The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Decked Out (14 page)

I snickered; couldn't help it. “Yep. Ex-cons come highly recommended.”

“Don't you be snickerin', Jodi Baxter. There but for the grace of God go a whole bunch of us—includin' you.”

Ouch
. That was the truth. I could have been given a prison sentence for vehicular manslaughter. Yo-Yo had done time, caught forging checks to feed and clothe her half brothers. Florida was an ex-drug addict . . . “Sorry, Flo. My comment was uncalled-for.”

“Guess I have to forgive ya, 'cause you too big to wash your mouth out with soap—Chris! Cedric!” She pounded on her boys' bedroom doors as we passed. “Get your sorry behinds downstairs and get that walk shoveled!”

The door separating Becky Wallace's tiny apartment from the rest of the Hickman house stood open. “Hello!” I called. “Becky? What can I do to help? Where's Andy?”

Becky appeared in sweatshirt and sweatpants, flushed and bright-eyed. “Hey, Jodi. Uh . . . Stu and Estelle are over at the new place, cleaning. Yo-Yo's cleaning the bathroom. Little Andy's building a fort someplace downstairs with Carla—leastwise they stole half my blankets . . . Here.” She handed me a roll of strapping tape. “Maybe you could tape up that stack of boxes over there.”

I was glad to have something useful to do. Yo-Yo and I chatted as a clump of movers appeared and started carrying furniture down the stairs and out the front door. When it came time to move boxes, Carl organized everybody into a line to pass the boxes hand-to-hand down the stairs and out onto the porch; then he reorganized the line from the porch to the truck.

The truck was loaded before eleven-thirty.

Florida was everywhere at once, rounding up strays like an urban cowboy. “All right, everybody, take a break. We got some Popeye's chicken here an' some potato salad. Who's got Stu's cell phone number? Tell her and Estelle to get themselves over here for some lunch . . . ”

I'd loaded my paper plate with a juicy chicken thigh and a mound of Florida's mustard potato salad when I realized Josh had disappeared. I'd just come out of the kitchen—he wasn't there. But his boots were still in the front hall. Curious, I slipped back up the stairs and made my way down the short hallway to Becky's empty apartment.

Josh was standing in the larger of the two rooms of the small studio, arms folded, turning slowly around in a 360.

“Josh?”

He looked my way. “Oh, hi, Mom. So that room”—he pointed toward
the smaller room—“is the bedroom. Bathroom over there. And this room was—”

“Everything else.” I grinned. “Kitchen, living room, sitting room. Becky had it fixed kinda cute, but it just got too small with Little Andy growing up.”

“Uh-huh. And what are the Hickmans going to do with it now?”

“Well, they'd like to find another renter, but as you can see . . .”

A funny grin spread across my son's face. “I think they just found one.”

13

J
osh disappeared down the stairs, pulled Carl and Florida aside, and in two blinks the deal was done.

“Thank ya,
Je
sus!” Florida laughed like a giddy schoolgirl as she shut the front door behind the moving J crew. “I been askin' God to bring someone to live in that oversize closet up there, but sure wasn't expectin'Him to drop the answer in our lap before the movin' truck even pulled away. Oh, Jesus! You are good, so good!”

I was still blinking. The sensation that events surrounding this wedding had just hit warp speed left me emotionally dizzy. “Well.” I sat down on Florida's couch. “My goodness.” I watched as Florida gathered up dirty towels from her front room floor. “That was quick.”

“Ain't that just like God, Jodi? Oh, Jesus! Hallelujah.” Florida burst into a couple of bars of “He's an On Time God,” dancing around her living room with an armload of dirty towels.

“But if that tiny apartment was too small for Becky and Little Andy, how's it going to be big enough for
three
people?” I shook my head. “Doesn't make sense.”

“Now look here, Jodi Baxter. Don't you go questioning how God supplies a need. When Mary and Joseph got to Bethlehem, ridin' that donkey and her nine months pregnant—Lord, have mercy! Don't know how she did it!—I think they were downright grateful when God provided a stable. Now your son and his bride need a place right quick, somethin' they can afford. An' we just happen to have an empty apartment where they can move right in.
Humph
. Makes sense to me.”

They needed something they could afford, all right. “Like . . . how much rent?”

Florida got right in my face. “
That
is none of your business. If your son wants to tell you, fine with me. But he's grown now, Jodi. He and Edesa are workin' things out—an' looks to me as if God is workin' things out too. Say, you mind pickin' up all them paper plates and napkins? I gotta get a trash bag for these towels so we can take 'em to the Laundromat later on.” She disappeared into the kitchen.

Thank Me for My provision, Jodi.

I took a deep breath.
Right, Lord.
It wasn't up to me to work out all the details of this roller-coaster ride. I only had a walk-on part in this drama, but it was an essential one:
Don't worry . . .Trust God
. . . Pray . . . Praise God for all His benefits.

All His benefits.
Like a washing machine.

“Hey, Flo!” I hollered, as I started picking up the paper trash scattered all over the compact living room. “Let me take those towels home and wash 'em, okay? You've got enough to do without a trip to the Laundromat. I'll bring them to church.”

IF I THOUGHT the move was the biggest event of the day, I thought wrong. When Denny and Amanda picked me up at the Hickmans' after moving Becky into her new apartment, Amanda was bouncing all over the seat. “Mom! Estelle is going to make Edesa's dress for the wedding, and mine too! But we need to buy the material—is that okay? I mean, it'll be cheaper than going to Nordstrom or Lord & Taylor or someplace.”

Lord
Taylor!
Ha! Never in a zillion years had I even considered the possibility. Bless Estelle. “Um, sure, honey. Has Edesa got a pattern picked out?”

“No! That's what so neat. She said I could pick out a pattern I liked since she's only having one bridesmaid. But she'd like red material, since it's Christmas. Do you think red is my color?” Amanda prattled on, but it suddenly occurred to me that
I
was going to need a dress for this wedding too. The only thing I had in my closet remotely dressy was black and slinky. “ . . . pick out the material today since she only has a week to work on it.”

“Today?”
Of course today, you nincompoop. The wedding is next
Saturday.
I tried not to panic. I'd been looking forward to getting off my feet for an hour, making a Christmas gift list, maybe doing some Christmas baking—not to mention I'd offered to wash Florida's towels, we still had to shop for groceries, and I had papers to grade. I needed two minutes to
think.

“Yeah. Edesa and Delores are coming by to pick up Estelle and go to Vogue Fabrics in Evanston. Estelle said this would be the best time for you and me to go too.”

Denny had zoned out of the conversation, intent on jockeying the minivan through the ice ruts in our alley and into the garage. For a nanosecond, I was tempted to say,
“Oh, you go ahead.”
Me, the martyr with the banged-up ankle.

I took a deep breath. Nope. My daughter was asking me to go along. God was in control, wasn't He? All things were going to work together for good . . .
Time for plan B, Jodi. Don't worry. Trust
God. Pray. Praise.

“Ah . . . okay. Tell you what. I need to get off this ankle for a while if we're going to go shopping. So I need you to wash these muddy towels for Florida—I promised to bring them back to her tomorrow.” Denny, bless his heart, didn't know it yet, but he was going out again to do the grocery shopping.

“GUESS WHO CAME by while you were gone?” Denny said as I flopped onto the couch after our marathon shopping trip to Vogue Fabric.

“Can't guess,” I moaned. “I'm exhausted. Put five women age eighteen to fifty-two in a fabric store, trying to choose a pattern and material for an opinionated teenage bridesmaid, while the bride and the ‘mother of the bride' are arguing in Spanish half the time and . . . you get the idea.”

“Who's fifty-two? You're only forty-six.”

I closed my eyes, sinking deeper into the couch cushions. “Estelle,” I murmured. “She's amazing. She cut through the non-sense . . . now she's got Edesa and Amanda upstairs taking measurements and fitting patterns.” I opened one eye. “Who came by?”

“Hakim Porter.”

“Hakim!” I rolled up on one elbow. “What did he want?”

“Asked if we wanted our walks shoveled again.”

I vaguely remembered a shoveled walk when we returned from shopping, which is what it needed after yesterday's snowfall. I snickered and sank back on the cushions. “You sucker. You said yes. Did you get a chance to talk to him?”

Denny sat down on the hassock and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Not really. He seemed disappointed that you weren't here. Asked a couple of times if you were all right. But, funny thing, he was wearing shades . . . ”

“Oh, you know, kids want to be cool.”

“Maybe. But I don't think so. He seemed nervous, like he didn't want me to get too close to him. But when I gave him the money for shoveling the walks, I got a closer look . . . and I'm pretty sure he had a black eye and some bruises on his face.”

“Oh no!” This time I sat up. “What happened? Did he say?”

Denny shook his head. “I asked, but he brushed it
off. Disappeared pretty quick after that.” He frowned, and then eyed me thoughtfully. “Any chance someone at his house is hitting him?”

“What? You mean his mother? No, no, I don't think she'd . . .” No, I couldn't imagine Geraldine Wilkins-Porter abusing her child. But then again, how well did I know the woman? She had had a lot of anger, true, but it had been directed at me—angry that her oldest child was dead, angry that the charges of vehicular manslaughter against me had been dropped. But Hakim? She was overly protective of him, if anything. At least she had been when he was in third grade.

“Oh, Denny, now I'm worried. What if some gangbangers beat him up? Or . . . I don't know. We need to pray for him.”

Denny nodded, taking my extended hand. I could tell he was worried too.

THE HOUSE WAS still quiet when I schlepped into the living room in the blue half-light of early morning with the laundry basket of the Hickmans' clean towels. Shivering inside Denny's bathrobe, I plugged in the Christmas tree. Instantly, the multicolored lights bathed the room in quiet expectation. A childhood joy bubbled in my chest. It was beginning to look like Christmas.

Except there wasn't a single gift under the tree.

But the stable was there under the branches, with its wooden cow and donkey, and a tiny manger filled with bits of straw. Amanda had hidden baby Jesus until Mary and Joseph—currently “riding toward Bethlehem” along the windowsills—arrived on Christmas Eve. The shepherds and their assorted wooden sheep were already “abiding in the fields” on the coffee table; the three magi and their wooden camels, of course, had to start out in the dining room, the closest we came to a “far country.”

It was a game Amanda and Josh had played ever since they were small, moving the nativity figures closer and closer to their destiny under the tree Christmas Eve.

I sat on the hassock, the room lit only by the Christmas tree lights, and pulled the laundry basket of clean towels within folding distance. Today was the last Sunday of Advent. Next Sunday was Christmas Day. Between now and then . . .
Ack!
I didn't even want to think about it.

Just enjoy the hush of this moment, Jodi,
the Voice in my spirit seemed to say.
Carry that inner stillness with you into the coming
week. Think about the old, old story which is ever new.