From This Day Forward: Multicultural Romance Read Online Free Page A

ceilings, dangling chandeliers, dark wood, and fine furnishings.  “I could get used to this.”
     
    ***
     
    A little later that evening, the friends were sitting on the back verandah, sipping wine and catching up. 
     
    “Loretta, you’ve done well with Terrell and Brianna.”
     
    Loretta had just finished talking to Velma about her daughter studying business at the local college and taking cosmetology courses on the weekends. Brianna had plans to open a string of beauty salons right in the neighborhood when she graduated.  She’d also told her about Terrell not being that into college.
     
    “It’s good you insisted he at least finish the two years,” Velma chimed in.
     
    “He promised he would, but he said he would likely check into joining the Navy after graduating.”
     
    “You’ve done a good job, Loretta.”
     
    “Thank you, I’ve done my best.”
     
    “You should be proud of yourself.”
     
    “I’m proud of them is what I am,” Loretta said, taking a sip of the red wine out of the tall, square-bottomed wine glass.  “They have never given me any problems, and they have blossomed into fine young adults.”
     
    “Praise God,” Velma said, lifting her glass.
     
    “Amen to that,” Loretta laughed.
     
    “So when are you going to start dating again, Velma?” Loretta asked a little later. “It’s been over four years since, well …” Loretta’s voice trailed off. She didn’t mean to bring up an old hurt that she knew still haunted her friend.
     
    “To be honest, that’s nowhere on my radar. I actually like being by myself.” She did not let her eyes meet Loretta’s.  “I mean, I have a career that I’m crazy about, I have the home of my dreams, I’ve got my companion Xena out there in the yard,” she said referring to her pickup truck, “and my best friend in the whole world just moved here.  I have everything I need,” Velma said, letting her mind drift to a secret she’d been harboring for four years now.
     
    “But don’t you want a husband again, children, grandbabies?”
     
    Velma almost choked on her wine.  “My eggs are too dried up to even think about children, and I’ll settle on being called second nan-na when Brianna and Terrell get married and have some babies.”
     
    “You know what I mean, not children I guess, but don’t you get lonely sometimes, Velma?”
     
    “Sounds more like you’re talking about you than me,” her friend said, peering over her wine glass at her.
     
    “I guess you’re right,” Loretta said. “Since the children left home, it has been too quiet, you know? When I was raising them, all I could think about was the day they’d be grown and independent. And when it came, Velma, I didn’t know what to do with myself.”
     
    “Well you sure as hell figured it out!” her friend said slapping her own knee. “Look at you, you’ve moved all the way cross-country on a whim.”
     
    “I guess I did,” Loretta said, smiling. “But you know it wasn’t on a whim. I’d been thinking about it a long time. And thanks to Uncle Charleston, God rest his soul, it was possible.”
     
    The women chatted more, catching up, before Loretta began telling Velma about the man in the airport.
     
    “Well if he’s as fine as you say he is, I say, throw on a maid’s uniform, drop the drawers, and do some housekeeping, if you know what I mean,” Velma hooped.
     
    “You are a plain mess!” Loretta howled, slapping the air at her friend.
     
    They sat on the porch for a long time, talking. Velma told her friend to just take it easy for as long as she needed to.  She said she understood it would take her some time to adjust to not getting up to go to work every day and not being in the familiar surroundings of her neighborhood in Detroit.
     
    But for Loretta, it was just the opposite. She didn’t miss her old routine -- or Detroit -- one bit. She loved the little quaint village, the small vineyards they’d passed on the way from