Bittersweet Love by Rochelle Alers

Author:Rochelle Alers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kimani Press
Published: 2009-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

The jet landed on a private runway at Philadelphia International and Griffin rang Belinda’s cell phone. Again it went to voice mail. He stopped in a terminal long enough to watch a reporter on CNN recap the events of the school shooting and standoff that lasted less than two hours. A police spokesperson reported they had taken one suspect into custody and details of the incident would be made public at a city hall press conference later that evening. Classes were canceled for the next two days and counselors would be available for students, faculty and staff.

He called Roberta again, who told him that Belinda stopped by to prove she was okay.

“Where is she now?”

“Home. I tried to get her to stay, but she said she needed to be alone.”

“That’s what she doesn’t need,” he argued.

“I agree, Griffin. Perhaps she’ll listen to you.”

He smiled for the first time in hours. “I’ll take care of her.”

There was a noticeable pause. “I know you will.”

Griffin flagged down a taxi and gave him Belinda’s address. He wasn’t convinced that she was all right until he saw her for himself. The driver pulled away from the curbside as if he were taking a road test.

Griffin tapped the Plexiglas partition. “Hey, my man, can’t you drive any faster?”

The cabbie glanced over his shoulder. “I take it you’re in a hurry?”

Griffin flashed a supercilious grin. “Yes, I am.” The taxi driver maneuvered around a slow-moving van, accelerated and took the road leading out of the airport. Pressing his back against the worn seat, Griffin closed his eyes. “Thanks.”

Why, he asked himself, did it have to take a life-and-death situation for him to open his eyes? His relationship with Belinda had been rocky at first until they realized fighting each other was not healthy for their nieces.

He would never replace Grant as their father no matter how hard he tried. But, on the other hand, Belinda had slipped into her role as mother as if she were born to it. Perhaps it had something to do with her being a teacher. She understood children needed and wanted boundaries if they were to feel secure. Sabrina and Layla were given a list of chores they had to fulfill and it was on a rare occasion that a task went undone.

Griffin mentally rehearsed all the things he wanted to say to Belinda but when the taxi maneuvered into the driveway leading to her house they were forgotten when he saw her Volvo parked behind his Lexus.

He felt like a mechanical windup toy when he paid the driver and gathered his bags and mounted the porch steps. Lengthening afternoon shadows shaded a portion of the porch where Belinda liked to sit out in the evening to watch the sun set. She claimed it was her favorite time of the day—the period between dusk and sunset when the world seemed to settle down for the night. It was only when he’d joined her one night that he felt what she felt—a calming peace where poverty, hunger and disease, for a brief nanosecond, did not exist.

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