Who Do I Lean On? (20 page)

Mabel tapped the Bible she kept on her desk. “Just have to stay in the Word. Stay in the Word . . . because it's not enough to believe
in
God, Gabby. You have to
believe God
. He's a mighty big God, if we let Him
be
God in all our messy situations.”

I squirmed. Couldn't say I'd managed to “stay in the Word” the past few weeks since the boys had returned. But if that's what it took to be like Mabel, I needed to make the time. I actually made a note in my notebook—
Pick up where I left off in Matthew's gospel
—then looked up. “Speaking of P.J. and Jermaine, do you want to work out some kind of ride sharing? I'd like to increase my hours again once school starts, but if I could work eight to four, I'd be glad to pick them up after school if you want to do the morning run.”

Now Mabel did smile. “Great idea. I'd like to be sure Jermaine gets to school and home again in one piece, at least for the first few weeks. Tell you what, I'll pick up P.J. at your apartment at 7:45 on . . . hm, Monday is Labor Day . . . so next Tuesday.” She looked up from her calendar. “Speaking of Labor Day weekend, how about a picnic for the residents at one of the forest preserves or something? This is the first Labor Day since Manna House was rebuilt. Might be a nice tradition to start.”

I made another note:
Plan Labor Day picnic ASAP
. Then I brought up the House of Hope proposal and felt encouraged. Mabel had already made contact with the city's Department of Housing and Urban Development, which funded the Low-Income Housing Trust Fund and had started the application process for Manna House to be the service provider. “There will be papers you'll need to sign, Gabby, as the housing provider once you actually own the building. So I'd encourage you to go ahead as quickly as possible—
if
you're still clear this is what you want to do.”

I nodded, both excited and anxious. “How long is this going to take? Sabrina's baby is due in November, I think, and I know that girl doesn't want her baby born in a shelter.”

Mabel shrugged. “I don't know . . . thirty days minimum if we're lucky. Could be sixty or even ninety days. Depends on several things—how quickly you can get a mortgage, how fast HUD processes the paperwork . . . you know what I'm talking about.”

I sagged a bit into my chair. “Yeah, I know. I just wish it was done already so we could move Precious and Tanya in next weekend.”

Mabel just nodded and looked at me thoughtfully. “One other thing . . . you've got your boys back living with you and seeing their father on the weekend. But what's happening with you and your husband? You told me you've filed for custody and redress for unlawful eviction . . . but you haven't mentioned divorce. Are you hoping that you and Philip can reconcile? How does buying this six-flat fit into that?”

I looked down at my lap and then reached for a tissue on her desk. The next thing I knew I was telling her all about Philip “wanting to talk,” and how he ended up asking me for a loan to bail him out of his gambling debt, even saying that once he was out from under this cloud, he wanted to talk about “what's next” and that maybe it wasn't too late to “repair the damage.”

Mabel listened without speaking up to that point, but then she actually whistled. “Praise God, Gabby. That's amazing! What a breakthrough. But . . . I don't know if loaning him the money would be wise. He—”

“Huh!” I interrupted. “Don't praise God yet. Wait until you hear what happened when I told him I
wasn't
going to loan him the money.” The anger I'd been dealing with all weekend crept into my voice as I told her what he'd said, that I “owed” him that money. “And then . . . Mabel, he actually had the audacity to tell me that the failure of our marriage was my fault! That I'd ‘left the marriage' when we moved here to Chicago. Can you believe it? I gave up my job, gave up living near my children, gave up my beautiful Southern home with a porch and a yard to follow him here to Chicago! And now he's trying to blame
me
!”

Mabel sat for a long minute with her eyes closed, as if deep in thought. Finally she opened her eyes and gazed at me with a tender, pained expression that almost hurt to see. “There's something to that, you know,” she said quietly.

chapter 18

That couldn't be what she said.

For a moment I just sat there, my face stinging as if she'd slapped me. “
What
? Are you saying he's
right
?”

Mabel picked up a pen, rolled it in her fingers, and then put it down again. “No. Believe me, from the little I know, Philip seems like a first-class jerk. I just mean that the breakdown of your marriage isn't all Philip's fault. You bear some responsibility too.”

I felt my back stiffen, as if a line had just been drawn in the sand and Mabel had stepped over to the other side. “What exactly are you saying, Mabel?” My voice was tight, holding back the things I wanted to yell, like,
“What do you know, Mabel Turner? Are you forgetting he threw me out and stole my kids?!
”

“All I'm saying, Gabby, is that if you and Philip do talk about repairing the damage to your relationship, it will be important for you to take responsibility for some stuff. I'm not blaming you, or saying it's your fault or that he had any right to kick you out. It's just that . . . I've been troubled by some things that have happened since I've known you.”

Hot tears sprang to the back of my eyes, but I was determined not to cry. I gritted my teeth. “Like what?”

Mabel grew thoughtful. “When I offered you the job as program director, you didn't go home and talk it over with your husband. You interviewed, accepted the job, and then told him it was a done deal.”

“I was afraid he'd squash the idea!” I cried. “You know that!”

“I realize you had your reasons. But I was concerned that no marriage can tolerate that kind of behind-the-back decision making for long, especially for something that affects a family as much as a job.”

Angry tears finally spilled over. I grabbed at the tissue box on her desk again. “This isn't fair, Mabel! You . . . you said yourself that you believed God brought me to Manna House for a special purpose! But
now
. . . oh, now you're saying I should've got down on my knees like a wimp and
asked
my Almighty Husband for permission to take this job—and you
know
if I'd done that, that would've been the end. No job. The last you'd have seen of me.”

She waited while I blew my nose. Then she said, “Maybe. Maybe not.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What do you mean by that?”

“You're absolutely right. I did say I believed God brought you to Manna House for a special purpose, and I still believe that—”

“Then why are you blaming me for taking the job? I don't understand you, Mabel!”

“Let me finish, Gabby. If we believe God has a purpose for bringing you here, then we can also trust Him to make it happen. But you were afraid—afraid if you talked it over with your husband, he'd say no. So you took it into your own hands to make it happen, rather than trust God to work it out. But what if you had included Philip in this decision? What if—”

But I had started shaking my head. “You don't understand,” I said fiercely. “Philip never would have agreed to me taking this job. He was down on me even coming here to visit! It didn't enhance my image as a ‘good corporate wife' and all that.”

“That may be so. I don't know. But our timing isn't always God's timing. Maybe you wouldn't have been able to start right away. Maybe there were steps in between that would have helped change Philip's perspective. But my guess is that your choice to move ahead without Philip's agreement put a major stress on your relationship.” She tipped her head to the side. “True?”

A tension headache had started to screw its way into the back of my head. I stood up abruptly. “I . . . I can't do this right now. I'm sorry, Mabel. I need to go . . . take Paul home. Maybe we can, you know, talk later . . .” I stalked out of her office, poked my head into the multipurpose room—yeah, yeah, the Fold—and yelled in the direction of the chess game, “Paul! We gotta go!”

“Wait a sec, Mom! I'm winning!”

“
Now
, Paul!”

I was pretty much a basket case the rest of the day. The boys decided I was in a “mood” and stayed out of my way. So what if they watched TV all afternoon—it was a rainy day and school would start next week anyway. Wouldn't rot their brains for just one day.

But I felt . . . betrayed. By Mabel, of all people! And I'd thought I could count on her to be in my corner through all this mess. She'd always bent over backward to give me time off to see the lawyer, let me use the phone to work on getting the boys back, gave me flex time in my schedule when I needed it—like the past few weeks, when I had to pick up P.J. midmorning . . . which, I had to admit, still counted for something.

So why was she turning things around now? Dumping the blame for my failed marriage into
my
lap?

Stewing over our conversation made my head hurt the rest of the day, and I went to bed early. Briefly thought about calling Jodi Baxter, just to have
someone
to lean on, then remembered she'd gone all wide-eyed about that maybe-it's-not-too-late-to-repair-the-damage nonsense Philip had fed me.
Huh
. I doubted very much he intended to talk about “what's next for us” after I'd said I wasn't going to give him any money.

But lying on my bed in the back bedroom wide-awake, staring into the dim light of Chicago's long evening, I felt as if I was going nuts. I wanted to talk to somebody . . . but who? My sisters? Not Honor. Maybe Celeste. She'd stick up for me. Or maybe Lee Boyer . . .
he
had absolutely no sympathy for Philip. And not just that, he had a lot of feelings for me. A man who really cared—and would care more if I gave him any encouragement.

I suddenly wanted to talk to Lee very much. See him. Closing my eyes, I could almost feel his touch as he laid his hand over mine in his office. I tried to imagine how it would feel to lean into his embrace, feel his arms around me . . .

Fishing for my cell, I rang his number, but all I got was his voice mail. That threw me. “Uh . . . Hi, Lee. It's Gabby. Call me if you get this . . . on second thought, don't call. I'm going to bed. Guess I'll see you tomorrow at the realtor's office.”

So much for Lee always being there to lean on.

I cried myself to sleep.

Paul showed up for breakfast in his pajamas saying he didn't want to volunteer at the shelter today, maybe tomorrow if it stopped raining and we could take the kids to the beach in the afternoon. I didn't push him. Frankly, I didn't feel much like going to work either, but I sucked it up like a big girl and sailed into the Manna House foyer only five minutes late after dropping off P.J. at the high school.

Mabel came to her office door as I was signing in. “You all right, Gabby?”

I put on a bright smile. “Sure, Mabel. Sorry I got a little emotional yesterday. I'll be fine. Oh . . . I've got an eleven o'clock appointment with the realtor. I'll let you know how it goes.”

That's right, Gabby, just move on. Don't let Philip's rants goad you—or even Mabel's opinion of what went wrong in your marriage
. After all, that was in the past. What's done was done. Good things were happening now—the House of Hope idea was still afloat, I was moving ahead on buying the building, I'd be seeing Lee in a matter of hours . . .

Lee was waiting for me at the realtor's office, wearing a white short-sleeved shirt with open collar, khaki jeans, and boots. His version of business casual. He gave me a quick hug—the professional kind, sorta sideways, since we were standing in the waiting room of Coldwell Banker realty. “Gabby! Sorry I didn't get your message last night. My cell phone battery died and I didn't realize it until later. Are you all right?”

I nodded, realizing his warm concern could easily pull the plug I'd stuck in my emotional dike. “Just cold feet, I guess. I realize I don't have a clue how to navigate this thing. Glad you're here.” All of which was true . . . just not why I'd called last night.

His light brown eyes crinkled behind his wire rims. “Don't worry. I'm not a real estate lawyer, but I think I can get us through this. And I happen to know the owner would much rather get a deal now than have that building sit on the market for six months waiting for his asking price.”

I let Lee do most of the talking. Twice the agent representing the building stepped into another office and made a call to the owner . . . but when it was over, the owner had accepted our offer, which was less than the asking price, because I was willing to put 30 percent down instead of the usual 5 or 10 percent.

There was one glitch. Two of the tenants—not one—were moving out on Labor Day weekend, just days away. The apartments needed to be rented—but I didn't want new tenants in there, since I had plans for the building. Normally, the apartments would stand empty for a few weeks while they were refurbished for new tenants, but the current owner didn't want to put out the expense now that I'd signed the first papers. And I didn't legally own the building until the closing date, which had to wait for a title search, application for mortgage, all the red tape.