The Morning After

by Kendra Norman-Bellamy, Hank Stewart

Genres: General Fiction; African American Christian; Christian Fiction

Synopsis

It's been a year since the death of Ms. Essie Mae Richardson, the seventy-seven-year-old pillar of the Braxton Parks community. Before her untimely demise, Essie's prayers brought redemption to many of her neighborhood's problems; but now the impact of her death and the unfinished business that it left behind is threatening to unravel all that she prayed so hard for God to mend.

While Colin Stephens still enjoys a blissful marriage to his wife, Angel, unbeknownst to him, she is wrestling with the guilt and regret of never saying goodbye to the woman she loved like a mother. And while their guards are down, a voice from Ms. Essie's past steps in and threatens to steal the security that the Stephenses have taken for granted.

To Jennifer's relief, her fifteen-year-old son, Jerrod, was saved from gang-related activities by Ms. Essie's love and guidance. But now, just when it seems that the teenager is on a winning track, he's blindsided by more trouble than the streets could have ever offered.

Release date: April 1, 2013

Publisher: Urban Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

“Ma, I’m going next door to help Ms. Angel, okay?” he called from the front door of the home that he shared with his mother.

Jerrod turned around when he heard Jennifer step from the kitchen. She used a dish towel to dry her hands and said, “I thought you were gonna watch Austin while I got dinner ready.”

“He don’t need me to watch him no more.” Jerrod pointed to Angel’s sleeping one-year-old toddler while he spoke. “Ms. Angel’s over there by herself and I know she needs some help. I’m done with my homework, so I can go help her pack up some of Ms. Essie’s things.”

“I don’t know, Jerrod.” A look of apprehension settled in on Jennifer’s face. “I think it’s real nice that you want to help, but packing up Ms. Essie’s things could turn out to be a lot harder than you might think. Do you really believe you can handle being in her house again after all this time, and seeing all her stuff get packed away?”

Jerrod tightened his jaws and swallowed. He hadn’t been inside Essie’s house since the wee hours of that morning when they found her there, barely alive. Moments later, she was pronounced dead. That was a year ago. Ever since then, Jerrod had trouble just passing the vacant property where Essie used to live. Going inside hadn’t even been a consideration—until now. This morning, Jerrod was determined to do it. He’d given himself the pep talk last night, telling himself that it was time to man up and stop being a coward. Just the thought of placing all of Essie’s belongings in boxes and putting them away somewhere, never to see them again, was tugging heavily at his heart. But he couldn’t let his mother see the strain.

Jerrod’s claim that his plan was to help Angel was only partially true. In reality, he needed to do it for himself. He hoped that somehow, by helping to pack away the things that belonged to the woman that he’d come to love dearly, it would in some way help him bring closure to the pain of the loss of her, and bring an end to a year of restless sleep. If Angel, a woman who was closer to Essie than anyone else, could gather the courage to go inside Essie’s house and dismantle her things, Jerrod reasoned that he could too. Essie would want him to be strong and do what he needed to do, and for Jerrod, it was important that Essie be proud.

“You ain’t got to worry about me, Ma,” he answered, trying to shrug his shoulders in as carefree a manner as he could muster. “It’s cool. I got this.”

Jennifer smiled, embracing her son, who over the past year had grown to a height that exceeded hers by two inches. “All right, then. When you get over there, let Angel know that her baby is in good hands, and tell her that she and Colin can eat dinner with us if they want to. It’s already late, and I know she won’t feel like cooking. My food won’t be as good as Ms. Essie’s, but it’ll serve the same purpose.”

“Okay.” Jerrod had barely gotten the one-word reply out of his mouth before the front door of his house closed behind him. He’d had to rush out as soon as he could to keep his building emotions hidden from his mother. Hearing Jennifer mention their former neighbor’s cooking seemed to smother Jerrod. He needed to breathe.

After inhaling deeply for the third time and releasing the breath into the comfortably warm spring air, Jerrod wiped a threatening tear from the corner of his left eye and walked down the steps of the front porch. His mother’s home was only a few feet away from Essie’s. As he climbed up the steps that would lead him to his former neighbor’s front door, Jerrod stopped to mentally prepare himself to walk inside. He had gone through a myriad of emotions in the year since he watched the mortuary staff lower Essie’s stunning white marble casket into the ground.

It had been a beautiful funeral despite the sad occasion. Essie didn’t have any living family members, but no one would guess that from the crowd. Never before had Jerrod seen so many people try to fit in one church. Temple of God’s Word was clearly too small to accommodate the demand, but Angel felt that it was the place of worship where Essie would want her service to be held. There were as many people standing on the outside as were sitting on the inside. Old, young, and middle-aged people; black, white, and Asian people; family, friends, and just plain nosey people. A few tears were shed, but most were too busy praising to weep. Even from the inside of the edifice, Jerrod could hear a frequent, “Hallelujah” and an occasional, “Praise our sho’ ’nuff God” from those who could only listen to what was taking place on the inside.

In the early days following her demise, all Jerrod felt was overwhelming sadness. He refused to cry at the funeral, and he dared not fall apart at school. But, at home, it was a different story. Many nights Jennifer sat up with him, and sometimes she cried with him too. Those nights when it was too much for his mom to handle, she called for the assistance of T.K. Donaldson, Jerrod’s track coach, who also happened to be his mother’s steady boyfriend. T.K. had been a big source of support and strength. He had become Jerrod’s hero, of sorts. But as much as Jerrod admired and respected the man that he simply referred to as Coach D, he tried not to get too close. Over the years, he’d seen his mother’s boyfriends come and go, and the last thing he needed was to become too attached to T.K., and then have his heart broken, yet again, by a man whose relationship with Jennifer didn’t work out.

After the devastating sadness eased, Jerrod found himself angry. Not at anyone in particular; just angry with the world. It didn’t seem fair that Essie would be taken away from him at such a crucial time in his life. He needed her, and without her strong hand to set him straight when he found himself making the wrong choices, Jerrod feared that he’d slowly drift back into the old ways that he’d just broken away from shortly before she died.

“The best thing you could ever do to honor Ms. Essie’s memory is to keep your determination to stay out of trouble, and keep your grades up. If you do that, you can always feel a sense of satisfaction because you will know that even from heaven, she’s proudly smiling down on you.”

That was what T.K. told him back then, and that was what Jerrod had been focused on doing. It was important to him to have Essie’s approval . . . even from the grave. Jerrod had promised her that he would continue to respect his mother and do well in school, and somehow, no matter what, he had to keep his word. This school year, his grades were better than they’d ever been. For the first time in his life, he had made honor roll in the first semester. And this term, he’d not once been sent to the office for misbehavior. That was a milestone that even the principal had commended.

“Hey, Jerrod. Are you coming over to help out?”

Angel’s voice broke into his thoughts, and only then did Jerrod notice that he’d just been standing on Essie’s porch, staring at nothing in particular.

“Yeah . . . I mean, yes, ma’am.” As far as Jerrod was concerned, Angel, who was still in her twenties, wasn’t old enough to be categorized as a “ma’am.” But Essie had taught him that it was just proper to show respect when talking to adults. “Ma said I could come over and see if you needed any help.”

“I sure do.” Angel smiled at him, but the whites of her eyes carried a hint of pink. Jerrod wondered if she’d been crying. If so, sadness wasn’t detected in her voice as she added, “I never knew that Ms. Essie had so much stuff until I started trying to get it packed. I hate that Colin couldn’t be off to help me, but you’ll do just fine. Come on in.”

He was a bit fearful at first, but as Jerrod stepped through the open door, he immediately felt at home; just like he did when Essie was there. As he continued to follow Angel, Jerrod couldn’t help but take note of her flattering figure as she strolled ahead of him. When he was first introduced to her, Angel’s belly was swollen with Austin growing on the inside of her. And for a few months following the delivery, she wore oversized clothing to hide her still bloated stomach and expanded hips. Now she had lost all of the post-pregnancy weight, and in Jerrod’s eyes, Angel was as fine as any of the girls at his school who had never even had babies.

A stifled grin made the corners of Jerrod’s lips quiver. No wonder Mr. Colin is always so happy.

“I’ve been working on Ms. Essie’s bedroom, getting some of the clothes and other personal belongings packed,” Angel announced, snapping Jerrod from his mannish deliberations. “There are two boxes in that corner over there. You can start taking the things from the shelves here in the living room and pack them away. The photos can go in one box, and all the other decorative items in the other. If you don’t mind a little extra work, I need you to use pages from this newspaper to wrap each of the pictures before putting them in the box. I don’t want to break any of the frames.”

“A’ight,” Jerrod said, his eyes scanning the shelves that lined the living room walls.

“You think you can handle that? I didn’t give you too much, did I?”

Jerrod accepted the old Sunday edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution from Angel and almost laughed at the unnecessary concern in her eyes. “No, ma’am. It’s all good.”

“Great.” She released a heavy sigh before heading back toward the bedroom. “Call me if you need help or if you have questions about anything.”

The task of packing away all of Essie’s whatnots and pictures took more effort and was more time-consuming than Jerrod first thought it would be. Sometimes it was his own curiosity that slowed his progress. He had seen many of the pictures on the shelves in the times that he had visited Essie’s home, but there were several that he’d never noticed before, and he took the time to admire each one before putting them away. Each framed image seemed to tell its own story of a particular time in the elderly woman’s life.

The photo of a youthful Benjamin and Essie Richardson had always been the centerpiece of the middle shelf. Though time had faded the photo a bit, it was still easy to see that Essie’s soft, beautiful features and his strong, handsome ones made them an attractive couple. The wood framed picture was larger than all of the others, and that alone made it the automatic focal point. Jerrod began carefully wrapping it in sheets of newspaper, and he couldn’t help but smile as he thought of how happy Essie must have been to be back in the arms of the man who had died so many years before her.

The next photograph that caught Jerrod’s attention was one of Essie sitting in her rocking chair on the porch. His heartbeats quickened as he reached for the picture and held it in his hand. This was the way he would always remember her. With the possible exception of the kitchen, the porch seemed to be Essie’s favorite place to be. That was where she was the first time Jerrod had seen her. It apparently brought her great joy to sit and watch the happenings in her community.

Jerrod sighed. He’d give almost anything to see Essie Mae Richardson again. Just to hear her voice, giving him a word of advice, would be a welcome sound. She often visited him in his dreams, but to come into contact with a strong presence of her while he was awake would be a wonderful experience.

Bong!

The sudden sound of the grandfather clock in the corner stunned Jerrod as it resonated throughout the house. The teenager’s hands trembled, and the photo that he had been holding slipped from his grasp and fell to the floor. Had it not been for the plush area rug beneath his feet, the protective glass would have shattered.

“Jerrod, are you okay?”

Spinning around, Jerrod looked at Angel, who stood beside the living room sofa, looking at him with concerned eyes. He felt warm moisture on the sides of his face and realized that tears had begun streaming from his eyes. Using his bare arms, he wiped them away and then kneeled on the floor to pick up the photo and to hide his embarrassment.

“Jerrod?”

“Yes, ma’am, I’m fine,” he said, without looking up. Jerrod hoped that Angel would just go back into the bedroom and continue with whatever it was that she was doing in there, but he heard her footsteps nearing him, and from the corner of his eye, he saw her sit on the La-Z-Boy where Essie often sat and watched The Price Is Right, the only show that she looked at on a daily basis.

“Jerrod.”

It took all of the boy’s strength to steady his trembling lips. Jerrod wasn’t intending to be rude by ignoring Angel’s call, but he knew that if he opened his mouth, he’d lose the battle that he fought to hold back a rush of tears.

Slipping from the chair, Angel sat on the floor next to him. Jerrod’s vision was so blurred by the rising flood that he couldn’t see clearly; but he felt Angel’s hands cover his while he continued to hold securely to Essie’s photograph. Complete silence dominated the room for a moment, and Jerrod wrestled not to even blink, knowing that doing so would be all the push that his awaiting tears needed.

“It’s okay to cry, Jerrod,” Angel whispered. “I do it all the time. I know how hard this is. Why do you think I waited a whole year to pack her things away? It took me that long to be able to come in here and do it; that’s why. Ms. Essie wasn’t a blood relative of mine, but I’d known her all of my life, and she had always been like a grandmother to me. It’s painful for me to come to grips with the fact that she never got to hold Austin, and he will never get the chance to personally know the woman who was more influential in my life than even my own mother.”

Despite his valiant efforts, silent tears slipped from each of Jerrod’s eyes and ran down his cheeks. They met at his chin, and then dropped to the floor.

“None of us were ready for her to die, Jerrod,” Angel continued. “And although every single time I cry, I feel like Ms. Essie is scolding me and telling me not to be sad because she’s in a much better place . . . I still cry.”

“Why didn’t she tell us she was gonna die?” Jerrod’s blurted the words and his voice trembled as he choked back the onset of heavier tears.

Angel squeezed his hand. “She didn’t know she was going to die, Jerrod.”

“Yes, she did.” His reply was accusing. “Ms. Essie knew everything. She knew when people were coming by to visit, she knew when something was on your mind; she knew when it was gonna rain . . . she knew everything, Ms. Angel. She had to know she was gonna die. Why she didn’t tell us?”

After a brief, thoughtful silence, Angel wiped a tear from her own eye, and then replied, “Let’s just say she did know, Jerrod. Had she told us, would it have made a difference? Would you be any less hurt than you are now? Would you have been any more ready for her to die than you were then? I know I wouldn’t have. And not only that, but if Ms. Essie had told me she was going to die, I would’ve been so sad that I probably couldn’t have enjoyed Austin’s birth. You probably would have been so sad that you wouldn’t have been able to eat or sleep.”

“Think about it, Jerrod. If what you say is true, and she really did know that God would come and take her early that Saturday morning, maybe she didn’t tell us because she wanted us to be happy. Maybe Ms. Essie knew that the only way she could die happy was if we were all living happy.”

It made perfect sense, but it didn’t soothe his wounded heart. Jerrod decided that he’d have to deal with the embarrassment of Angel seeing him sob some other time. Conceding to the fact that he was neither man enough nor strong enough to keep his emotions in check any longer, Jerrod brought his hands to his face and wept harder than he had in months. He felt Angel’s arms embrace him and pull him closer to her. He didn’t see her tears, but he knew she was crying too.

Some days, Jerrod could go a full twenty-four hours without being overcome with sadness at the thought that Essie Mae Richardson would never again be a part of his life. Today wasn’t one of those days.

Four hundred eleven days . . . or was it four hundred twelve? She had lost track of the precise number. But whatever the length of time, it had been far longer than she’d expected.

When Elaine had the brief illicit affair that almost ended her then seven-year-old marriage, she knew that regaining Mason’s trust would be an uphill battle. And she recalled very well the day that she told him that she was willing to wait as long as he needed. But Elaine had no idea of the punishment she had signed up for. She was afraid to check, but somehow she had the feeling that she qualified for inclusion in The Guinness Book of World Records for being the woman to go without intimacy for the longest period of time within her marriage. It wasn’t a feat for which she’d want to take credit.

As she sat at her computer in her home office, typing the final lines to the health and fitness article that would appear in an upcoming issue of Ladies Home Journal, Elaine struggled to keep her focus. She loved her husband, and she felt deserving of being punished. But she didn’t know how much more she could handle.

“At least we’re still together,” she mumbled, trying to focus on the positive. Zoning in on the good in every situation and minimizing the bad was something she’d learned from Essie, but sometimes Elaine wondered if remaining in such a strained relationship was a positive thing after all. It was beginning to take its toll.

Knowing that the bulk of the recent stress that their marriage had endured had been caused by her own infidelity, Elaine tried to remain patient while her husband dealt with everything at his own pace. Coming to grips that she had cheated on him had been very difficult for Mason, and Elaine had to admit that in spite of everything, he’d come a long way from where he was at the start of the mayhem. For weeks following the reveal of her adultery, he would barely talk to her, and when he did begin opening the lines of communication, he struggled to look at her when he talked. Now conversation was no longer an issue. They spoke with ease, even sharing laughs on occasion. But that was about all they shared. Elaine never dreamed that a year would pass with Mason still sleeping on the sofa. She was beginning to feel as though she had a housemate; not a husband.

In the early days of the sleeping arrangements that Mason had implemented, adding a mile to her morning runs seemed to relieve some of the frustration of not being able to spend any intimate time with the man she loved. But as those days turned into weeks and the weeks expanded into months, no amount of exercise was satisfying her physical and emotional needs.

“Elaine . . . you here?”

Mason’s voice, calling from somewhere in the living room, took her by surprise. Elaine had been so absorbed in her own thoughts that she hadn’t even heard him come in the front door. She looked at the clock in the lower right hand corner of her computer. He was right on time.

“Yes, I’m here.” As she responded, she slid her rolling desk chair away from the computer and started down the hall to meet him. It was nearing seven o’clock. Her work had kept her so involved that she’d failed to finish preparing dinner. It would only take ten minutes to cook the boilin-bag rice that would serve as a side dish to the peppered steak and gravy she’d cooked earlier.

Elaine came to a stop at the mouth of the hallway and watched Mason struggle to pull his shirt over his head. He always came home from hauling loads, smelling like a mixture of gasoline and sweat. Emerging love handles were evidence of the lack of exercise that his truck driving job allowed. But none of that doused Elaine’s yearning to touch and be touched by him. Their marriage had seen some good days in years past. No one in her entire life, including the chiseled-framed Bermudian that she’d allowed herself to be swept away by, had ever loved her on the same level as Mason. It had been a long time since she’d been with him, but Elaine hadn’t forgotten what it was like.

“Hey.” Mason’s single-word greeting shook Elaine from her mindless gaze.

“Hey,” she replied, embarrassed that he had caught her longing stare. Her face felt flushed. “How was work?”

“Okay. What about you? You done with the story you were talking about last night?”

Elaine walked past him as she responded. “Almost, but not quite. I had to set it aside to meet a deadline on an article I was assigned. I’ll be finished with both before the end of the evening though. Are you about ready to eat? It’ll be a few minutes.”

“No problem. I gotta shower first anyway.”

“Everything will be ready by then.”

Mason went into the bedroom and eased the door shut. The rule was unwritten and unspoken, but Elaine knew that anytime he closed the bedroom door behind him, she wasn’t allowed inside. Most evenings when he returned home from his local hauls, he showered in the guest bathroom down the hall near Elaine’s office, but today he wanted to use his own. The master bath’s stall was more spacious, and unlike in the guest bath, this one’s shower head had massage settings. Why should he have to be the one to get second best? After all, it was Elaine who had messed up everything by inviting another man to enter territory where he had no business.

“Okay, dude, cut it out!” Mason whispered harshly as he rubbed his eyes to try to wipe away the visual that often found its way into his mind. Every time he thought he was over it, mental snapshots resurfaced of Elaine and Danté pawing passionately at one another. For Mason, the thought of it served as a relentless form of torture.

“Listen, man, I know you don’t want to hear this, but maybe it’s time for you to seek psychological help along with spiritual counsel,” T.K. had told him just last Saturday as Mason shared lunch with him and their mutual friend, Colin Stephens.

Ever since the morning after Essie’s death, the three men had bonded. For Mason, the friendship had taken some getting used to, but it was one that he knew he needed. All of his life, he was accustomed to having friends who wasted away every non-working hour of the day, driving fast cars or sitting around playing poker, eating barbecue, and drinking beer. And breaking away from the bad company hadn’t been easy.

Over the last year, Colin’s and T.K.’s more productive lifestyles had been good examples for Mason. The banker and high school coach, respectively, had shown him that having fun didn’t require him to spend large amounts of money that his blue collar job couldn’t afford. And it certainly didn’t call for him to spend hours away from home, leaving his wife to wonder about his whereabouts. But in all of their influence, Colin and T.K. hadn’t convinced him to seek help for his inability to resume a normal marriage. Mason was already shaking his head before Colin could finish the sentence.

“Man, I told you before, that ain’t for me. I ain’t going to no quack. You can forget that, bruh. It just ain’t gonna happen.”

“If you stop seeing them as quacks, then you won’t see it as a bad thing,” T.K. insisted. “There’s nothing wrong with seeing a professional. And if you can find one who is also a minister of God, why wouldn’t you?”

“Forget it, Coach,” Mason said, pausing to take a long sip from his glass of water. “I’m a. . .