The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Caught (16 page)

Edesa looked at the picture of Niagara Falls that had our signatures scrawled all over it, little hearts, words of love. “Abundant water? That is my name? ”

“Well, the only Edesa I could find was spelled E-D-E-S-S-A, and is the name of an ancient city in Macedonia, which is now Greece. And the name means ‘abundance of water,' or ‘life' because of how water nourishes life.”

“Oh,” breathed Delores. “That is perfect. Edesa has brought so much life to our family, so much happiness to
mis niños
.”

“To all of us, I'd say.” Adele's voice was surprisingly husky. “If I had a daughter, I'd want her to be like you, Edesa.”

To my surprise, a tear dribbled toward Edesa's chin. Her mouth quivered. “I . . . wish it were true.
Mi familia,
they sacrificed so much to send me here to school. I have so little to send them. I don't know. Maybe I should be a business major or computer programmer—something to make money instead of public health.”

A chorus of protest bounced around the circle. “You listen to me, sister girl,” Adele commanded, unlocking her arms, which had been resting across her ample bosom. “You made a good decision to switch to public health.Women and children need you—whether here or back home in Honduras. Their health is more important than money.”

“That's right, that's right!” Florida clapped and we all joined in until it sounded like welcome rain.

Edesa hugged the photo card to her chest. “Thank you so much,
mis hermanas
. Yada Yada is my second family here in America. After the Enriques
familia,
that is.” She dimpled at Delores.

“So.” Becky cleared her throat. “What y'all think of the cake? Made it myself.”

A loud buzzer in Avis's foyer saved us from having to do more than make a few murmurs of appreciation. Avis frowned. She walked over to the intercom next to the front door and pushed a button. “Yes? Who is it? ”

From where I was sitting, all I could hear was static. Or was it—crying?

“You all go on. I'll be back in a minute.” Avis disappeared out her front door; we heard her feet scurrying down the three flights of stairs.We all just looked at each other, then busied ourselves with Becky's cake.

A couple of minutes later, a babble of voices floated up the stair-well—Avis's low voice trying to soothe . . . the high-pitched questions of a child . . . and the gulping sobs of a young woman. “He hit me, mama. He
hit
me! I . . . I . . .”

“Oh, baby. Oh, baby. Shh, shh. Here, give me Conny . . .”

The trio wedged through the door. Avis held her grandson, a strapping toddler almost too big to carry. Behind her, her daughter Rochelle stopped, startled, when she saw us, her eyes big, her face a bloated mess. “Oh. I-I'm sorry. I . . . I didn't know.” She tried to take the child from Avis's arms. Her chest shuddered with incomplete sobs. “I'll leave. You're busy, mama.”

“Girl, you'll do no such thing!” Adele stood up. “We were just leaving, weren't we, sisters? We'll be out of here 'fore that baby can count to three.”

Little Conrad giggled. “One!” he shouted. “Two! Free!”

14

W
e hustled down the stairs as quietly as a dozen women could manage, with Yo-Yo propping up Ruth and saying, “Take it easy, take it easy.” Nony said she would take Ruth and Yo-Yo home so they wouldn't have to wait outside for Ben to come. Becky and I caught a ride home with Stu.

Stu was furious. “Rochelle shouldn't have gone back to that jerk the first time! I could've told her that.”

“They were going to get counseling,” I pointed out.

Stu slammed her fist on the steering wheel. “Oh. So we wait until hubby beats her up before we tell her to leave him.”

“I just meant—”

“Jodi, shut up. You're married to Denny the teddy bear, for heaven's sake.What do you know? ”

I pressed my lips together and looked out the window. Car windows were up, air-conditioning on. I longed to roll the window down and let the wind blow over my face. I felt like crying.
Why?
Because Stu jumped on me? No. I knew she was upset. I wanted to cry for Rochelle. For Avis. For little Conrad. For Conrad senior and the grandson he'd never know and wasn't there to protect. For Peter Douglass, who was going to arrive home and find his stepdaughter and stepgrandson in his home again. This time bruised and desperate.

Oh God, why does this happen even in the best families? Why does Satan keep messing with people I love?
Avis was probably the woman I admired most in the whole world. I wanted to be like her. Seemed like she'd done everything right. But I knew her mother heart was breaking for her daughter.How would
I
feel if Amanda got slapped around by—

I felt like throwing up.
Oh God, please don't let anyone abuse my daughter! Protect her, Lord! Protect all our daughters! Emerald Enriques and her little sisters . . . Chanda's Cheree and Dia . . . Carla Hickman, who's already had her life turned upside down twice in her nine short years . . .

And Ruth. Did she have baby girls in her womb? Ruth would be seventy and Ben eighty years old by the time those babies had their twentieth birthday. I'd been thinking,
If they're born safely, all will be well.
Would it? What would life hand them by the time they were fifteen? twenty? thirty? Was that what Ben was afraid of?

Fear twisted my gut. Fear for all our children. For Chris Hickman, maybe out on the street tonight, “just hangin',” getting himself into who-knows-what trouble and worrying Florida to death . . . for Yo-Yo's half brothers, growing up without parents except a big sister who cared . . . for my Josh, basically a good kid, who was morphing into a stranger, hot-wired to “make a difference” but with no real direction, floundering . . .

The garage door went up. Stu drove the Celica inside. Our Dodge Caravan wasn't back yet. The three of us got out and walked silently up the walk to the back porch of our shared two-flat, lost in our own thoughts. Lights were on inside the first floor. My kids must be home from youth group.

At the steps I stopped. A breeze off Lake Michigan a half mile away shifted the sultry air. I turned to my housemates. “I . . . can't go in yet. I feel so torn up. Do you think . . . could we pray? ”

DENNY GOT HOME while Stu, Becky, and I were still on the back steps, holding hands, praying. Not exactly powerhouse prayers like Avis and Florida and Nony might pour out. Or Adele. Just three white chicks, our ages spanning two decades—married, single, single mom . . . me raised in the church, Stu with her master's degree, Becky just out of prison. But I felt strength as we gripped each other's hands and just talked to God about our fears, our anger, our helplessness for Avis and her daughter, whose similar feelings must be magnified ten times over.

After the last “amen,” Stu and Becky said goodnight and climbed the ack stairs to their apartment. Denny, who'd been leaning against the handrail the last two minutes, sat down beside me in the dark. “What in the world happened over there tonight? ”

I could see his features outlined by the streetlight in the alley. Frowning. Confused. “Didn't Peter tell you? ”

Denny shook his head. “I brought him home; he said he'd send you down. But he came back out two minutes later and said all the Yada Yadas had gone already. And that he had a ‘situation' upstairs.”

I sighed and told him about Rochelle arriving in hysterics, her face swollen. Saying Dexter had hit her. Denny put his head in his hands. “Oh my God.” It was a groan. A prayer. He sat that way for a long time. I sat beside him, not saying anything.What was there to say?

After a while, Denny went inside. I heard him rummaging in a cupboard, then water running in the sink. I thought he was headed for the living room, to numb the pain with the TV, but he came back out with a glass of water and sat down beside me on the steps. He took my hand. “Jodi. I think I should take the AD job.What do you think? ”

“You do? I mean, I think it's great! But what changed your mind? ”

“Peter Douglass.Well, no. God did.But Peter was a good sounding board. As businesslike as he seems most of the time, he really has a heart for kids. I saw that at our Guys' Day Out last spring. Mostly he just listened, but he also asked good questions. What would I really like to see happen with the sports program at West Rogers High? Where would I have the most influence? Stuff like that. Kinda surprised me that he didn't even mention the raise in pay or what would look good on my résumé. He focused on the opportunity to bridge the gap between academics and the sports program, develop good communication between staff—stuff like that.”

I squeezed his hand. “All the ‘stuff ' that's been sending you up the wall the last two years, especially because you've always felt helpless to do anything about it.” My voice caught a little.
Oh God, I've been so self-centered about this whole job thing.Wanting Denny to take the job to give us some financial security, a cushion in case my own job went south.
I studied my husband's face in the shadows. “You're good at that kind of thing, you know.”

“What kind of thing? ”

“Being a bridge.”

Denny didn't answer immediately. Then he cleared his throat, as if embarrassed. “That's what Peter said.”

Suddenly I knew that the AD job was God's gift, not just to us but to West Rogers High School. In fact, I felt like laughing. They had no idea they'd just unleashed God's man on their public school!

“Helloo? Parents? ” Amanda's sing-song voice cut into the darkness from inside the back screen door, tinged with exasperation. “‘Say, kids, do you know where your parents are? 'No,we don't, because they forgot to tell us when they got home. So here we sit, Wonka and me, imagining all sorts of gruesome headlines in tomorrow's paper—”

“Oh, quit.” Denny's laugh cut off her dirge. “You didn't come into the kitchen to look for us. I bet you were gonna sneak the last of the mint-chocolate-chip ice cream.Right? Right? But I'm gonna get it first!”

Amanda screeched as her dad launched himself toward the screen door, both of them yelling, “
My
ice cream! Mine! Mine! ”

DENNY CALLED THE HIGH SCHOOL Monday morning, accepted the job, and said he'd be in the office first thing the following Monday.When he hung up, he looked at me apologetically. “Just realized we usually have a couple of weeks in August before preseason practice starts. But with this new job . . . it doesn't look like the Baxters are going to get any vacation this summer.”

That thought had occurred to me too. Not that we'd actually bought tickets to Alaska or Paris or anything—
yeah, right
—but we had talked about going camping at Starved Rock or maybe Kickapoo State Park. But I shrugged. “Well, my accident put the
kibosh
on our vacation plans last summer. So now we're even, buddy.” I kissed the dimple in his cheek. I was so grateful for Denny's new job, no way was I going to complain about not camping in the middle of bee season.

Denny and Josh had just left for their last week of coaching summer camp when the phone rang. “Jodi.” It was Avis. Calm, cool, and collected. No hint of the melodrama going on at her house. “Can you come by the school office today? The local school council met last Friday and I have some answers to your questions. Of course, nothing's official until—”

“Avis! Just tell me! Do I have a job or not? ”

“Eleven. How about eleven? All right? See you then.”
Click.

Good grief.
I changed out of my shorts and pulled on a denim skirt. No way was I going to dress up for a meeting with Avis in the middle of summer, even if we were meeting at the school office. I even allowed myself a half hour and took Willie Wonka with me for his morning walk. But as we made our way toward Bethune Elementary in typical Wonka fashion—
walk, stop, sniff, pee
—I realized something extraordinary.

I didn't feel anxious. In fact, that old spiritual I'd come to love stepped once more in slow rhythm through my spirit . . .

We've come this far by faith
Leaning on the Lord
Trusting in His holy Word
He's never failed me yet . . .

Only three cars sat in the parking lot, one of them Avis's black Camry.Wonka and I stepped into the cool hallway of the school, its polished floors wearing silence like an ill-fitting shroud. School hallways weren't supposed to be quiet. They were supposed to be full of running feet, childish voices, stern commands to “Slow down and walk!”

No one was in the outer office, but Avis's door was open. I halfexpected to see her in one of her typical school-day outfits, usually slacks with a soft blouse and a jacket, that somehow managed to seem professional and feminine at the same time. But she was actually wearing a lightweight running suit, pale blue with white stripes down the leg, a tank top, and lightweight jacket. “Hey,” I said.