Who Do I Lean On? (9 page)

“Ah. The inheritance your folks left you. That's good, that's good, Gabby. Now that you've got an apartment and a nest egg in the bank, that can only strengthen our case for getting custody of the boys. Not that I have any doubt that a judge will rule in your favor.” He smiled and leaned back in his desk chair. “I suppose you want to set up some kind of trust fund for the boys?”

I licked my lips. “Well, not exactly. I have an idea, something I want to talk to you about. The building where I live . . . it's still for sale, right?”

Lee peered at me over the top of his wire rims. “As far as I know. But if you're thinking of buying property, don't you want to look at some single family homes? Or a condo here in the city? You don't have to jump into anything right away. The apartment you're renting is sufficient as far as your legal case is—”

“It's not about my custody case.” I squirmed a bit in my chair. “It's that building. I want to buy a six-flat. And live in the building. It's all part of this idea . . .” Taking a deep breath, I told Lee about my idea of purchasing a building that would provide second-stage housing for some of the homeless moms at Manna House, real apartments where they could be a family with their kids, not sharing bunk rooms in an emergency shelter. “I even have a name for it. The House of Hope.” I grinned. Just saying the name triggered goose bumps up my arms.

Lee blew out a breath. “Whew. When you get an idea, you don't waste any time jumping out of the starting gate, do you!” He leaned forward, his eyes searching mine. “Gabby, it's okay to take some time to get yourself squared away before jumping into such a big financial commitment.” He cocked his head. “How much are we talking about here anyway? Your inheritance, I mean.”

“Uh, well, my share of my parents' life insurance is two hundred thousand, plus another fifty when the sale on their house closes—and that's after Mom's attorney pays the inheritance taxes. My aunt is buying the house, so it's a sure thing.”

His eyebrows went up. “Two hundred fifty thousand? That's it?”

“Well, yes. Of course I wouldn't put all of it toward the building. But that's why I need some financial advice. How much would I need for a down payment? And what would be the best way to do something like that? I mean, should I just make a major donation to Manna House, earmarked for purchase of this building? Seems like that would save me a lot on taxes. Or should I use my money as a down payment on the building and buy it myself ? I mean, two hundred thousand would be a substantial down payment, wouldn't it?”

Lee threw up his hands. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Gabby, slow down. Look, I'm not a financial adviser, but as your lawyer, I would
not
advise you to give away the major portion of your inheritance like that. Really, you need some sound financial advice, someone who can help you invest your money, make it work for you. That's not a large inheritance—it's nice, but it doesn't put you on easy street.”

I stared at him. Words rushed to the tip of my tongue, like foot soldiers defending my idea, but I pushed them back, afraid my voice would quiver.

Lee's voice softened. “Gabby, I'm not just speaking as your lawyer, but as your friend. I really care about what happens to you and your boys. And this . . . this idea just doesn't seem wise. Noble, yes. But let's get things settled with the custody case, follow through on your divorce, give yourself some time. And as I said before, the divorce settlement could give you a nice financial footing as well.”

Divorce
. Why did he keep bringing that up? As for time . . . “No, there's not plenty of time,” I said, tipping my chin up. “Not if someone else buys the six-flat in the meantime. I don't think you understand. This House of Hope is very important to me. It has to be that building. I'm already living there. It's close to Manna House. It's for sale. I'm going to be talking to the Manna House board on Saturday, and I wanted your advice how best to go about it. But if you're just going to shoot it down . . .” I stood up. “Maybe I'd better go.”

“Gabby, wait.” Lee got up and came around his desk. “Please sit.”

I slowly sat back down as he perched on the edge of his desk.

“Okay. I hear you. This idea is important to you. If you are determined to go ahead, then my advice is, buy the building yourself. Property is a good investment. Pay the mortgage payments with rent from the other apartments. I don't know how that would work with subsidized housing—but the board of Manna House should be able to figure that out. I'm pretty sure there's a Low-Income Housing Trust Fund that works with a number of landlords to provide subsidized rents.”

I nodded. “All right. That makes sense. I don't want to do something foolish. But . . .” How could I explain to Lee that this wasn't just my idea, but an idea that God had dropped into my spirit?

Lee reached out and took one of my hands in his. “There is one more thing we need to talk about. With this inheritance you've just received, you don't exactly qualify for Legal Aid any more.” He grinned mischievously. “I think I can make a case for following through on the petitions we've already started on your custody case. But you're going to need to hire another lawyer to handle things beyond that.”

I stared at my hand in his, his touch sending tiny waves of heat all the way up my arm and making my heart jackhammer. “But I don't want another lawyer. You've been a great help to me, Lee. I mean, you understand my situation. I don't want to start all over again with someone else.”

He smiled gently. “Well, look at it this way. If I'm not your lawyer, that doesn't mean I can't keep on being your friend. In fact, if we end our professional relationship, it opens the door to other possibilities . . . and I'd like that, Gabby. Very much.”

chapter 7

Open the door to what other possibilities?

All the way back to the shelter, Lee's quip replayed itself in my brain like an LED advertising billboard. A dozen reactions sprang to the tip of my tongue—
Of course we can be friends . . . Don't cut me loose now; I need you! . . . I'm still married, so back off, buddy!
—but for the life of me, I couldn't remember what I said in return. I'd stammered something, said I really had to go, could he recommend a financial adviser, told him I'd call. I think. Or had I bumbled out of there like a tongue-tied idiot?

I wasn't ready for that kind of friend.

And yet . . . the memory of Lee's touch sent heat into my cheeks again. I liked that he found me attractive at the ripe old age of thirty-nine. And I couldn't deny I found
him
attractive. Even more, he made me feel safe. At ease in a way I never had been with Philip. I liked that he had stood up for me in front of Philip the day of my mom's funeral. He seemed to like me for who I was—even though he'd met me at my messy worst. Most of all, he believed in me. Made me feel like a real person.

But divorce Philip? I still kept thinking I was going to wake up from a bad dream. That Philip would show up, realize what he'd done, beg me to forgive him, and say he wanted us to be a family again. After all, we had two sons—growing boys who needed both their parents. Philip and I had been in love once. Surely there was a spark somewhere under all the debris from our wrecked marriage that could be fanned once more into a flame.

And if there was, I didn't want to do anything to snuff it out forever.

Parking the rental, I managed to dash into Manna House while lunch was still being served, eat Estelle's midweek offering of sloppy joes and mustard potato salad, assure Sammy's mom and Keisha's grandmother that the beach was safe and I'd have the kids back to the shelter by five, and herd Paul and his charges out of there by two o'clock—all without raising Estelle's suspicions that I was feeling like a teenager who'd just been asked out on her first date. I had to totally avoid her to do that, though. Didn't know how she did it, but Estelle seemed to read me like Gandalf the Wizard reading his crystal ball.

Both Sammy and Keisha were afraid to wade into the lake farther than their knees, but they found plenty to do digging in the wet sand with a plastic Big Gulp cup someone had left behind. Soon Paul was showing them how to pack the wet sand into walls and forts, decorated with rocks and sticks. Even P.J. got involved, scooping out an inlet that captured Lake Michigan's small tide creeping up the sand—who knew the Great Lakes had tides?— into their man-made moat.

“Can we go to the beach tomorrow, Miss Gabby?” Keisha begged, hanging on to me for dear life when I brought them back to Manna House.

I shook my head. Mr. Bentley had invited the boys and me to go to the zoo with him and DaShawn. “Maybe next week, okay?” I should have known that was as good as a promise as far as Sammy and Keisha were concerned.

Mr. Bentley picked us up at two thirty sharp the next day in his RAV4.

P.J. had balked that morning when I reminded the boys we had a date for the zoo that afternoon. “Aw, Mom, do I hafta go? I mean, a zoo's a zoo, I've seen a gazillion of them.” Hardly true, though Philip and I had taken the boys to the Metro Richmond Zoo numerous times when they were small. “And it's not like we're going with someone my age,” he fussed. “DaShawn's just a little kid.” Which
was
true, though DaShawn would surely protest the label. And then the zinger. “Don't you know any white kids my age? We didn't have to hang out with black kids back in Petersburg.”

Half a dozen snapbacks fought for airtime as I whisked breakfast dishes through the sudsy dishwater, my back to P.J. so he couldn't read my face. What was going on here? Was I raising a teenage bigot? But hanging around people like my boss, who calmly dealt with several crises every week at the shelter, must've been having a good effect on me because I maintained my composure and decided not to make it a big deal.

“I'd really like it if you came with us, P.J. It's supposed to rain tomorrow—this'll give us something to do together while the weather's nice. We won't have time to explore the city once you've got homework every day and cross-country meets on the weekends. I'm sure you'll make friends your age once school starts. But until you make your own friends, guess you're stuck hanging out with mine.” Mustering a grin, I grabbed a dish towel, whirled it into a rope, and snapped him with it.

“Okay, okay,” he said, backing off. “Just don't expect me to entertain the twerps.”

As we piled into Mr. Bentley's compact SUV later that day, I almost offered to sit in the back with the “twerps,” but Mr. B gallantly held the front passenger door open for me, so I let the boys sort out the seating arrangement for themselves. Once we hit Lake Shore Drive, it didn't take long to find ourselves at Lincoln Park Zoo, situated at the south end of Lincoln Park, which ran alongside the Drive going toward the Loop. As Mr. B pulled up to the entry booth and fished for his wallet, I dove for my purse. “I thought you said the zoo was free!”

“It is.” Mr. Bentley winked at me. “They just gouge you for the parking . . . Now you put that away. This is my treat. It'd be the same for the car whether it was just DaShawn an' me, or a carful.”

“Hm. Maybe we ought to ride bikes next time—right, boys?”

Only groans from the backseat. But I was half-serious. A bike trail ran the full length of Chicago's lakeshore. It'd be fun to bike it one of these days.

We got zoo maps and let the boys pick what areas they wanted to see. “Gorillas!” DaShawn shouted. Paul voted for “big animals like giraffes and stuff.” P.J. shrugged and managed to look bored. But I noticed that Mr. Bentley shut one eye and squinted with the other, holding the map at different distances, as if he was having difficulty reading it.

He caught me watching him and quickly stuffed the map in his pants pocket. “Okay! Big animals first. They're at the north end, and if we're lucky, the polar bears might be swimming. Then we can work our way down to the Gorilla House.” Before DaShawn could complain, he herded the boys over to one of the food vendors and bought hot dogs and lemonade for everybody.

As we trailed the boys past the rhinos, ostriches, and camels, I decided to just out with it. “Are you having trouble with your eyes, Mr. B?”

“Nah. It's nothing. Just got this weird blind spot in my left eye.”

“A blind spot! You should get it checked out. An ophthalmologist might be able to do something before it gets worse.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, already did. Doctor's hoping it'll just go away. Me too!”

“Grandpa! Grandpa!” DaShawn was yelling at us from the bottom of a ramp that led to an underwater window in the polar bear exhibit. “Come see!”

Sure enough, one of the polar bears was in the water, his massive body passing by the underwater window like a silent surge of raw power. A crowd quickly gathered, but we held our front row places, mouths open, as the big brute turned and swam past again and again, paws as big as dinner plates, long gray-white fur rippling.