Rain in the Promised Land

by Vanessa Miller

  “I’m just glad to be on the ground. I’m thinking about renting a car and driving to Dayton rather than getting on this next plane.”

  “That’s an eight hour drive, Aunt Elizabeth. I’m not trying to do that. I need to get home to my girl.”

  Nina rolled her eyes. “Boy, can your mind function to think about anything but Marissa?”

  “Nope. Matter-of-fact, I need to call her. Let me use your phone.”

  Nina shook her head. “I’ve got you to myself for at least another few hours. You can talk to me about your plans for your future. You can talk to Marissa when you get home.”

  Ikee turned to Elizabeth. “Let me borrow your cell, Auntie.”

  “Don’t put me in the middle of this. You better charge your own cell phone or sit down and talk to your mother.”

  They arrived at the terminal. Elizabeth pulled out her cell and turned it back on as she said, “But I do need to call my man and let him know that I’m on my way back.”

  “Nooo!” Nina grabbed the cell from Elizabeth. “I told you I wanted to surprise Isaac. If you call Kenneth, he’s going to know that I’m on my way home too.”

  “They’re probably still at the revival anyway. That’s why y’all need to let me use the phone so I can call my girl,” Ikee told them.

  Nina started to hand Elizabeth her phone, but as it buzzed to life she noticed several calls from Isaac scrolling down the screen. “Why is Isaac blowing up your phone?”

  “I don’t know.” Elizabeth took the phone from Nina. “Let me see if he left a message.”

  Nina took her cell out of her purse and turned it on.

  “He didn’t leave a message,” Elizabeth said, after checking her voicemail messages.

  Nina's phone powered on. She had several calls from Isaac as well, and he had left her numerous messages. She listened to the last message and then got out of her seat. “I’ll be right back,” she told them. “Sounds like something’s up.”

  It was a little loud in the terminal area, so Nina walked over to the narrow hallway by the bathroom and made her call. When Isaac picked up the phone she could hear the stress in his voice. “Baby, what’s wrong? You don’t sound right.”

  “Nina.” There was sorrow in his voice as he said, “I need you home now.”

  She would have tried to be coy and not informed him that she was about to get on her connector except something in his voice told her that he didn’t need games right now. “We left Puerto Rico this morning. We should be home in a few hours.”

  “Thank God.” He sounded relieved.

  “What’s going on, Isaac?”

  “I need you to talk to Elizabeth and Ikee for me…”

  ~~~~

  The flight attendant said, “Welcome to Dayton. Give us just a few more minutes and then we will open the door.”

  “No!” Elizabeth screamed. “I can’t stay in this seat one second longer.” The flight from Puerto Rico to Atlanta had been turbulent, but after Nina told her that Kenneth was unconscious and lying in a hospital bed, all she could think about was the fact that her selfishness had put him there. If she hadn’t left him in Dayton after deciding to take her vacation without him, she and Kenneth would be on the beach right now.

  “Yeah, let us off this plane,” Ikee shouted out to the flight attendant.

  “The hatch is coming down now, just be patient,” the flight attendant told them.

  But Elizabeth started crying. Her tears didn’t let up until they let her off the plane after landing and she was at the hospital, sitting in front of Kenneth’s bed.

  “I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so sorry,” she kept telling him, hoping that he would hear her, wake up, and tell her that he had already forgiven her. The only problem was that Elizabeth didn’t know if she would ever forgive herself.

  She had been selfish, only thinking of herself and her career. She needed Kenneth to wake up so she could listen, really listen, to everything he had to say. “Come on, baby, wake up and talk to me.”

  ~~~~

  Isaac hugged Nina and Ikee. He then took Ikee to the side and said, “Marissa is out of surgery. But I need to tell you something before you go in to see her.”

  “Why did she have surgery, Dad? I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t know if the fall did it or the explosion, but she had some internal bleeding and the doctors had to do a c-section to get the baby out immediately.” Isaac lowered his head for a moment, then he looked his son square in the eye. “The baby didn’t make it.”

  “What?!” Ikee couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I—I have to see her.”

  “Go on in, Son. Just be strong for her, okay?”

  Ikee didn’t know if he could be strong as he saw Marissa lying in the hospital bed, holding her stomach. He sat down next to her bed and laid his head on her shoulder.

  Marissa ran her hand across his head as she told him, “I was praying that you would come to see me.”

  “I’m here, Marissa. I’ll always be here for you.”

  She tried to smile but it got lost on her tear drenched face. “Can you stay here with me tonight.”

  “I’ll ask the nurse to bring in a cot. I won’t leave you. I promise.”

  ~~~~

  Johnny called back and Isaac quickly answered the call.

  “Sorry I had to hang up like that, but we were in the middle of settling down that riot on the east side of town.”

  “So Calvin planned a riot on the east side of town and an explosion on the west side… for what? I just don’t get it.” Isaac didn’t understand why Calvin would cause such destruction. There had to be a reason.

  Johnny said, “We just picked Calvin up. He was in the middle of the biggest drug buy of his criminal career. Too bad it was with an undercover cop.”

  “So, you all knew what he was up to all along?”

  “No, not at all. We would have never stood by and just let him set off a bomb in this city.” Johnny told him, “We knew about the riot, and we had police dispatched for that. But all of it was smoke and mirrors. Calvin wanted the police force so inundated with one crisis after another, so he could flood the city with tons and tons more drugs.”

  “I must be getting old, Son-in-law, because when Calvin first approached me, I never even considered that what his true purpose was.” But it all made sense to Isaac now. Calvin never really wanted them to cancel that revival. He had been fishing for information the whole time and Isaac had played right into his hands.

  “You’re only as old as you feel. And with the way you get around, I don’t see you and Nina in a retirement home any time soon.”

  “Thanks for calling back. Hopefully, you’ll be able to connect Calvin to the explosion. He caused too much destruction today, and he should answer for it.” Calvin’s need for a diversion had caused the death of a child… one that would have been his grandchild once Ikee and Marissa married. So, Isaac was feeling some type of way about that. He wanted justice for that baby. But instead of picking up a gun and going after Calvin himself, Isaac went home and prayed about it.

  Chapter 16

  Huddled in a corner, Elizabeth knees were pulled up to her chest as she cried and prayed and cried some more. Her husband hadn’t woke up yet. The doctors were giving her that look, causing her to believe that they didn’t know what to do either.

  The last time Kenneth had been knocked unconscious and then brought to the hospital was during 9/11. By the time he opened his eyes, Kenneth had no clue who he was nor did he remember his family. Elizabeth had spent years looking for her husband to no avail. When he finally had returned home, they spent another year re-introducing him to his family and friends.

  She couldn’t go through that again. She prayed, “Lord, please let Kenneth be okay. And let him remember me.”

  “Of course I remember you,” a groggy voice said.

  Elizabeth pulled herself off the floor and rushed over to Kenneth’s bed. “Baby, did you say something?”

  �
�Head hurts,” was his only response.

  Elizabeth hit the nurse button. “I’ll get someone in here to check on you. But Kenneth, can I ask you something?”

  He nodded.

  Holding her breath for a second, she exhaled and then asked, “What’s my name?”

  “Stop worrying, I don’t have amnesia, Elizabeth. You are my wife and I am thankful that God brought us together.”

  Elizabeth wrapped her arms around her husband. “I’m so glad that you came back to me. I don’t know what I would have done… if — if.” She couldn’t get the words out.

  Kenneth put a hand to her lips. “I’m not going no where. So just calm down, okay.”

  The nurse came into the room and checked on Kenneth. Once she left, Elizabeth spent the rest of the night by his side, talking to him when he was awake or just watching him sleep. She didn’t mention on word about the reality show, which was no longer important to her. Kenneth was alive. She was number one with him and that was good enough.

  ~~~~

  Marissa lay on her left side, watching Ikee sleep. He was so handsome that she could spend a lifetime watching him and never regret one second of the time spent. But she worried that Ikee would eventually have regrets if she didn’t give him the chance to be all he could be.

  Touching her stomach, Marissa reminded herself once again that the baby was gone. She would grieve the death of her baby for years to come, but Marissa made up her mind right then and there that she would move forward. She had spent the weekend soaking in everything Pastor Isaac said and because of his words, she was no longer afraid to dream.

  Ikee opened his eyes and saw her staring. He asked, “How long have you been awake?”

  “For a little while.”

  “Why didn’t you wake me? I’m here to keep you company. Not to be sleeping while you’re up.”

  “It was fine,” she told him. “I’ve been thinking about a lot of things this morning. I was just waiting on you to wake up so I could tell you about my thoughts.”

  Wiping around the edges of his eyes, Ikee sat up. “I’m all ears. We can talk about whatever you want.”

  “How about college?” she said quickly.

  “What about it?”

  “You got accepted into a couple of colleges, but you just blew them off once we decided we were going to be together.”

  He shrugged. “So.”

  “Don’t you see, Ikee. I’m not having a baby anymore.” She paused for a second as if she had to let those words sink into her heart. “You don’t have to marry me right now.”

  He got off the bed and came closer to her. Putting his hands on the bed rail he said, “I thought you wanted to marry me?”

  “I did… I do… But not now. We’re both too young and you need to go to college.”

  “No,” he told her, “I’m not leaving you.”

  “Yes, you are.” Tears drifted down Marissa’s face. It was hard giving him up, but she knew it was the right thing to do. That saying, ‘if you love someone, set them free. If they comes back to you, they’re yours, was was rambling through her head as she said, “And when you come back, I’m going to finally have something interesting to talk to you about because I’m going to get my GED, and then I’m going to go to college too.”

  “But what about us? We can get married and have a—another baby.” He stumbled over his words, but he wanted her to know that he was still into raising a family with her.

  “Let’s do all of that. Promise me you’ll come back for me after you graduate.”

  “I don’t have to promise, because I’m not leaving.”

  “I won’t marry you unless you leave. You’re smart Ikee. You deserve the chance to see what you can become in this world.”

  “We can become something together.”

  “I’m getting tired, Ikee. I need to go back to sleep. But before I do, promise me that we’ll meet up… have dinner or something after we both graduate from college.”

  He didn’t respond at first.

  “Promise me,” Marissa repeated as tears clouded her eyes even as they closing so she could sleep.

  He wiped the tears from her face and gave his word, “I promise.”

  ~~~~

  As Nina and Isaac lay in bed that morning, Isaac said, “I should have listened to you. So many people were harmed because I refused to cancel that revival.”

  Nina put her finger to Isaac’s lips. “Don’t talk like that. You are doing the will of God and ain’t no shame or blame in that.”

  “I messed up, baby. I played right into Calvin’s hands. I’ve been out of the game so long that I didn’t even recognize the trap that was being laid out for us.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Isaac. You’re not the only one who fell for a trap. I was so afraid that Ikee would get hurt if he helped out in the family business that I tried to escape with him. And he ended up getting hurt anyway. It broke my heart to leave him at that hospital last night. Did you see the look in his eyes?”

  “Marissa is his first love. He’s going to be in pain for a long time behind this. But he’ll eventually get over it.”

  “Will he, Isaac? Will he forgive me? Because if I had let him stay here, Marissa might not have gotten hurt in the first place.”

  Wrapping his arms around his wife, Isaac told her, “Don’t beat yourself up over this. You did what you thought was best. Ikee won’t hold that against you.”

  “I was just wrong on so many levels. I let fear guide me instead of listening to the voice of God, which would have clearly told me to stay right here with you. Come what may, we must do the will of God.”

  “Even if it means getting hurt in the process?”

  Nina nodded. “I may not like it, but even if something happens to one of us, we must still follow Christ.”

  “So does that mean you’ll be with me at the next revival?” He could hardly believe he was asking, especially after he’d barely escaped being blown to bits, but he had to know where Nina’s head was at.

  It only took Nina a moment to answer. “I will be with you.”

  He leaned forward and kissed her, thinking about how good God was. He was able to take care of everything that concerned Isaac, even his wife. “I love you, baby.”

  “I love you more, Isaac Walker. And you can’t do a thing about it.”

  Epilogue

  After two days in the hospital, the doctor cleared Kenneth to fly. Elizabeth took her husband home and never uttered another word to Kenneth about the reality show. She came to understand his concern with how a show like that could affect their relationship. Her new CD was number twelve on the Gospel Music charts. But even if Elizabeth never had another number one hit, she was content with the love that she and Kenneth had.

  Nina was front and center at Isaac’s next revival. She no longer let fear grip her heart because she much preferred to be in the will of God.

  Ikee and Marissa both went off to college. They made plans to have dinner after they graduated. Marissa made the reservations and stayed at the restaurant for two hours waiting on Ikee, but he never showed. Marissa was heartbroken because she had so much to tell Ikee. She prayed that one day she would get the chance to share everything that was in her heart.

  The end…

  But it’s not the end of Ikee and Marissa’s story. If you want to know if these two ever get together, then stay tuned for the final book in the Rain series (Sunshine and Rain) rel. date January 1, 2016

  Coming in January 2016… Sunshine and Rain

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  Books in the RAIN series

  Former Rain (Book 1)

  Abundant Rain (Book 2)

  Latter Rain (Book 3)

  Rain Storm (Book 4)

  Through the Storm (B
ook 5)

  Rain For Christmas (Book 6)

  After the Rain (Book 7)

  Rain in the Promised, Land (Book 8)

  Sunshine and Rain (Book 9) rel. date January 2016