2-in-1 Yada Yada (74 page)

I heard voices in the hallway and was just about to shut the Bible when my eyes caught the next verse:
“You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace . . .”

The door opened, and Christy rushed in. “Sorry I'm late, Jodi. I'll go out and bring the kids in.” My young student teacher, cheeks pink from the nippy air outside, looked at me kindly. “Are you okay after—you know, last night?”

I nodded. Even smiled. Yes, I was going to be okay . . .
I think.

HAKIM WAS NOT IN SCHOOL that day or the next, and then it was the weekend. I tried to put him out of my mind and focus on the other children in my classroom, but they were all safe, just being their same squirrelly selves. But Hakim . . . what had his mother told him? Did he think I was some kind of monster? That I didn't care about him anymore? What was he doing today? Did she really put him in another school? Or was he just sitting at home, watching TV, pulling back into his shell?

My heart ached. Was this how the shepherd in Jesus's parable felt about the one lost sheep when He left the ninety-nine others safely corralled in the sheepfold and went looking for it?

I also read and reread the scriptures Avis had given to me that morning in my classroom until I thought the pages might fall out. On Saturday, after Denny left early to pick up Carl Hickman for the men's breakfast at Uptown Community—we were both surprised he had agreed to go—I turned the verses into my version of a “Nony prayer” and wrote it in my prayer journal:

“Okay, God. I'm going to trust that You are working all this mess
together for something good, according to Your purpose—which, I
admit, looks pretty foggy to me. Yet You made one thing clear: Your
ways are not my ways. So I'm choosing to believe that ‘Your Word' will
accomplish Your desire and achieve Your purpose. Not just for my good,
Jesus, but Hakim's too.”
I reread my prayer, then wrote:
“And for
Hakim's mother too.”

By the time Denny got back around eleven, I wouldn't say I'd gotten all the way to “joy,” but I was starting to feel some of that peace Isaiah talked about—not because I had any answers, but because I decided to start trusting God to figure it all out.

“Kids up yet?” Denny asked, opening the refrigerator door.

I shook my head. “Still zonked. Haven't heard a peep.” A weird thought crossed my mind. Both kids could've snuck out in the wee hours, and I'd probably never know it, because I never checked on them once they were in for the night.

Stop it, Jodi! They're teenagers—they're just sleeping till high noon.
I left Denny still rummaging in the refrigerator and did a quick room check. Two familiar lumps of covers in the dim bedrooms.
See, Jodi? Don't borrow trouble.
I headed back for the kitchen. “Didn't you guys just eat breakfast?”

Denny was forking cold leftover spaghetti straight from the Tupperware. “Two hours ago.” His fork paused in midair. “Guess what? Mark Smith came too.”

“Carl Hickman
and
Mark Smith?” Now there you had polar opposites. But if their wives—Florida Never-Been-Out-of-Chicago Hickman and Nonyameko World-Traveler Sisulu-Smith—could be sisters in the same prayer group, why not their husbands? I stared at my own husband with interest.

Denny set down the empty plastic container and belched. “Asked Mark Smith to come for Thanksgiving—hope that's okay.”

“Thanksgiving! Don't you think Nony will be home by then?” Thanksgiving was less than two weeks away, and she'd been gone five weeks already. Still, if she wasn't . . .

Denny shrugged. “I don't think Mark knows yet. Said he would, unless his family comes home.”

Thanksgiving. I hadn't given it a smidgeon of thought—except that we wouldn't be going to Iowa, since my folks had decided to drive to Denver to spend Thanksgiving with my oldest brother, Jim, and his family. Jim and Jeff . . . hadn't seen either one of my brothers for a while. I felt a small pang. It was so easy for families to drift apart.

Or fall apart. “Maybe we ought to invite Hoshi too,” I said suddenly. “If Nony's not back, she won't have any place to go either.” I sat down to make a list. Who else in Yada Yada might be alone? Not Avis—she'd be with her daughters and grandbabies on the South Side. Most of the others probably had family in the Chicago area. Anybody else? Stu?

I suddenly realized I knew nothing about Stu's family. She was single, she lived alone in Oak Park, she worked as a real-estate agent, and she'd latched onto Yada Yada and adopted Uptown Community as her church—that was all I knew. She had never offered information about any family, and I had never asked. Well, okay, I'd ask. Yada Yada was supposed to meet at my house the last Sunday of the month, just before Thanksgiving. If Mark and Hoshi were coming, I might as well invite a few more.

AVIS CALLED ME AT HOME that Saturday afternoon while Amanda was running the vacuum cleaner. “I had a meeting with Hakim's mother after school Friday.”

“Just a minute—I can hardly hear you.” I headed for my bedroom and shut the door, then took several deep breaths till my insides calmed down. “Okay.”

“I met with Hakim's mother yesterday afternoon. She is adamant about removing Hakim from Bethune Elementary. However, school transfers are not that automatic, and I made it quite clear to her that further absence would be truancy. So we came to a compromise.”

“What compromise?”

“Hakim will return to school on Monday but will be placed in the other third-grade classroom while she pursues a transfer. And, Jodi . . .”

“What?”
That came out more snappish than I intended, but there it was.

“I agreed that you would not try to talk to Hakim, interact with him on the playground, or create any activities that would bring Hakim under your supervision.”

“Avis!” How could she betray me like that? “He's going to think I don't care about him anymore! That
hurts,
Avis. Really hurts.”

“Mmm. I'm sure it does. But I want you to know that I didn't promise that
I
wouldn't talk to Hakim. Actually, it didn't come up”—I could almost hear her stretching into a smile—“and I fully intend to talk to Hakim on Monday, maybe even check in with him daily. We don't know yet how he is reacting to all of this, but I will let Hakim know that you
do
care about him.”

I let out a long sigh, paying out the head of steam I'd been building. “Thanks, Avis. Really. Don't know if this is good news or bad news. It'll be hard to see him in the school and not say anything.”

“I know. Smile and wave—from a distance.”

My thoughts scrambled. “Did you figure out why she had no clue that I was Hakim's teacher? I mean, my name should've rung a bell. And”—this question had been bugging me for days—“the two boys with her in the courtroom . . . does Hakim have more brothers?” I'd guessed their ages at the time as about ten and maybe sixteen. If so, why wasn't the ten-year-old a fifth grader at Bethune Elementary?

“Mmm, not sure. She didn't mention any other sons. Might've been cousins. From what I gathered, Geraldine had been living with her sister looking for a place to live in this area when the, uh, accident happened last June. Finally found a place in September— probably explains why she didn't pay too much attention to school notices. Also, she works as a night-duty LPN, so Hakim spends a lot of time at his aunt's house.”

“Okay. It's just . . . so weird.”
“A diabolical joke,”
the woman had said. I quickly shook off the thought. Couldn't go there. If I chose to believe that, I might as well give it all up right now. After I got off the phone, I dug out my journal and reread the prayer I'd written that morning. Then read it aloud to drown out the accusing laughter in my head.

I DECIDED NOT TO HIDE THIS MESS from Yada Yada—not like the incident with MaDear, where I kept waiting for someone else who'd been at the beauty shop to bring it up. I didn't even check with Avis, just wrote a long e-mail spelling out what had happened at the parent-teacher conferences, the scriptures I was hanging on to, and the focus I was trying to keep—that God would work this out not only for my good, but for Hakim and his mother too. “. . . even though,” I admitted, “nothing can bring Jamal back. I know that. It's a reality I live with every day. So please, help me pray.”

The responses I got from different Yada Yada sisters reinforced the impression I had when “Prayer Group 26” first met at the women's conference last spring—that drawer full of crazy-colored, mismatched socks. It didn't matter; just knowing my sisters cared kept me going that whole awkward week, catching glimpses of Hakim, trying to send him a smile and wave from a distance but only getting a head down in return. For solace, I kept the Scripture reading and prayers going and checked my e-mails each evening.

“Si!
Of course I will pray!” Delores wrote. “I consider it a privilege to pray for you, my sister—a small payment on the debt I owe for all the prayers Yada Yada has spent on the Enriques family.”

Ruth's note made me laugh out loud: “Go shopping. Forget about your troubles for two hours and buy a new hat.” Hadn't she noticed yet that I never wore hats? Still, it was actually tempting. A wild, crazy hat. What would Denny think of
that?

Hoshi's note was brief: “Praying for you as you requested. Did you get an answer yet from the woman who cut my mother?”
Sheesh.
Hoshi had her own demons to fight. I hit Reply and typed, “Not yet. Will let you know.” Then I hit Send.

Even Stu responded. “I am so sorry, Jodi. I wonder if Hakim's mother has gotten any counseling to help her deal with the loss of Jamal. It sounds like she's a ticking time bomb.”
Okay, Stu, I'll let
you suggest it.

Florida didn't bother with e-mail but called me up. “Girl! You attract sticky situations like that nasty ol' flypaper! But don't you worry none. God's got your back. Say, that man of yours around? Wanna thank him for taking Carl to that guy breakfast last Saturday. He say much to you about it?”

“Who? Denny? Not really. Mark Smith came too.” Had to admit I'd been kind of distracted and hadn't really pressed Denny for details. “What did Carl say?”

“Not much—Carl ain't a big talker. But he did say Pastor Clark got the guys shootin' off their mouths about what they think a ‘real man' is. Guess it was some list.” She laughed. “I think Pastor gave each man a Bible verse to look up,maybe to compare God's design with their own bright ideas, 'cause my Bible went missin' for a day or two then showed up again.”

“That's great, Florida. Are things any better—at home, I mean?”

She snorted. “Ain't seen any miracles yet, but maybe it's a chink in the wall. Say . . .Yada Yada is meetin' at your house next Sunday, right?”

Which was true. And Chanda—who didn't have e-mail, so she didn't get my long version of what happened when Hakim's mother showed up—fussed at me up and down when Sunday evening rolled around and she discovered she was the only one at Yada Yada who didn't know what happened.

“I'm sorry, Chanda. I should have called,” I said, even though I knew I couldn't have gone over the whole thing again on the phone. Now that Adele—who used to share e-mails with Chanda—was off the loop, Chanda did seem to get left out a lot from the online “chatter” between Yada Yada meetings.

We spent a long time that night praying for “the Hakim situation” and also for Nony and her boys. As far as we knew, there was still no word about when she planned to bring the boys home. I felt surrounded by the prayers of my sisters, like a wall of protection, and I wondered . . . did Nony sense our prayers halfway around the world? Feel that protection?

I did have one “answer” to prayer: a second letter from Lincoln Correctional Center. “Just arrived yesterday,” I said, waving it in the air.

That got everyone's attention, especially Hoshi's. “Read it please, Jodi,” she said, sitting straight, hands folded in her lap. Her eyes flickered, like Christmas lights ambivalent about whether they were going to burn bright or go out.

I unfolded the single sheet of paper. “Dear Mrs. Baxter,” I read. “Don't know why Miss Takahashi want to be on my visitors' list, but can't feel any worse about what happened than I already do. Guess any visitors are better than no visitors. Sincerely, Becky Wallace. P. S. Last time you all was here you asked if I need anything. Could sure use some hand cream or the like. I'm working in the kitchen and my hands red all the time. But you can't bring it. Has to come straight from the store.”

No one spoke for several moments while I refolded the letter. Hoshi looked down at her own hands, long and smooth. “Yes, I will go.”

Guess that means Denny and I are driving to Lincoln one of these
Saturdays.

“What dat she need?” Chanda piped up. “Maybe we chip in and buy her two or t'ree t'ings—hand cream or fancy bath stuff. You know, be a Christmas present.”

Edesa nodded.
“Si.
I will contribute, but it would be easiest to send it with Hoshi and whoever goes to visit her, wouldn't it?”

Yo-Yo leaned back in her chair and stuck a leg out. “Can't. Security reasons. Any gifts gotta come straight from the store or get ordered on the Internet or something. An' forget the fancy bath stuff. Gang showers ain't conducive to beauty baths.”

Ruth groaned. “Now
that's
a reason not to get yourself arrested.”

“Well, I'll be glad to order something and get it sent,” Stu jumped in, “but I'll need her address. Just give me that envelope, Jodi.” She held out her hand for the letter but shook her head when several people reached for their purses. “Later, okay? I'll buy something then figure out how much everybody owes. If we all chip in, should only be a few dollars each.”