Who Is My Shelter? (5 page)

I sank into the closest chair. “But you don't make a move like that overnight! He'd have to find an apartment and sublet the penthouse—'cause I'm sure Philip can't afford two places right now. Besides, I don't think he'd listen to me, telling him he's got to move—”

“Hey!” Precious interrupted. “Ain't any of you just a tiny bit suspicious of a total stranger showin' up to take Philip home from the hospital? Gettin' himself into the parking garage for residents only? Ends up inside Philip's penthouse? Huh? Maybe that Fagan guy is using the kid to get to Philip. Ever think o' that?”

I stared at Precious.
What?
No, no. Will Nissan had seemed like an ordinary college kid who just happened to hit it off with Philip. A talker. Open. Friendly.

Too open? Too friendly?

Now I really did have a headache. “Harry? Denny? Could she be right?”

Harry scratched his beard. “Not Fagan's usual style. Too subtle. But you might want to check out the kid's story. Said he's living with his grandmother? A student at Circle Campus? Ought to be able to check that out.”

I sighed. When was I going to have time to do
that
?

Precious wasn't through. “As for your man movin' someplace else? Just be a matter of time 'til those goons find him again. Then it's the same story if he livin' all by himself. He should be around
people
who're lookin' out for him.”

Harry snorted. “Huh. You can't put the Secret Service on him to guard him day and night. No man wants a bunch of babysitters taggin' after him.”

“Men!” Estelle muttered, wagging her silver-streaked mane. “What's wrong with people lookin' out for each other?”

“I'm tellin' ya,” Lucy tossed in, “those no-good characters mean some business.”

I grabbed a handful of snarly curls on either side of my head. “Arrrrgh! I don't need this right now! What can
I
do about it?” Suddenly I had a panicked thought and glanced at the faces standing around me, trying to read them. “Wait a minute. If anybody's thinking I ought to let Philip move in with
me
. . . uh-uh. No way. We are definitely
not
there.”

“Calm down, Gabby girl. Ain't nobody sayin' that . . . wait.” Estelle stiffened. “Is that DaShawn?”

Then we all heard a boyish voice from below. “No! Stop it, Dandy! Drop it! Drop it! Estelle gonna kill ya!”

Estelle moved like greased lightning toward the stairs in spite of being a plus-size woman. “That dog better not be in my kitchen! I got chicken coolin' on the counter—Harry! Come on! You the one sent them down there!”

Rolling his eyes, a reluctant Harry followed. As they disappeared, I saw Denny Baxter whispering to his wife. Then Denny cleared his throat. “Jodi and I haven't had a chance to talk this over yet, but what if Philip came to stay with us for a few days? It'd give him some time to think about what he wants to do.”

I gaped at the Baxters. “You're kidding. Stay at your—you'd do that for
Philip
? Jodi, are you sure? After everything he's done?”

Jodi shrugged ruefully. “Yeah, well, can't say he's a candidate for sainthood. But he seemed like a broken man when we visited him in the hospital.”

Denny nodded. “Yeah. Maybe God wants us to show him— not just tell him—that God's people haven't given up on him.”

I sat there, stunned. Then I slowly shook my head. “Can't imagine Philip agreeing to something like that. He'd never believe you'd offer, for one thing. For another, he'd probably be too uncomfortable living with people he's only met a couple times.”
That
was an understatement. The casual Baxter family, whom I loved dearly, would probably drive Philip nuts. They were definitely
not
upper crust.

“Yeah, well, I know it's a long shot.” Denny put a reassuring arm around Jodi, who seemed to be seriously considering her husband's crazy idea. “That's why I should probably go with you and invite him myself. Let me know when's a good time.”

chapter 4

I gave Precious a ride back to the six-flat I'd bought several weeks ago, but I wasn't much company. This complication with Philip was
not
what I wanted to be thinking about right now! As I pulled up in front of the three-story building, my eyes lingered on the large wooden sign over the doorway, just barely lit by the closest streetlight:

HOUSE OF HOPE

The sign still excited me—a visible reminder that my dream for second-stage housing for homeless single moms was starting to become a reality. Two of the old tenants had already moved out, and the apartment on the third floor, 3E, now housed Jodi and Denny's son, Josh, his wife, Edesa, and their soon-to-be adopted toddler, Gracie. Asking Josh to be the property manager for the House of Hope in exchange for reduced rent had been an idea straight from God, providing an affordable apartment for them, since they were both still in school, and a “man about the place” for me. Precious and her daughter, Sabrina, along with Tanya— another single mom from Manna House—and Sammy, her eight-year-old son, had moved into the other apartment, 1E, right across the hall from me on the first floor.

“So, you gonna sit out here all by yourself and sog, or you wanna talk? Make up your mind, 'cause I'm gettin' cold.”

I jumped, almost forgetting Precious in the seat beside me. “I'm sorry.” I quickly unbuckled my seat belt and opened the door. “Yeah, we'd better go in.”

Hurrying up the broad steps of the six-flat and through the foyer with the mailboxes and buzzers, three sets on each side, I unlocked the door into the main stairwell, aware that Precious was two steps behind me. I didn't stop to get the mail, wanting to duck into my apartment, get into my jammies, and turn on the TV so I wouldn't have to think about this crazy mess with Philip.

But I'd no sooner gotten inside my apartment and headed for the kitchen at the back of the apartment when I heard a loud knock at my front door.
Knock?
Had to be someone in the building already, or it'd be the buzzer. I turned the heat on under the teakettle and groaned as I hurried back down the hall, hoping it wasn't one of the three tenants I'd inherited with the building, complaining about a clogged toilet or something.

“Yes?” I said through the door.

“It's Precious. Open up.”

I took off the chain and unlocked the two bolts. The lean black woman walked in clutching two mugs, a box of herbal tea bags, and a plastic Honey Bear. “Knowin' you, you got the hot water goin' already. But you need somebody to listen to what's goin' on inside that mop-head o' yours, or you gonna be up all night stewin' 'bout stuff. Now go sit on the sun porch. Light a candle or somethin'.” Precious marched out of sight down my long hallway and five minutes later was back carrying two mugs of steaming tea into the sun porch where I sat curled up on the window seat, hugging a throw pillow. Candles flickered on the sill in their little glass jars.

She handed me a mug. “Okay, spill it. Your noggin, I mean. Not the tea.”

I sighed and took a sip of the hot sweet tea.
Peppermint. Mmm
. “Well, you heard that whole thing about Philip. They discharged him from the hospital, but he's in no shape to go back to work.” I heaved a big sigh and sipped my tea thoughtfully. “I don't know, Precious. It was easier relating to him when he was stuck in the hospital, trying to recover from that beating. But now—”

I suddenly turned to her. “Okay, you want to know the truth? I resent having to worry about Philip right now. I mean, look at us! You and me and Tanya, here we are, out of the shelter and living in real apartments! And Josh and Edesa and little Gracie have a real apartment now too—not that two-room shoebox they were crunched into. God did it! The House of Hope is a reality! We should celebrate! But instead”—I threw the pillow across the room—“I've been going back and forth to the hospital all week, with no time to plan anything!”

“Hey, hey. Slow down, girl. Life happens. But we can still do something. How about next weekend? How you wanna celebrate? A house blessing?”

“A house blessing? That's a great idea!” A lot better than just having a potluck. “Except . . .” I stared into my mug, my mind tumbling. It'd been a big deal getting Manna House and the City of Chicago to work out our three-way partnership for second-stage housing for homeless single moms, once my offer on the building had been accepted. Manna House would provide social services to the single moms who lived here, the city would provide rent subsidies from the Low Income Housing Trust Fund, and our first two moms had moved in. So, yeah, we should celebrate, but . . .

“Except what?” Precious prodded.

I eyed my friend sideways. “After the house blessing, then what? To be honest, we don't—okay,
I
don't—really know what I'm doing!”

Precious snorted and rolled her eyes. “Now she tells us.”

I couldn't help it. I laughed. “Yeah, well, ‘Leap before you look.' That's been my motto my whole life. But I'm trying to change, really I am. I don't want another whole week to go by before we figure out some of the nitty gritties, like, well, you know—”

“You mean, like, who do we call, Josh or you, when somebody drops a box of tampons in the toilet? Or who's supposed to wash all those cute little square windows in the foyer door? What if Tanya and I get in a big fight and she punches me in the nose? What if I don't wanna sort out recycle stuff from my trash and I just throw all of it in the dumpster? Can we have men stay overnight? What if—”

I gaped at her. “Men?
Men?
Overnight?!”

“Okay, I'm kidding. Actually, I'm not. You've got”—she counted on her fingers—“four apartments, not counting the ones you and the Baby Baxters are livin' in. By the time you put two moms in each one, that'll be eight single women when you've got a full house. An' you think
men
sleepin' over ain't gonna be an issue?”

I gulped. “Yikes. I never thought of that.” Then I giggled. “The Baby Baxters? That's what you call Josh and Edesa?”

Precious simpered at me. “Look. I'm messin' with ya. I'm just agreein' that there's a lot of things to talk about. So the first thing ya gotta do is call a house meeting and decide how often we gonna meet—like we did at the shelter—to talk over problems and expectations and stuff like that.”

“See? That's what I'm talking about! That's the kind of stuff I need to be thinking about, not . . . not worrying about whether my ‘ex' is going to get beat up again by some loan shark and his henchmen. I mean, he's the one who kept going to the casino when he was drowning in debt. What can I do about
that
?”

Precious looked at me for a long moment, then slowly shook her head. “Ain't got no idea. All I know is, those boys of yours likely to be mighty worried if they knew their dad was still in danger. So if I was you, I'd put Philip back on the radar. You let me work on settin' up our first house meeting.”

The apartment was deliciously quiet the next morning with the boys still at the Lock-In. Supposedly the youth were planning something special for the Sunday service that morning, then the parents would take their sleep-deprived kids home to recover for the rest of the day.

I curled up on the window seat with a mug of coffee and my Bible, grateful to see some blue sky peeking through the clouds. This was my first fall in Chicago and I wasn't sure what to expect. I'd loved fall in Virginia, the gently rolling hills outside Petersburg blanketed with brilliant yellows, reds, and oranges, like a multicolored afghan. Would the trees turn color here? Or did the weather jump from muggy summer to deep-freeze winter?

I opened my Bible to the chapter I'd been reading in the gospel of Luke, but I had a hard time concentrating. Precious's comment last night about putting Philip “back on my radar” for the boys' sake niggled at me.
Is that what I'm supposed to do, God? I don't know how to help him right now! Even if I did, how does that fit with starting up the House of Hope? I mean, this whole idea was impossible, but You kept opening up doors, gave us favor with the city, favor with the Manna House board—even provided the money from my mom's life insurance so I could make the down payment on this building! But now that we've started, I want to do this right. Not be distracted by Philip's problems
.

A chorus of birds in the trees outside the bay windows of the little sunroom interrupted my thought-prayer. I opened one of the windows a couple of inches so I could hear the singing—one of the gifts of living in this apartment. Something I'd missed terribly the few months I'd lived in the penthouse—thirty-two stories up, way above the treetops—and the windows didn't open either.

Maybe I should get a bird feeder and a bird book.

I closed the window. Talk about distractions. I was supposed to be spending time “reading the Word” and “listening to God”—a commitment I'd made when I'd decided to renew my faith in front of the church a few weeks ago. Trouble was, there were times I didn't particularly want to know God's thoughts about something. Not if what He wanted to say might conflict with what I wanted to hear.