After the End by Brenda Barrett

Author:Brenda Barrett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: interracial romance, african american romance, caribbean romance, womens fiction romance, jamaican romance, bwwm clean romance, mutliracial romance
Publisher: Brenda Barrett

Scores of community people lined the road when the car turned into the housing scheme. People were waving and excited. When they alighted from the car they were almost bomb-rushed with exuberant neighbors and friends who wanted to say hello.

Isaiah nodded and smiled and greeted all of them and when he reached the gate he saw his mother and his siblings standing there. Dan was almost unrecognizable. He was so tall and muscular looking, unlike the skinny little boy he left behind. His mother looked the same, though a little younger; it was as if she was aging backward—still big bodied and shapely. Her face was still round and unlined but her hair was in a bright red style. It must be the hairstyle that made her appear so youthful. She was crying big, gulping tears when she hugged him; none of his siblings wanted to let him go.

"Where's Colleen?" he asked after a while, anxiously looking around.

"I think she is in the States," Dan said, "New York. She doesn't live here anymore."

Isaiah gritted his teeth in pain as if delivered a physical blow. He repeated Dan's last statement just to make sure. "She doesn't live here?"

"No." Miss Lou pulled him through to the gate and locked it. Everybody was trying to avoid looking at him directly after the question.

He was almost afraid to ask why.

"Come on inside," Miss Lou said, her eyes shadowing with sorrow for him. "We are so happy to see you. I mean, praise the Lord. Only God could have done this. It is a miracle. Thank you, Jesus."

Isaiah nodded impatiently. His gratitude to God was overshadowed by his impatience to know why Colleen was not around. "Tell me about Colleen." His head was throbbing like it was playing little staccato notes, as if there was a keyboard up there.

Miss Lou put her arms around him. "Son, Colleen has married again."

"No." Isaiah shook his head, trying to clear it. "No."

"She was the only one who still actively mourned you after five years. I mean, everybody accepted that you were gone, but not Colleen," Miss Lou said, a pained sound to her voice, "and we all sort of pushed her to move on and she finally did…just three months ago she got married."

Isaiah felt a trembling in his legs as he walked up the steps to the veranda. "Who is she married to?" He could barely force his voice to ask the question. He sat down on one of the veranda chairs. It was new, he observed in a raw sort of daze. He slowly registered that the house was freshly painted. And he waited while he made all of those observations to hear who his mother would say.

Was it Olaf? He had had a crush on Colleen. He ran a bar and go-go club in the town. Was it Leroy? He was always sending Colleen small presents from his farm up in the hills.

"Enrique Lopez," Miss Lou said.

Isaiah hung his head. Rich. Powerful. The Lopezes were in a totally different class from the Reids.

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