The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Caught (46 page)

“No, no, no. With God,
nothing
is impossible,” Delores said emphatically. “Lord God of heaven! We come to You with our sister, Stu . . .”

Delores moved into an impassioned prayer for Stu. Others reached out and held her hands,murmuring assent. But Stu's words kept replaying in my mind:
“If I don't invest anything in my relationship with my parents, it's going to die.”
What had I invested in my relationship with
my
parents recently? How long had it been since I'd seen them? When they came for my birthday a year ago?
A whole year ago?
They couldn't come for Josh's graduation because my mom's health kept them from traveling. So why hadn't we taken the time, made the effort to go see
them
?

I peeked at Ruth, sitting there so very pregnant, so eager for her babies to be born, willing to take all the risks to bring them to term. Had my parents felt like that when I was born? Duh! Of course they had! Hadn't Denny and I cried for joy when Josh had been born? Then again when Amanda came squalling into the world?

But would Denny and I one day spend Thanksgiving alone, because our kids were too busy with
their
lives,
their
friends,
their
activities? . . . Like us?

I could hardly wait for my Yada Yada sisters to leave. I had a phone call to make, a Thanksgiving invitation to propose. And it wasn't to the Sisulu-Smiths.

I CORNERED DENNY AND THE KIDS that night for an emergency family meeting. “I know it's last minute, but we haven't seen my folks for a long time. I'd really like to spend this Thanksgiving with them. In Des Moines.”

Amanda pulled a pout. “Mo-om! I won't get to see my friends all vacation!”

“You see José every day at school,” I tossed back. “You'll live.”

Josh shrugged. “Sorry, Mom. I promised to help with the Thanksgiving dinner at Manna House. Why don't you just invite the GPs here? ”

But the Voice in my spirit said strongly,
Make the effort to go see them. Invest, Jodi, invest.
“This is important to me, Josh. I'm sure there are other volunteers who can help at Manna House.”
Avis and Peter Douglass, for instance,
I thought wryly. “But no one can take your place visiting your grandparents.We need to do this.”

I looked hopefully at Denny. Nothing happened if Dad wasn't on board. He rubbed his chin. “What about the dog? Becky moved out, and Stu's going to
her
folks.”

OK. He almost had me there. “Details,” I said. “We'll take Wonka with us if we have to.”

When we got my parents on the phone, my mother was so happy she started to cry. Even my dad's voice got husky. “That's great, honey. We'll be so happy to see you. But I don't know about a big dinner. Your mom has arthritis in her hands now, can't cook like she used to.”

“Dad, don't worry about dinner! We'll bring it—or cook it there, or whatever. Just stock up on a lot of popcorn and dust off the Scrabble. Your fireplace still work? ”

To tell the truth, I was excited. I'd missed the family trip to New York last spring,when Denny took the kids to see the Baxter grandparents and do the Big Apple during spring break. The SARS scare had been rampant, and me without a spleen. But all I had now was a minor sniffle. And Des Moines was only a five-hour drive.

Well, I hadn't counted on the extra hour and a half it took just trying to get out of Chicago on Wednesday afternoon—after delivering Willie Wonka to the Hickmans for Becky to take care of. It was nearly seven o'clock by the time we got on I-80 heading west. I'd packed the usual bagel sandwiches with shaved chicken and cream cheese, so we didn't have to stop to eat. But by the time we got to the Iowa state line, Denny said he needed a nap. Josh took over the wheel, and I stayed up front to ride shotgun and navigate while Denny crawled into the third seat and zonked out.

Josh drove silently into the night for another half hour, broken only by bits of small talk as we left the Quad Cities behind and sailed smoothly along the interstate toward . . . home. I glanced into the second seat. Amanda was plugged into her CD player and curled up in her big yellow-and-black comforter from her bed at home. I glanced at Josh in the driver's seat, looking more and more like his dad, except for his scraggy hair, which hung around his ears in casual indifference. Couldn't wait to see how long it took my dad to comment
this
time. But mostly I wondered, what was going on in Josh's head? We didn't seem to talk much anymore. Why was that?

I decided to risk it.

“So when are we going to meet this Sue you've been dating? ”

Josh shrugged, kept his eyes on the road. “Not really dating her. Just doing stuff. You know, a friend from work.”

“Well, still. Dad and I like to meet your friends.”

He cast a sideways glance at me. “I don't
want
you to ‘meet' Sue, Mom. That would definitely send Sue the wrong message. She is
just
a friend.”

“Oh. I just thought . . . I mean, maybe you had a new love interest, and we should—”

“Mom!” Josh hissed. He glanced in the rearview mirror, seemed satisfied that his father and sister weren't eavesdropping. “Look, Mom. I only have one ‘love interest,' as you so delicately put it. That's right.
I . . . love . . . Edesa.
But she's not giving me two cents right now. So, I go out with friends, even hang out with some other girls. I'm just . . .” My stoic, six-foot son's voice caught, and he had to clear his throat. “I'm waiting.”

His voice trailed off. I think I forgot to breathe. I kept my eyes fixed on the yellow dotted lines racing through the pool of light from our headlights. Finally, Josh spoke again, his voice barely a whisper, full of pain.

“I love her so much,Mom. But I don't know what to do.”

43

I
got out my travel pack of tissues and blew my nose. Wished God had travel packs of wisdom I could pull out. My son had just bared his heart to me, and like the doctor's creed— “First do no harm” —I didn't want to bungle this moment. Delores's words echoed in my head:
“Edesa talks about Josh all the time.”
I'd brushed it off at the time.We all knew they were
friends.
But—did Josh mean something else to Edesa?

Finally I screwed up my courage. “Josh, does Edesa know how you feel? I mean, have you
told
her? ”

In the glow of the panel lights, I saw the slight shake of his head. Well, who could blame him? He'd asked her to his prom and she'd said no. His mother and probably everyone else had pointed out the obvious: he was just out of high school and she was a third-year college student. To his credit, he'd pursued the relationship on a casual—but maybe deeper—level, asking her to come along with Uptown youth to Great America and as a chaperone for the girls at Cornerstone Music Fest. And now volunteering together at Manna House. The prom was then; what was Edesa feeling now?

I couldn't believe I was saying this. But I reached over and laid a hand on my son's knee poking through his ripped jeans. “I think you need to tell her. And then—leave it to God to work out His purpose.”

THANKSGIVING WAS, WELL, DIFFERENT. Josh got my brothers' old room—the site of many sibling battles and Girls Stay Out signs posted on the door. Amanda slept in my old room up under the eaves of the two-story house, which still looked pretty much as I'd left it twenty-plus years ago. My ceramic collection of dogs and cats. The broken music box with the ballerina on top. The faded, flowered bedspread. The bookshelves were empty, though. I'd confiscated all my favorites and read them to my own kids.

Denny and I got the foldout couch in the living room, a backbreaker if there ever was one.We pulled the mattress off and actually slept quite comfortably on the floor. But it meant I heard every trip to the bathroom my parents took during the night. Four or five times between the two of them.

Still, Thanksgiving Day was fun in a visiting-the-grandparents sort of way.My dad cooked sausage and scrambled eggs and pancakes for breakfast, making a Mickey Mouse pancake for Amanda, just like he used to do when she was little. Denny and I got out of doing the dishes with a shopping run to a Hy-Vee Food Store that—hallelujah!—was open on Thanksgiving Day. From the deli, we loaded up on smoked turkey breast, Hawaiian salad (the kind with mandarin oranges, pineapple chunks, and marshmallows in a sweet, fluffy dressing; not
my
cup of tea, but Josh and Amanda—and my dad—loved it), ready-to-heat dinner rolls, and two bakery pies: pumpkin and apple. But Denny balked at the two cans of chicken gravy I'd put in the basket. “
Canned
gravy? ”

“And just how are you going to make homemade gravy with no turkey drippings? ” I shot back. But I had second thoughts when they charged us a buck-fifty per can.
Sheesh.
I could make gravy at home for pennies—maybe less.

If my dad ever said anything to Josh about his transformation from bald-with-a-single-topknot a year ago to hair now only inches away from the hippie look, I never heard about it. In fact, when we got back from the store, Josh and Amanda had my dad shouting with a noisy game of Dutch Blitz, while my mother suckered Denny and me into a game of Scrabble—then kept putting down five-letter words on triple-word-scores.
Sheesh.
When did my parents get so competitive?

But I knew what I was thankful for this Thanksgiving.Time to just hang out with my parents. For that matter, just hanging out with Amanda and Josh, which hardly happened anymore.
Thank You, Jesus! Thank You for Stu reminding me not to take my family for granted.And speaking of Stu—oh God! Cover her with Your grace as she goes back home. Help her parents run to her, just like the father of the prodigal son—

“What? ” Denny was adding up the scores. “Mom Jennings, are you sure you
only
got 235 points? ! I'm shocked!” My mother giggled like a schoolgirl.

Later, as my dad prayed over our store-bought meal—a rather lengthy prayer that included my two brothers who were spending the holiday with their in-laws, a smattering of missionaries “in foreign lands far from home,” and “all those in our own country with out the comforts and blessings we enjoy” —I peeked at my parents holding hands with Josh and Amanda on either side of them. My dad's voice was still commanding, even if his hair had lost the battle. My mom's finger joints, however, looked swollen and misshapen with arthritis. How painful was it? All the ads on TV made it sound like arthritis relief was just a pill or a cream away. Her hair was almost completely gray now, worn short in a nondescript style.
Hm.

My mind began to plot. I could take her to a beauty shop tomorrow and get her hair done. Then we'd pick up Amanda and go to lunch, “just us girls.” Though maybe it would be too expensive to do both.

Invest in your relationship, Jodi.What's money for?

“CLOSE YOUR EYES, GRANDPA!” Amanda hollered into the house the next day, after our Girls Day Out. “Oh, no, I don't trust you . . . here.” She waltzed to her grandfather's recliner and put her hands over his eyes as I steered Mom into the living room and stood her in the middle of the room. Then we yelled together,
“Ta-da!”

My dad stared. Mom was as nervous as a Jack Russell terrier, but she turned around obediently, her cheeks pink. “Well,” he said. “Well. It's a change, isn't it? ”

“Grandpa!”
Amanda rolled her eyes.

“Dad!” I echoed. “She's beautiful, and you know it!” A bit of a sassy cut, a rinse that lightened and brightened the gray, and a set and blow-dry had taken five years off my mom. I laughed and pecked her on the cheek. “Don't mind him. He's just afraid all the young bucks are going to start calling.”

That's when I saw Denny crook his finger at me from the door-way. I followed him into the kitchen, grinning. “You like it? ” I jerked my thumb back toward the living room.

Denny nodded absently and held up our cell phone. “Ben Garfield called. Ruth's water broke this morning.”

“Ruth's—what? Her water broke? ” My heart skipped a couple of beats. “But she's not due till Christmas! Is she . . .? ”

Denny shook his head. “I don't know. Ben was scared; he called an ambulance. They've taken her to the hospital. He wasn't exactly coherent. Just kept saying, ‘Pray, buddy. You gotta pray for my baby.' ”

Baby.
Singular. Probably meant Ruth.Was she in danger?

We stood in my parents' kitchen, nursing our thoughts. Mine tumbled through my head like kittens on catnip.
Ruth's water broke! This is it, then. Either she'll go into labor, or they'll have to induce it. How long will it take? Are the babies big enough? What if there are complications with the birth? Is anybody with Ben and Ruth? Has Ben called anyone else? We should be praying.They need us to be praying! Not just praying. Praying
with
them, being there for them—