Who Do I Lean On? Read online

  “Sure! Hi, Paul. Nice to have a man about the place.” The pretty olive-skinned girl winked at Paul beneath her sleek black bangs, then grabbed the phone as it rang.

  Huh. I pulled open the double doors into the multipurpose room. She doesn’t have to worry about some ol’ fly making a nest in that straight silky hair. A distinct advantage of Asian parentage.

  The multipurpose room was abuzz, not untypical for Monday morning. “Sarge,” the shelter’s no-nonsense night manager, was still on site, arguing with Wanda, a rather verbose Jamaican woman—one of the few who managed to stand up to Sarge’s Italian toughness. Someone was sleeping on one of the couches with a jacket over her head, couldn’t tell who. A couple of unfamiliar faces glanced our way as we came in and looked away, just sitting, not doing anything. Must have come in over the weekend. Sheila, a heavy-chested black woman who usually kept to herself, was vacuuming the various rugs that carpeted the room in a patchwork, one of the many chores residents did daily. I still didn’t know her very well, even though I’d been a resident here myself for several weeks this summer. I really should— “Paul!” A childish voice greeted us from across the large open room. Sammy came running. “I didn’t know you was gonna come with your mom today. You wanna play with me an’ Keisha? We just started Monopoly, but it’s funner with more.”

  Paul shrugged. “I guess. Okay, Mom?”

  “Sure. I’ll be downstairs in my office if you need me.” Perfect. Keisha was ten, the oldest of the few children currently at the shelter—well, not counting sixteen-year-old Sabrina, who qualified as a “child” because she was here with her mother. Keisha’s grandmother, Celia, a vacant-eyed woman in her fifties, seemed to be her guardian, though I didn’t know their story. Thank goodness Paul didn’t mind playing with younger kids. Monopoly would keep him busy until staff meeting was over at least, if the kids didn’t end up fighting.

  Manna House was designed for homeless women, not families, and didn’t have enough kids to develop a full-blown youth program, but the shelter occasionally took in moms with young children if there was bed space. And residents like Precious McGill and Tanya—I didn’t even know her last name—felt it keenly, not being able to make a home for their kids.

  Which was exactly why my “House of Hope” idea stuck like peanut butter to the roof of my spirit.

  I scurried downstairs to the lower level, which housed the shelter’s dining room, kitchen, laundry facilities, rec room— and my office. A former broom closet. Still, I got a rush every time I unlocked the door with the nameplate: Gabby Fairbanks, Program Director.

  Except—the door was already unlocked. And a ribbon of light shone from beneath the door of the windowless room. What? Had I left it unlocked all weekend, and the light on too? Or . . .

  I tentatively pushed the door open, unsure what I’d find.

  A yellow furball explosion nearly knocked me over. As I protected myself from the excited wriggling dog, I saw a familiar craggy face under a cap of thinning gray hair grinning at me from my desk chair.

  Lucy!

  chapter 5

  “Lucy Tucker, you goose! You scared the bejeebers out of me.” I bent down and gave the wriggling yellow dog with her a good scratch on the rump. “Okay, okay, glad to see you too, Dandy. Where have you two been the last couple of weeks?”

  “Around.” Lucy’s standard answer. Don’t know why I bothered to ask.

  I hadn’t seen Lucy but once since we’d come back from North Dakota in July, when she’d ridden along with my mom’s casket in the Manna House van to bury my mother. What a strange friendship they’d formed! Lucy, the streetwise “bag lady,” and Martha Shepherd, my slightly demented mother, who had spent most of her life in a small town on the Western prairie. Both of them in their seventies—actually, that was a guess in Lucy’s case—but there the similarity ended.

  I brought my mother to Chicago when it was obvious she could no longer live alone. Brought her to work with me at the shelter so she didn’t have to stay alone at the penthouse. Until my husband gave his ultimatum: find another place for Grandma or send her home. According to Philip, the penthouse just wasn’t big enough for a family of four and a mother-in-law and her rambunctious mutt.

  For Lucy it was simple. Martha should stay at Manna House. “She homeless, ain’t she?”

  My mother became “Gramma Shep” to the other residents— happy to just sit in the multipurpose room while drama bustled around her, patiently listening to anyone who wanted to talk or vent, tickled to read a story to a whiny kid. Streetwise Lucy, who normally only came to the shelter when she had to (“Too many rules!”), took over care for Dandy, walking him every day, something my mother could no longer do—especially not in Chicago. A responsibility that bonded Lucy to my mother and Dandy in a special way I didn’t have the heart to break.

  Which is why I gave Dandy to Lucy when my mother died.

  Something I still needed to explain to my youngest son.

  I dumped my purse and tote bag on the desk. “You two doing all right?”

  “We doin’ okay. Dandy makin’ friends with half the city. But I stopped by ta pick up some more dog food from that stash ya got here—ya know, when he was Hero Dog.”

  Oh yes, Hero Dog. The night Dandy had scared off a midnight intruder. When the media got hold of the story, Chicagoans smothered “Hero Dog” with bags of food, chew toys, and stuffed animals. And checks for the shelter. Which was how we got that big whale of a white passenger van the residents dubbed “Moby Van.” Most of the other stuff got donated to an organization that helped fixed-income seniors care for their pets, except for six months’ worth of dog food we kept stashed here for Dandy.

  “No problem. You got room in your cart for a whole bag?” Lucy’s cart stood in a corner of my office, relatively empty, considering. “Uh, where’s all your stuff ?”

  “In the wash. Didn’t have no quarters for the Laundromat. Angela said I could use the machines if nobody else had ’em signed up. That’s why I came early. Me an’ Dandy been here since breakfast.”

  “Well, I’m glad to see you both.” Definitely glad to see Dandy looking fit and healthy. I couldn’t help worrying how he’d fare as a “street dog.” Cold weather, though . . . that would be a different story, something we needed to talk about.

  But not now. “Hey, I know somebody upstairs who’d love to see Dandy. My boys are back, Lucy. I got them registered for school and everything. Paul’s here today. You mind taking Dandy upstairs to see him? I’ve got work to do before staff meeting anyway.”

  “Okay by me.” The old lady hefted herself out of my desk chair, dressed as usual in several layers of mismatched clothes. “If you think your kid’s nose ain’t gonna get outta joint ’cause Dandy’s with me.”

  Ah. Very astute. Maybe I should leave well enough alone. Paul was probably immersed in the Monopoly game by now, but if he saw Dandy . . .

  No. What if he found out Dandy had been here and he didn’t get to see him? He’d really feel like he’d been cut out of Dandy’s life.

  “Mm. He might. But I still think he’d love to see Dandy. Go on . . . and thanks. You can leave your cart here if you want.”

  Lucy pondered. She rarely went anywhere without that cart. “Well, okay. If you gonna be here the whole time. C’mon, Dandy.” She lumbered through the door, Dandy at her heels, but before they disappeared I heard her holler, “Hiya, Estelle! Whatchu makin’ for lunch today?”

  I shut the door, isolating my cocoon. If I got started talking to Estelle, staff meeting would be here and I wouldn’t have gotten a thing done!

  I was startled by a knock at my door. Estelle Williams poked her head in. “You comin’ to staff meeting, girl?”

  “What—? Oh, thanks, Estelle.” Where had the time gone? I’d been trying to take five or ten minutes to pray before starting my workday—how hard should that be?—but it was still a struggle not to check my e-mail first to see if there was anything urgent and plunge right back into work I’d
left undone on Friday. Especially since I’d cut back to half time for the next few weeks until the boys started school. Fewer hours. Same amount of work.

  But I grabbed a pad of paper and a couple of folders and scurried up the stairs behind the shelter’s lunch cook, who was still wearing her white net cap and big white apron over wide navy blue slacks and a rumpled white blouse. “You go on, Estelle,” I huffed at the top of the stairs. “I need to check on Paul and try to catch Mabel before the meeting.”

  “Then, girl, you shoulda come up ten minutes ago. I’ll save you a seat.” Estelle had a mild way of scolding me, like she’d dripped honey all over a prickly pear.

  Mabel was striding across the multipurpose room, professional as always, notebook in hand, makeup perfectly blended with her creamy walnut skin, talking to Stephanie Cooper, a thirtysomething social worker with straight, straw-colored hair and wearing jeans, who worked two days a week at the shelter as a case manager. “Mabel!” I called. “Can I see you a sec? Oh wait . . .” I glanced around the multipurpose room. No kids. “Oh no! Anybody seen Paul and Sammy and Keisha?”

  “They wanted to take the dog for a walk,” one of the couch-sitters offered.

  “Not by themselves!” I shrieked. All I got was a shrug. “Sorry, Mabel,” I called over my shoulder. “Gotta find Paul.” I dashed into the foyer, where Angela was turning over phone duty to one of the residents for the next hour. “Angela, did you see the kids go out with Dandy? Was Lucy with them?”

  “Yeah, I saw them. Not Lucy though. But I think Hannah went with them—no, wait. It was Tanya.”

  At Hannah’s name, I was about to bolt out the door, staff meeting or no staff meeting. The wannabe cosmetician was barely twenty, and not the brightest crayon in the box. But if Tanya had gone with them, it was probably okay. Sammy’s mom was a real sweetie, one of the young women I was hoping to recruit for the House of Hope, if it ever materialized.

  But now . . . Oh no! I’d wanted to check with Mabel about bringing up the House of Hope idea at staff meeting! Could I catch her before—?

  I ran back through the multipurpose room, past the TV room and toddler playroom to the “schoolroom,” which boasted four computers, several school desks, and assorted chairs. Mabel was already praying over a circle of bowed heads crowned with Stephanie’s straw-colored hair, all varieties of black hair—straight, straightened, kinky, and salt-and-pepper—and now my mop of auburn curls as I slipped into the chair next to Estelle.

  Rats! I didn’t get a chance to ask Mabel first.

  “ . . . praise You, Lord, for Your hand of protection over each resident in this house. You are the Creator and Sustainer of every woman who comes through our doors, each one precious in Your sight. You are a gracious and merciful God, patient with all our shortcomings . . .”

  Mabel’s prayers still took some getting used to. I expected staff prayers to dive into the long list of needs we had at the shelter— more volunteer church groups to cook the evening meal . . . someone to cover night duty for Sarge, who wanted to take a week of vacation . . . how to help the residents over fifty, whose possibilities for job training and finding a job were almost nil . . . the used-up girl who came in off the street last week, desperately wanting help to kick her habit and to get away from her pimp, but who only managed to stay half a day before the drug-induced hunger in her body drove her back out to her old life. The needs at the shelter were all more or less desperate. But Mabel always started meetings with “just lovin’ on God,” as Estelle called it.

  As Mabel breathed out her last murmur of worship and opened her notebook to read that day’s agenda, I quickly scribbled a note and passed it to her. I’d like to bring up the House of Hope idea, get some feedback from the staff. What do you think?—G

  She glanced at the note, tucked it in her notebook, and continued reading her agenda. A report from Sarge about the fight in the second-floor shower over the weekend. Reviewing the new residents who had come in the past week, their case management assignments, any special needs. Gabby’s new schedule for the next few weeks. Need for more case managers by the time cold weather filled up the shelter. Suggestion from residents for renaming the multipurpose room . . .

  I tried to catch Mabel’s eye, pointing to my note. Calling on Sarge to make her weekly report, Mabel pulled out my note, wrote something on the bottom, folded it, and passed it back to me. I opened the note. Not today. Let’s go to the board with it first. Is Saturday good?

  The board? I knew I’d need to talk to the board at some point. But . . . Saturday? I wasn’t ready for something that official! I’d been hoping to brainstorm the idea with some of the staff and my friends here at the shelter to get their ideas. Besides, it was going to be hard keeping it under my hat another whole week. I really wanted—needed—to talk about it. Was it a good idea? Or just out-and-out crazy?

  Well, at least I had an appointment with Lee Boyer, my Legal Aid lawyer, on Wednesday. I definitely needed to talk to him about my options. He’d been the one who went out of his way to get me out of the shelter and into an apartment so I could prove to a judge I was capable of providing for my boys in the custody suit he planned to file on my behalf. Once I had my own apartment it’d be a “slam dunk,” according to Lee.

  Funny thing, Philip hadn’t even protested once I got the ball rolling. I’d expected all kinds of delays and roadblocks to bringing the boys back. Maybe he’d been counting on his parents joining his fight to keep the boys in Virginia—“for school,” of course. Frankly, I’d expected an uphill battle with all the Fairbanks. But to my surprise, Mike Fairbanks had sided with me when Philip dumped me. Said he’d bring the boys back as soon as I had a place to live. And he was as good as his word.

  “. . . and Tawny,” Mabel was saying. “Bright young thing. Got dumped out of the foster-care system when she turned eighteen last month, has been staying with different friends until she came here a few days ago. She seems very motivated to finish her GED, get a job, and go on to college.”

  I’d only been paying half attention until I heard the name. “Tawny? Yeah, Jodi Baxter said she showed up for the typing class Saturday morning.” I’d no sooner joined the conversation than the hands of the schoolroom clock caught my eye. Almost 10:45! I jumped up. “Oops. I have to pick up P.J. at Lane Tech. Sorry. It’s only for a few weeks until school starts.” I inched apologetically toward the door. “I’ll check in when I get back to see what I missed.”

  Mabel nodded. “Okay. We only have a few more items. We’ll table the discussion about a new name for the multipurpose room. I think you’ll want to be here for that, Gabby. Some of the residents think we ought to rename it in memory of Gramma Shep—but we can talk about it next week.”

  I almost sat down again. Name the multipurpose room after my mom? Of course I wanted to be here for that discussion! Maybe—

  But I made myself slip out and run for the car.

  Still no Paul that I could see—inside or outside the shelter.

  Oh, that boy! He was going to be grounded big time for not telling me he was going out!

  But even as I jumped into the rental car and peeled rubber going around the first corner, I knew I only had myself to blame. Why did I think I could handle this superwoman single mom stuff—program director for a shelter full of aimless homeless women, sole wage earner, solo parent most of the week, chauffeur, shopper, entertainer, housekeeper, cook, prospective real estate investor—when for the past fifteen years I’d basically traded my aspirations and a stiff backbone for the comfort of Southern charm and old money . . . like Esau in the Sunday school stories I’d grown up with, trading his birthright for a pot of savory stew.

  chapter 6

  The parking lot at Lane Tech was virtually empty by the time I pulled in at 10:59. P.J. was waiting at the same spot where I’d let him out, except his T-shirt was wet around the neck and armpits, and his dark hair lay damp on his forehead. “Sorry, kiddo,” I said as he jumped into the front seat. “Did you have to wait lo
ng?”

  He shrugged.

  “Put on your seat belt . . . How did it go? Looks like the coach worked you hard.”

  “Yeah.” He turned his head toward the window, but not before I caught the hint of a grin playing the corner of his mouth.

  I hooted. “You rascal. Did you run? I bet you came in first the very first day.”

  He shook his head. “Not really.” But the grin widened. “But I kept up with the front group. Coach called me out, said, ‘Good job, Fairbanks.’”

  I reached over and rumpled his damp hair. “Well, I second that, Fairbanks. Good job! Why don’t you call your dad?” I handed P.J. my cell phone. “He’d like to hear how your first day of practice went, I’m sure.” A self-righteous amicability smothered the angst I’d been feeling just fifteen minutes ago. Yeah, I could be the mature single-again mom, generously keeping the jerk father in the picture, refusing to make my sons choose between their parents.

  But he shrugged and handed the phone back. “Maybe later.”

  I dropped P.J. off at the apartment, telling him I’d be off work at two and to stay put. The rest of the afternoon, we’d do whatever he wanted. When I got back to the shelter, the dog walkers had returned and Paul was triumphantly purchasing another tiny plastic house with Monopoly money to put on Park Place. Still feeling magnanimous, I decided to wait until we were alone to talk with him about leaving the premises. I knocked on Mabel’s office door instead.

  “Sorry I had to leave staff meeting early. What’d I miss?”

  Mabel turned from her computer. “I was just typing up the minutes. But sit down, Gabby. Let’s talk about this transitional housing idea of yours. If you want to bring it to the board on Saturday, we need a proposal—description of the property, how it’s going to be financed, how to partner with city resources . . .”