“What? What do you mean, no we won’t?”

  Estelle started dicing the peeled potatoes and dumping them into a pot on the big, black stove. “’Cause Chicago does its fireworks thing on July third. And I was crazy enough to let Harry talk me into goin’ with him an’ his cutey-pie grandson tonight. Lord, help me.” She rolled her eyes and started in on a second bag of potatoes.

  I grinned. Sounded like Estelle and Mr. Bentley still had a thing going on. “Why don’t you just take a holiday?”

  “Humph. Taste or no Taste, I’m makin’ Chicago dogs with all the trimmin’s an’ good ol’ mustard potato salad an’ apple pie for my ladies. You’ll see. After all that fancy-smancy food-on-a-stick at the Taste, them ladies gonna come back here an’ be beggin’ for my leftovers.” Estelle held up a bag of onions. “You gonna just be standin’ around? ’Cause if so, you can start choppin’ these onions.”

  “Whoa, I’m outta here. Sorry! I’ve got calls to make!” Which was the truth. I’d barely had time to start in on my list of schools before lunch. But as I made call after call, I either got a voice message saying the office was closed because of the Fourth of July holiday, instructions to leave name and address so they could send an application, or the dreaded answer: “Fall registration is closed. However, you may apply and we’ll put your child on our waiting list.”

  My list was growing shorter. A tinge of panic dried out my throat. What if I couldn’t find a good school for P. J. and Paul? What if—My eyes fell on the note card Edesa had left for me the second night I’d been at the shelter. I’d taped it to my computer, but now I peeled it off. The words “I will not forget you” and “your sons hasten back” leaped out at me.

  Edesa had written those verses from Isaiah 49 as God’s promises to me. And last night at Sunday Evening Praise we’d sung, “Oh for grace to trust Him more. ”

  I took a deep breath. Okay. I was going to go for broke. I’d fill out every application and put P. J. and Paul on every waiting list. After that, I’d have to trust God.

  To my delight, when I got the notes from the staff meeting that afternoon, Mabel had included an addendum: CTA passes and $10 per resident approved for Taste of Chicago outing. Quickly making a sign-up sheet, I passed it around at supper and ended up with several I knew fairly well—Hannah, Tina, Aida, Wanda, Carolyn, and Diane. I recognized a few others like Althea, the Iranian woman. A couple of names were new.

  I counted the list. Only thirteen? Hmm. Not as much interest as I’d expected. My mother had shaken her head. “Too much walking.” Well, that was true. Probably just as well. She’d been needing a nap almost every day.

  Lucy’s name wasn’t on the list either. Was she embarrassed to just put her X? I tried to let her off the hook. “Hey, Lucy, want me to put your name down for the Taste? You get ten bucks to spend.”

  “Huh. Ain’t got time for no gallavantin’. Dandy’s stitches need to come out, and I need to stay here with him. Doc said ten days. Ten comin’ up tomorrow.”

  I’d forgotten Dandy’s stitches. “But tomorrow’s a holiday! I don’t even know if the animal clinic will be open on July Fourth. We can wait one more day. Dandy will be fine. Come on. It’ll be fun.”

  “Nah. Don’t like them big crowds. Dandy an’ me’ll stay here with Miz Martha. ’Sides, Estelle’s makin’ apple pie.”

  Well, okay. Thirteen was a good number, probably better than a huge crowd. At least I didn’t have to keep track of any kids—the Baxters had taken them to the Taste on Saturday. But should we try to keep together? No, that was stupid. These were adults. They’d want to go off, do their own thing. As I understood it, the festival had music stages and other entertainment in Grant Park, besides all the food vendors.

  Still, I felt kind of responsible since it was a Manna House outing. I mused about this out loud when Sarge and her college-age assistant, Susan, showed up to cover the night shift. Sarge shrugged. “Not a problem.” The ex-marine grabbed Susan, who was wearing a Manna House T-shirt. “See this? Orange. Best color to stand out in a crowd. Put ’em all in Manna House T-shirts.”

  I grinned. “Great idea!” I had another great idea. “Sarge? Would you like to go with us tomorrow? I sure could use another staff person.”

  “I can go too,” Susan offered. “I don’t have summer school tomorrow.”

  Which is how sixteen of us in bright orange T-shirts that said Manna House Volunteer in black letters pushed our way onto the crowded Red Line El train and rode to the Loop. Once off the El, it was only a couple of blocks to Columbus Drive and Grant Park, which was teeming with the holiday crowd. After getting our food tickets at one of the ticket booths—a strip of eleven for seven bucks—and agreeing to meet at Buckingham Fountain at three o’clock, the bright Manna House T-shirts melted into the crowd like so many orange Popsicles on a hot day. Even Sarge and Susan disappeared.

  But no way did I want to go solo my first time at the Taste. I felt overwhelmed at the sheer number of booths and competing smells—Thai spices, sizzling pizzas, and grills spitting out BBQ chicken and ribs. Then I spied an orange T-shirt and a familiar brown-and-gray ponytail in the line waiting at Sweet Baby Ray’s booth. “Hey, Carolyn! You decided to get some ribs?” I sidled up beside her, giving the person behind her in line a “we’re together” smile.

  Our resident bookworm, hands stuffed in the pocket of her jeans, nodded. “But one strip of tickets isn’t going to go far around here.”

  “Yeah, I know. Best I could do from the budget, though.” The line inched forward. “Say, I heard you’re leaving us. Is it true?”

  Carolyn grinned, softening the plain effect of always wearing her hair pulled back in that skimpy ponytail. “Yep. My name finally came up at Deborah’s Place. Been waiting a long time.”

  I felt a real pang. “I’m going to miss you, Carolyn. Who’s going to take care of our budding libr—Oh. We’re next.” I squinted at the menu board. “What are you going to get?”

  Five minutes later we each walked away with a boneless rib sandwich dripping a pungent red sauce. But the crowd was so thick I felt like a salmon fighting to swim upstream against a strong current. We finally stopped for a breather to watch a clown twisting long, skinny balloons into wiener dogs and giraffes, to the delight of a dozen kids and perspiring parents.

  “Meant to ask you ’bout the library thing.” Carolyn headed for a patch of grass where we could sit. Between bites of her sandwich, she said, “I’d like to come back to the shelter and volunteer. Didn’t we talk once about doing a book club?”

  I sucked some sauce off my fingers. “Carolyn! That would be wonderful! Will you have time? Won’t you be getting a job or something?” Carolyn was one of the smartest women I’d met at Manna House. Mabel said she had a master’s degree in literature. Had no idea why she’d ended up in a shelter.

  Carolyn shook her head. “Not for a while. I’m on disability.” The word hung in the air for a long moment, my unspoken Why? hanging there with it. Then she shrugged. “Had a nervous breakdown on the job at the public library, got really abusive, and ended up doing time in a psychiatric facility. I’m still on meds and under a doctor’s care.”

  I stared at her. “Never would have guessed it. To me, you’re one of the solid rocks at Manna House! I’ll never forget you taking my boys under your wing that day and playing board games with them.” I touched her arm. “Not sure what we’re going to do without you.”

  To my surprise, the stoic Carolyn suddenly wiped the back of her hand across her eyes. “Tell you the truth, Gabby, I’m kinda scared. I want this so bad, but . . . I’m not sure if I can make it on my own.”

  “Oh, Carolyn.” I almost added, “Sure you will,” but frankly, I had no idea. Why would a talented woman like Carolyn end up in a shelter? I wished I knew how to support her on her way back to a “normal life”—whatever that was.

  But who was I to help someone else? I was having a hard enough time patching my own life back together.

  chapter 30

  For the next couple of hours, Carolyn and I wandered around the Taste of Chicago, running into some of our orange-shirted residents in twos and threes from time to time. Some of them had pooled their leftover dollars and bought more food tickets. Carolyn and I stood in line for fresh-squeezed lemonade and ended up thirty minutes early at Buckingham Fountain, one of Chicago’s breathtaking landmarks. We sat on nearby benches, gawking at security personnel riding around on Segways—those funny two-wheeled vehicles that looked like motorized pogo sticks—and little knots of Japanese tourists taking pictures of each other in front of the fountain. A menagerie of dogs on leashes trotted past.

  Carolyn poked me. “Ever notice how many owners look like their dogs?” A tall, thin woman with straw-colored hair floated by behind a long-legged Saluki. I giggled right into my lemonade, snorting it up my nose and splashing it onto my tan capris and sandals . . . so it was several seconds before I realized my cell phone was ringing.

  “Oh! My phone!” I snatched it out of my shoulder bag and scurried away from the fountain so I could hear better. “Hello? Hello?”

  I couldn’t tell if the static in my ear was from the phone or the noises all around me. But I finally heard “Gabby? Gabby? Can’t hear you!”

  I stuck a finger in my other ear and hunched over the phone. “Celeste? Is that you? Oh! I’m so glad you called! You got my message?”

  The connection from Alaska was a little erratic, but I caught the drift. “Mother’s with you in Chicago? What did you mean, Philip kicked you out? Gabby! What’s going on?”

  At the sound of my sister’s voice, sudden tears clouded my eyes, and I had to wipe them on my orange T-shirt. I tried to bring my older sister up to date on all that had happened the past month, but it was hard. She kept saying, “What? Slow down . . .” and I had to repeat myself.

  When I finally stopped to gulp a breath, Celeste blistered my ear. “I can’t believe you’ve got Mom in a homeless shelter, Gabby. She’s got a perfectly good home in Minot! You’ve got to take her back there.”

  My hackles rose. “But she can’t stay alone! That’s why I brought her home with me in the first place. She’s had a couple falls—and left the stove on.”

  I could all but hear Big Sister’s practical brain wheels at work. “Well, since Philip’s being a jerk and you don’t have a place to stay right now, why don’t you just go home to Minot with Mom? That way she wouldn’t be alone! Honestly, Gabby!”

  Go home with Mom? That option had never occurred to me. “Can’t do that, Celeste! I’m trying to get my boys back, and I need to be here so I . . . Celeste?” The static went dead. “Celeste? Are you still there?”

  Nothing.

  I closed the phone and stood at the far edge of Buckingham Fountain, feeling as if I’d just been cut loose, adrift in space. Celeste was family. Didn’t she know I needed her right now? But Denali National Forest wasn’t exactly on the cell phone highway.

  If I couldn’t talk to my own sister, who could I talk to?

  Three o’clock came and went as our crew with orange T-shirts drifted to the fountain. “Will we stay to watch the fireworks?” Althea said in her careful English. “That is what you do on Independence Day, yes?”

  “I’m sorry, Althea,” I said. “I think the fireworks were last night.”

  “Yeah, too bad we missed it,” Carolyn offered. “They play music to go along with the show, an’ shine colored lights on the fountain, water going up and down in time to the music . . .”

  Fireworks . . . we’d never missed taking P. J. and Paul to watch the fireworks back in Petersburg. It was practically unpatriotic not to celebrate the Fourth of July in the heart of historical Virginia, and we’d always made it a huge family event—grilling hot dogs and hamburgers over at the Fairbanks’ grandparents’ with the other relatives early in the day, then joining the throngs at Fort Lee for music, food, and the nighttime show. Were the boys doing the same thing with Philip’s parents today?

  Diane shook her big Afro impatiently. “I’m tired. Let’s go.”

  I ignored Diane’s whining. Our people were still straggling in. Next year, I thought. Next year I’d take P. J. and Paul to the Taste of Chicago on July third, and we’d stay till it got dark to watch the fountain dance as the big-city fireworks burst overhead.

  We waited an extra half hour but still only counted fourteen noses. “Who’s missing?” I pulled the list out of my bag. “Anyone seen Chris and Alisha?” Both were newcomers to the shelter. Late twenties or so. Hard faces. I didn’t know their stories.

  Aida Menéndez piped up, “Si. I saw them talking to two men—tough hombres. Gold . . . cómo se dice?” She made necklace motions with her finger.

  “Oh yeah. Loaded with gold jewelry.” Sarge snorted. “You guys go on. I’ll wait around and see what’s going down. But those two know their way around. If they want to come back by curfew, fine. But if they came out here just to pick up some johns . . .” She drew a finger across her neck.

  They’d better come back, or Mabel might dock my pay for their T-shirts. But now I was feeling impatient to get back to the shelter after my aborted call with Celeste. I still had minutes on my phone card. Maybe a land line would work better.

  When we finally dragged ourselves in the front doors of Manna House, Precious McGill was at the front desk, covering for Angela, who had the day off. “You guys still hungry? Estelle left food for ya downstairs.” I practically got run over in the stampede. Sure enough, the kitchen counter on the lower level was covered with a platter of watermelon, skinny slices of leftover apple pie, and a sign that said potato salad was in the fridge. I loaded my own paper plate and dug in.

  Maybe we should have stuck around.

  Celeste’s comment about taking Mom home to Minot bugged me all night. Is that what I should do? On one hand, it made a lot of sense. I could just imagine how crazy it must sound to my sisters that Mom and I were staying in a homeless shelter. And I’d never wanted to come to Chicago in the first place!

  But . . . that was before I got the job at Manna House, which was more than just a job. I really loved my work, felt as if I was doing something important for people who often got ignored. Even more important, my main priority was getting my sons back, and North Dakota seemed light-years away from Virginia. Philip might agree to the boys coming back to Chicago, near both of us, but he’d fight me tooth and nail if I took them to Minot.

  I kicked the sheets off in the dark, stuffy bunk room. Should I pray about it? Something in me resisted. I didn’t really want to ask God what He thought. What if He didn’t agree with me? Besides, God gave me a brain. A mother’s responsibility was to her children first . . . and Mom wasn’t unhappy here. She even seemed to like it. And now we had a possibility to get a real apartment, so I could take care of my boys and my mom. Wasn’t that God at work?

  I pressed the button on my watch to make it glow . . . ten past one. Already Wednesday. I was supposed to have a meeting with Lee Boyer at Legal Aid this morning. I’d call and ask him if I could sign the contract for the apartment today.

  Lucy, however, was all over me the next morning about getting Dandy back to the vet to get his stitches out. “He still ain’t himself,” she growled. “Lookit that; he’s still all stiff. What if them cuts ain’t healed right?”

  “And how are we going to get him there?” I shot back at her. “I don’t have a car—and I can’t afford cab fare these days.”

  Lucy shrugged. “Call that nice cop ’at took Dandy in the first place. He gave you his card, didn’t he?”

  Yeah, right. I was pretty sure Chicago cops didn’t do cab service.

  I called Lee Boyer instead. “Lee, I have a huge favor to ask . . .”

  To my surprise, Lee agreed to use my eleven o’clock appointment and his lunch hour to pick us up at Manna House and take Dandy to the vet. “And could we swing by the apartment you showed me? I’d like to bring my mom, too, see what she thinks. If she likes it, I think I’m ready to sign the rental contract.”

  “Great. I’ll give him a call.”

  Lee showed up in that snazzy Prius of his, and my mom and Lucy climbed into the backseat, with Dandy between them. “Thanks, Lee. I really appreciate this.”

  “Hey, gotta treat my girls right . . . right, Lucy?” He tossed a grin into the back seat, then winked at me behind his wire rims.

  “Humph,” Lucy growled. “I ain’t your girl. An’ Gabby ain’t your girl either. She’s a married woman—even if her husband is a jerk. Humph.”

  My face burned, but Lee just laughed.

  Dandy, as it turned out, was coming along just fine. He only whimpered a little as the stitches came out, then jumped up and licked the vet in the face. The vet laughed. “Not every day I get kissed by a celebrity.” He handed me the bill. “We usually ask for payment in full at the time of service. But you can pay in installments if that’ll help.”

  I looked at the total and winced. “Thanks. I’m going to need it.” I felt a little disgruntled. All that money in the Dandy Fund, and Dandy could sure use some of it. Did I dare ask—

  Lee plucked the bill out of my hand. “Let me take care of this.”

  “What? No, you can’t do that! Give it back.”

  Lee held it out of my reach, dug a credit card out of his wallet, and handed both to the receptionist.

  “Lee,” I hissed on the way back to the car. “You can’t do that.

  You’re my lawyer. I’m sure it’s illegal or something.”

  “Nothing in the rules says your lawyer can’t be your friend.”

  He looked at me sideways, that little shock of hair falling over his forehead. “I want to be your friend, Gabby.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I felt confused. Lee had been more than a lawyer these last couple of weeks. When I talked with Lee, he listened. Made me feel like a real person, with valid concerns and feelings. He’d gone out of his way to go to bat for me.

  Oh God, it feels so good that someone wants to be there for me.

  But I wasn’t ready to give up on my marriage yet, was I? What I really wanted was for Philip and me and the boys to be a family again. All of us. Together. That . . . that madman who’d thrown me out wasn’t the man I’d married. If I didn’t do anything rash, if I gave him some time, Philip would come to his senses, realize he’d made a big mistake, and maybe . . . maybe we could work it out.

 

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