short and solid—sitting mute and poker-faced in a chair in the corner, like a bullfrog on a log. But I picked out a familiar voice on the other side of the curtain: Delores. We pushed farther into the room, nodding apologetically to the man in the first bed.

“Avis! Jodi!” Delores Enriquez, standing on the far side of the hospital bed, lit up with delight like we’d arrived with birthday cake. Beside her a girl about twelve with large dark eyes, her hair pulled back with a yellow headband, smiled shyly. “I’m so glad to see you!” Delores babbled. “Oh, my . . . and that girl, Yo-Yo, came last night. She really surprised me—oh!” Our friend put a hand to her mouth then gestured toward the bed. “Listen to me. And I haven’t even introduced you to my son. José? This is . . . is . . .” Delores turned toward us in consternation and whispered, “I don’t remember your last names.”

Avis smiled at the teenage boy in the bed, who was looking at us through a mask of wariness and pain. “I’m Avis Johnson, José. And this is Jodi Baxter. We got to know your mother at the women’s conference this weekend—before this happened. We’ve been praying for you.”

The boy’s eyes relaxed slightly. “Señora Johnson . . . Señora Baxter.” He shifted slightly in the bed, wincing in discomfort. Suddenly I was aware of the tangle of tubes attached to various parts of his body, some clear and dripping various fluids, others gray and snaking to various machines behind the bed. One larger tube was strapped to his chest.

Delores turned toward the man filling the chair in the corner as though to introduce us—I’d already guessed he was José’s father—when three knocks sounded on the door. “José Enriquez?”

Avis and I stepped aside as a large black man in the uniform of a Chicago police officer entered the room and loomed at the end of the bed.