Who Do I Lean On? (36 page)

“No, no, absolutely don't have room for dessert,” I protested an hour later, so Lee paid the bill and we wandered outside to look at the Cloud Gate sculpture—otherwise known as “The Bean” because of its shape—created by its artist to reflect the sky and lights of the city. Daylight had disappeared, but the city skyline was brilliant, creating its own stunning architectural design against the night sky.

Funny thing, it suddenly made me wonder what the Celestial City in heaven might look like. I'd never tried to imagine it before, but it had to be at least as beautiful as this night . . . only more so! A million lights sparkling like diamonds? The streets full of people singing and dancing? An atmosphere of excitement and joy and expectancy because King Jesus was in town?

I almost blurted out my thoughts. Almost. Would Lee think I was weird to say I was starting to sense God everywhere? He never mentioned God or anything spiritual. So I just breathed, “It's beautiful,” as we walked hand-in-hand along the promenade.

“So are you,” Lee murmured, slipping an arm around my waist and pulling me closer.

I let my head rest on his shoulder as we walked, but when we came to the Crown Fountain with its two rectangular towers projecting the faces of people who spouted water out of their mouths into a shallow pool, I couldn't resist slipping off my shoes and wading into the pool. “Come on in, silly!”

“Who, me silly? Only when I'm with you.” Lee tugged off his boots and socks and rolled up his pant legs, and we splashed in the pool, along with twenty or so others waiting for the spouting mouths—at which time half of the waders ran under the streams of water, laughing as they got soaking wet. Lee pulled me over to the stone benches, murmuring, “We're too old and smart to get a soaking at ten at night, right? Here, use my sock to dry your feet”—which made me laugh so hard I nearly fell off the bench back into the wading pool.

The Prius pulled up in front of the six-flat about eleven. “Guess Josh and Edesa aren't pulling an all-nighter,” I murmured, glancing at the dark windows of both the first-and third-floor apartments. “They've done a lot of work, though. We're planning to paint tomorrow.”
What now? Should I get out? Let him walk me to the door
?

Dating was awkward after you'd been married for fifteen years.

Lee came around to my side of the car, opened the door, and we walked up the sidewalk together. “It's still early,” he said as I fumbled in my shoulder bag for the house key. “You got any coffee? Beer? A nice red wine? Dry socks?”

“Just coffee and dry socks.” I grinned, pulling out my keys. He wasn't being very subtle. I was tempted to extend our pleasant evening . . . what would a cup of coffee hurt?

But I knew good and well coffee wasn't what Lee had in mind. He'd been attentive and affectionate all evening—holding hands, walking with his arm around me, kissing me in the middle of the wading pool. Taking our relationship to the next level . . . which was what, exactly?

Impulsively I rose on my tiptoes and brushed his cheek with my lips. “Good night, Lee.”

“Gabby, wait.” He grabbed my arm as I pushed open the foyer door. “I'd like to come in. The boys are gone tonight, right? What's the problem?”

I turned my head away, blinking to hold back sudden tears. Yes, the boys were gone. Friday nights always yawned empty. Why not fill the house and my bed with someone who loved me? It wasn't like I was still married—well, technically, yes, but not really. Not “two shall be one” married . . .

That
was the problem. Lee and I weren't “two shall be one” married either.

“I'm sorry, Lee. I . . . can't. Please . . .” I pulled my arm away and let the foyer door wheeze shut between us, leaving him on the steps outside. My hands were shaking so badly, I could hardly fit my key into the inner door. By the time I finally got inside my apartment, tears were sliding down my face.

I didn't sleep well, waking up early with the top sheet knotted around me as if I'd been wrestling it all night.
Ugh
. I'd forgotten to brush my teeth before falling into bed and could taste my bad breath. Swishing my mouth with mouthwash, I stared in the bathroom mirror at the bags under my eyes.
So where did it get you, Gabby, being a self-righteous prude?
Another lonely night in the single bed I'd brought from my parents' home in North Dakota, that's what.

But as I put on the coffee, I noticed the index card I'd taped to the cupboard with the verse from Proverbs I'd been memorizing, paraphrased to make it personal. “I will trust in the Lord with all my heart,” I murmured, reading the card, “and will not lean on my own understanding. In everything I do and say, I will acknowledge that I'm following God, and He will show me which path to take.”

I sighed, poured the first cup of coffee that dripped into the pot, and took it to the window seat in the little sunroom at the front of the apartment. Sunlight filtered through the leaves of the trees along the parkway, birds flitted here and there chirping a welcome to the day . . . and gradually the pity party I'd been having all night began to dissipate like the dew on the patch of grass outside.

“Okay, God,” I sighed, “maybe I didn't exactly acknowledge You last night, but You did show me the right path. It's just . . . hard, You know? I really like Lee, and I get so lonely sometimes. I need You to walk with me and show me the way, because it's not always easy to recognize the right path.”

Hide My Word in your heart, Gabby. Then you'll know the way
. The words seemed so clear, I felt startled, and for a nanosecond wondered if someone else was in the room. But then I realized it was the same quiet Voice that had whispered in my spirit,
Come to Me
.

Hide My Word .
. . well, I had to read it first. Fortified with my Bible and two more cups of coffee and cream, I was still curled up on the window seat in my silk lounging pants and chemise when the Baxter minivan pulled up in front of the six-flat and the whole Baxter tribe piled out, along with Estelle and her housemate, Stu. “Good morning!” I yelled out the open window. “Looks like a painting party! Give me five minutes and I'll join you!”

By the time I pulled on some old sweats and a paint-spattered T-shirt and joined the crew, more help had arrived, bringing additional brushes, rollers, and paint pans. I recognized several of the “sisters” from Jodi's Yada Yada Prayer Group . . . the spiky-haired girl they called Yo-Yo, the couple Josh and Edesa were currently renting their tiny studio from—Florida and Carl Hickman—and the single mom who'd won all that money in the Illinois Lottery. Candy or Chancy or Chanda, something like that.

Josh took off in his folks' minivan. “Where's he going?” I asked Jodi, staggering up the stairs with a couple of buckets of paint in each hand.

“Going to pick up some of the youth group from SouledOut who said they'd be willing to help out.”

Shoot
. I wished P.J. and Paul were here, but even if they weren't with their dad, P.J. had another meet out west somewhere— Peoria? As soon as we got the paint distributed to the right rooms, I was going to go pick up Tanya and Precious from Manna House. I was sure they didn't want to miss
this
party.

Most of the painting crew left by suppertime, but Josh and Edesa and the senior Baxters were back Sunday afternoon after church, in spite of some threatening thunderstorms. “We can only stay a couple of hours,” Jodi said, “because SouledOut is doing the Sunday Evening Praise at Manna House this evening— every third Sunday, you know.”

I nodded. But to tell the truth, I hadn't been back to Sunday Evening Praise since I'd moved out of the shelter and gotten my sons back. Getting them to church on Sunday morning was a major accomplishment as it was.

Josh sweet-talked P.J. and Paul into helping him paint the long hallway in 1A, and a few curious questions got P.J. chatting almost nonstop about the cross-country meet in Peoria the day before. I grabbed a roller and worked with them, too, just to be with the boys and eavesdrop on their conversation.

“So what do you do at a meet on a day like today—you know, rain and thunderstorms?” Josh asked.

P.J. dipped his roller in the pan of ivory paint and rolled every which way. “If it's just rain, we run anyway. But I think they call it off if it's a lightning storm. Which would have been a bummer yesterday, since it took three hours to get there!”

With four of us painting the hallway, we got it done in record time and the boys moseyed back to our apartment while Josh and I cleaned brushes in the bathtub of the empty apartment. Suddenly he stopped, listened, and turned off the spigot. “What's that?”

I chuckled. “Just Paul playing around on his keyboard.”

I started to turn on the gushing water once more, but Josh held up his hand. “Wait.” He listened some more and then grinned. “He's good.”

“Yeah. I guess. He and Jermaine started practicing after school at Manna House.”

“Really?” Josh got a funny look on his face.

As soon as we finished cleaning the rollers, brushes, and paint pans, he made a beeline for our apartment and I followed. “Hey, Paul, you're pretty good,” Josh said. “You want a gig, like tonight?”

Paul just stared at him, confused.

Josh laughed. “SouledOut is doing Sunday Evening Praise at Manna House tonight and our keyboardist got sick. You want the job?”

Paul shook his head. “Aw, I don't know church music. I just fool around.”

“Do you play by ear? I mean, pick up tunes you hear?”

“Well, sure. I do that all the time.”

“Well, you're my man, then! We have a guitarist who can play the chords, and singers who carry the tune. You can just pick it up.”

Paul was staring at Josh wide-eyed. “Uh, could I call Jermaine Turner? I mean, he's real good. Maybe between the two of us . . .”

“Sure.” Josh grinned at me. “Can you get Paul there by quarter to six?”

I'd been listening to this conversation trying to keep my jaw from dropping. But it looked like we'd be going to church again tonight.

chapter 35

I couldn't believe Paul and Jermaine. With each new song sung by SouledOut's praise team, the young teens developed more confidence, catching the right key and playing along with the melody at least half the time. The residents loved it, clapping to the music and giving shouts of encouragement! Most of them knew the boys or had seen them around Manna House often enough.

A heavy thunderstorm let loose right in the middle of the service, drowning out the music. But I did hear the front door buzzer and ran to let in whoever it was before they got caught in the deluge—and nearly got bowled over by a wet, yellow furball jumping all over me, whining and licking my face, followed by Lucy Tucker pulling her dripping wire cart into the foyer.

Oof !
Get down, Dandy! Hey there, Lucy,” I gasped, trying “to keep my voice hushed in the foyer. “Ohh, you're all muddy, Dandy. Get down!”

“Whaddya 'spect when it's rainin' buckets out there?” Lucy dug around in her wire cart. “Got a towel in here someplace . . .” She rummaged in a black trash bag and pulled out a large towel that had definitely seen better days. “Here, why don'tcha dry him off while I get somethin' dry on.”

“Lucy, wait! They're doing Sunday Evening Pra—”

Too late. She'd already pushed through the double doors pulling the cart behind her. A male voice was speaking—maybe one of the praise team, giving a testimony or something—but I still heard Lucy mumbling and her cart squeaking as they crossed the big room. I wasn't surprised when Paul came dashing through the double doors into the foyer to see Dandy—and the jumping and whining and licking started all over again.

“Paul! Shhh. Here . . .” I handed him the ragged towel. “Dry him off, okay?”

Somehow we got Dandy dried off and most of the wet mud on the tile floor mopped up. As the three of us slipped back into Shepherd's Fold, Dandy seemed content to just lie on Paul's feet at the back of the room as the testimonies and short teaching followed. When the praise team got up to do one last song, Jermaine beckoned wildly for Paul to come back and join him at the keyboards.

When Sunday Evening Praise was over, the shelter residents and guests from SouledOut gathered around the coffee cart helping themselves to store-bought cookies and lemonade. Denny Baxter and one of the SouledOut couples—Carl and Florida Hickman, who'd been at the six-flat yesterday helping to paint—were pushing chairs and couches back into place when Lucy came back in, dressed in a different layering of ill-fitting clothing, but at least these were dry. Coming to a halt in the middle of the room, the gray-haired bag lady squinted her eyes and swiveled her head as if looking for something. “Where is it?” she demanded.

“Where's what?” Precious helped herself to another Oreo cookie and popped it into her mouth.