Chapter XVI

Henry's call interrupted our talk, which had apparently lasted the entire afternoon and evening. "George and Martin, you need to come. Jeremi is about to call Mama."

George and I exchanged quick glances and smiles. We wanted to be there for this one. We'd left a standing request with both Pearl and Henry to call us when someone was told about the baby. Surprisingly, we landed at Jeannie's apartment. Jeremi and Jeannie were out in the living room. The girls had already been tucked into their beds. Henry, Pearl, Jack and Sheila waited for us there. We all greeted one another.

"They just had a long conversation and decided that they should tell their families. They plan on keeping the baby and that's the only decision that has really been made," Pearl explained to us. "Jack and Sheila are going to run interference for us." I know I looked perplexed so they explained. "If Jeannie calls someone and they give her a hard time, then Jack will go work on that person to insure against any lasting damage done to the relationship. Likewise, Sheila will run interference for Jeremi."

"Things are about to heat up," George said, rubbing his hands together.

Jeremi was up first. "Let me call Mama." Sheila left in a flash. Jeannie handed him the phone. He dialed slowly. At first he got a wrong number. "Boy, I must be nervous," he told Jeannie. Then he took a sip of his beer and he dialed again.

"Mama? How are you?" There was a long pause; I guess Glory told him quite a bit. "How's Sarah?" There was a short pause and Jeremi laughed. "Really?" He laughed some more.

Jeannie listened intently for Glory's reaction, but Jeremi stalled a bit. So she sat back on the couch and stared impatiently up at the ceiling. After a few minutes of small talk, Jeremi looked back at her and sensed her anxiousness.

He grabbed her hand and took a deep breath. "Mama, I have some news."

Knowing Glory, she got extremely serious and asked, "What kind of news?"

"I'm going to have a baby," Jeremi said.

"WHAT?!" came through loud and clear. It even made Jeannie's head turn.

"I mean, Jeannie and I are. I mean Jeannie is. I mean she's pregnant. We just found out last night," Jeremi stammered, scrambling for the right words. "Mama, are you there? Mama?" There was a pause. "Yeah, I'm sure it's mine." He squeezed Jeannie's hand really tight, when he said that. Jeannie's eyes got really big as she realized what the question must've been.

"Yeah, I know, but we never actually found out if it was my problem or hers. . . . I know it's a shock! Believe me, I know it's a shock!" He looked into Jeannie's eyes when he said that, with a little humor and a little sarcasm.

Jeannie pantomimed sarcastically that it was just a "little" shock. She rested back on the couch.

"We'll know soon enough. She goes to the doctor on Monday." Glory must've asked a million questions when he said "hospital." He kept trying to answer her questions, but she fired them off so fast, it was hard for him to keep up. "Yeah, we-- . . . She, uh-- . . . Of course! . . . I did!. . . Really!"

I could just imagine how fast she was talking. She talked very fast when she was nervous or upset. She must've finally settled down.

"We thought she was having an appendicitis attack, but they did some other tests and that's how we found out. They did this ultra-sound thing. Mama, we saw the baby's heart beating. It was a trip!" His whole tone changed when he said that. He stopped explaining. He sounded awestruck. "I'm sure she'd love to meet you, too, Mama." Jeremi looked at Jeannie when he said that.

"Nod your head, dear," Pearl whispered in her ear, to get her attention.

Jeannie complied with Pearl's request. Her eyes were huge. Jack was sitting on the other side of her. "Wake up!" he said and poked her in her ribs. Jeannie snapped out of it. Then her nodding seemed a much more conscious decision.

"She says she would like to meet you, too, Mama," Jeremi said. "There's plenty of time, we'll figure something out. . . Okay. I love you, too."

He hung up the phone and sat back into the couch beside Jeannie; both of them stared up at the ceiling.

It was fun to be here for this side of the conversation, but I wanted to see Glory's reaction to all of this, so I went home. Glory was at the kitchen table deep in thought. Her tea had spilled on the table in front of her and she was so fixated on Jeremi the tea had escaped her notice. Naomi was there with Glory. Sheila and Grandmama guided Sarah into the kitchen right on cue.

"Who was on the phone?" Sarah asked casually. Poor unsuspecting Sarah was about to be unleashed upon.

Glory shook her head with a pained look on her face. Sarah saw Mama's expression and got very concerned. Sarah grabbed a napkin from the middle of the table and started blotting up Glory's spilled tea.

"Tell me again what your brother told you about the girl he's seeing," Glory requested of Sarah.

"Oh, let's see. She works on computers, lives in a dinky apartment, can sing when she's practiced, has two little girls and," she paused, "that's all I can remember. Why?"

"That was Jeremi," Glory started. "He called to tell me that, ah-- that, um . . ." Sarah stared intently at Glory and waited for the bottom line. "That she's pregnant."

"Lord have mercy!" Sarah sat down hard and it took the breath right out of her.

"He says he is sure it's his."

"But--" Sarah started.

"I know, he said he never for sure got checked. He says he's sure this baby is his."

"This is what you've been praying for," Sheila said to both of them.

Sarah and Glory's eyes met on that thought.

"Do you think--" Sarah began.

"Maybe," Glory said, as she answered the question Sarah avoided actually asking. "I need to call Peter. Maybe he can shed some more light on the situation."

So she did. They talked for a while. Then Glory let Sarah talk. Sarah asked all the same questions Glory did and a couple more. After they hung up with Peter, they stared at each other, still in shock.

"What do you think?" Sarah asked her mother.

"This is what you've been praying for," Sheila repeated.

"I'm glad he's living with Peter, so at least, he can keep an eye on Jeremi for us. Jeremi sounded completely different when he talked about seeing the baby's heartbeat, maybe there is hope there. We'll just have to wait and see." Glory sat back in her chair. "Maybe we have some extra help up there, now." She looked up to Heaven.

"You know he does," Sarah said, she took Glory's hand and patted it, reassuringly.

"Relax, Mama, I'm there for him and I'm here for you two, too," I said and kissed them on their foreheads.

Henry summoned us back to Jeannie's apartment. It was her turn to call her family. She sat there and held the phone and tried to decide who to call. Jack cheered her on and promised to help. Jack explained to me about some of the very recent divorce experiences. Each member of Jeannie's family had reacted so differently to her separation and divorce that she was afraid about how they would react to this news. She decided to put off calling anyone. She figured she'd wait for someone to call her. She would tell them, then rely on the family grapevine to do the rest of the work.

After they heard this plan, Jack and Pearl started to plot and scheme about who they were going to get to call her first. During their conversation, Jack laughed out loud. Pearl knew this meant he knew who he was going to get, and we'd just have to wait for the surprise of it. "I'll be right back," he said and disappeared.

"This should be interesting," Pearl said and shrugged her shoulders.

A couple of minutes later the phone rang, while Jeannie held it on her lap. She jumped a mile. "Hello?" she said very timidly, probably questioning her decision already. "It's Carole's teacher," she whispered to Jeremi while covering the receiver. "Wednesday? Ten o'clock? . . . I think I can swing that. . . . You're welcome." She hung up. She sighed heavily.

"You know you're going to jump like that every time the phone rings, if you let that decision stand," Pearl reminded Jeannie. "You need to call who you want--"

The phone rang again. Jack reappeared with a grin from ear to ear. "Too late!"

Jeannie jumped again, but was more confident as she answered the phone this time. "Hello?"

"Oh, hello." There was a pause. "I've been on your mind?" Jeannie repeated to the caller.

We all looked at Jack for insight into the caller's identity, but he just looked straight back at us with a sly grin. Obviously, we were going to have to glean it out of Jeannie's conversation.

"How've I been on your mind?" Jeannie stalled. . . . "Just staring at a picture of the family, until all you could see was my face? Yeah, that is interesting. . . . Uh, what's new?" Ah, the question of the day. She glanced over at Jeremi, who encouraged her with hand signals. "Well, let's see, Carole lost a tooth last week and Lynne got two more." Her voice cracked a little. . . ."No, nothing's wrong," she said defensively. She took a deep breath. "Okay, here it is. I've been seeing someone. . . . Jeremiah, Jeremi for short. . . . He sings. . . . Yeah, a singer," she said even more defensively. "Serious? Yeah, I guess you could call it serious. . . . A couple of months. . . . It's long enough." Apparently tired of avoiding the topic, she finally gave in to the inevitable and blurted out, "Because I'm pregnant." After an apparent silence, Jeannie said, "Are you still there Bunny Rabbit?"

Pearl, who had listened intently for clues to the caller's identity, exclaimed, "Perfect!" Jack smiled in recognition of his good work. "Bonnie is her niece, she's all grown up now, but Jeannie still calls her Bunny Rabbit . . . long story."

We turned our attention back to Jeannie.

"You're the first one in the family I've told.. . . Secret, right! We just found out last night. . . A couple of weeks. . . Sure, if you want; it'll save me long distance charges. . . I'm fine. Really. . . We'll be fine. . . Okay, call back then. . . Take care, love ya. - Bye."

Jeannie sat quietly after she hung up the phone.

"What?" Jeremi asked anxiously.

"If I had to guess, I'd say that was planned."

"It was planned," Jack gloated.

"Why?" Jeremi asked.

"She's planning on seeing my folks tomorrow for a family birthday party. She said she'd break the news for me. Remind me to unplug my phone tomorrow," Jeannie joked.

"Coward," Jack teased her, as if she could hear him.

"Just kidding," Jeannie said, "kinda..." come out under her breath.

"That went well," Jack told Pearl smugly.

"Ya done good, kid." Pearl kissed him on his forehead.

"My work here is done!" He pulled a pretend cape from behind his back and flew off, imitating a super hero that I guess I'll have to call "Super Angel."

The phone rang again and Jeannie just looked at it. It appeared she was afraid of it or whoever was on the other end of it. Instead of answering it, she unplugged it. Jeremi looked at her, puzzled. "I refuse to talk to anyone else but you right now." Jeremi took that as a wierd signal she wanted to be alone with him, so he came to her and held her. She tried to respond to his affection, but she was fixated on the telephone.

Pearl whispered to her, "Okay, Jeannie, school's in session."

Jeannie and Jeremi spent the rest of the evening together watching a movie on TV, but Jeannie was still completely distracted by the presence of the phone, even though it was unplugged. After the movie, Jeremi decided to leave. Jeannie needed to get to bed, she needed to go to work tomorrow and get the girls off to school.

"When are you going to plug the phone back in, so I can call you?" Jeremi asked.

"Soon," Jeannie assured him. They kissed goodnight and Jeannie closed the door and leaned back on it. She looked exhausted and extremely stressed.

Pearl walked over to her and seemed to help her down the hall, sounding like a mother more than an angel. "Let's get you to bed now, you need your rest." Jeannie looked over at this evening's nemesis. "Relax about the phone, you'll plug it in in the middle of the night, like always. Let's go to bed now." Jeannie went in to brush her teeth. There were several quotes pasted up in the bathroom, same as the rest of her house. Pearl picked one out for her to read before bed. Pearl shined her angel light on the quote that said, "You can only judge a man once you've walked a mile in his shoes." I could tell Jeannie saw it and read it, but its significance to her situation escaped her at this moment, but Pearl had planted the seed.

George and I stayed to be sure that Jeannie was tucked into bed safely. We left as Pearl laid down beside her in the bed. Pearl stroked her hair and reiterated the lessons Jeannie needed to learn through this experience.

I wanted a quiet night myself. It'd been a big day. George said he'd meet me in the morning back at Jeannie's. I went to see Glory. She was also already in bed, but wide awake. The TV was on, but I could tell her thoughts were a million miles away from what was showing.

Naomi greeted me with a smile. "Will you stay?" she asked. I nodded. "Call me if you need me." I promised and she was off.

I sat up in the bed right alongside my Glory, in my spot. She rearranged herself a little, like she would have if I had been alive and I'd just gotten into bed with her. She reached over, as if to hold my hand like she used to do, then looked over and suddenly felt foolish.

"I'm right here. I know you can feel me close to you. See with your heart, Glory, feel how close I am and you'll see me right here with you." She ended up patting the bedspread right where my hand was.

"I miss you, Martin," she said aloud.

"I'm right here with you, Mama." I decided to change the subject. "I know you're thinking about Jeremi. I know you're wondering about Jeannie." Glory turned her eyes to Heaven, shook her head and heaved a sigh. "See, I knew you were. You're probably wondering if Jeannie is a good or bad influence in his life. You're worried about his drinking. I am, too, but Jeremi has an amazing team of angels in his corner. We will make this right. Just keep praying for us."

Glory closed her eyes and clasped her hands and prayed for Jeremi and Jeannie. She prayed that I would be close by when they needed me. I prayed that she would be blessed with peace and that my presence here would comfort her and that she would have a restful night.

Right after she prayed, she turned out the light, slid down in the bed, acted like she was watching TV for a few moments and fell fast asleep. I stayed and watched over her and Sarah for the rest of the night.