Tears from the River of Love: A Novel

By Lou DeCaro

This is the author’s twentieth novel. It’s a poignant story about the power of love. Tears from the River of Love will capture the reader’s attention from the very first page.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 29, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984563736

Lou DeCaro

Lou DeCaro is the author of In The Dim Light Of The Day (Xlibris, November 2012), Marshmallow Dreams And Bitter Tangerines (Xlibris, October 2013), Anthony (Xlibris. January 2014), The Blind Eye of Love (Xlibris, October 2014), Once A Widow, Ever A Wife (Xlibris, January 2015), The Champion of Love (Xlibris, April 2015), Forever and a Day (Xlibris, August 2015), The Rose of Cuba (Xlibris, November 2015), The Writer of Lies (Xlibris}, January 2016), The Lonely and the Disabled (Xlibris, March 2016), Like Father, Like Son (Xlibris, July 2016), Maria (Xlibris, October 2016), The Pharaoh Club (Xlibris, January 2017), The Love Armada (Xlibris, May2017), Infirmed (Xlibris, October 2017), The Anger of Love (Xlibris, January 2018), A Moment in Time (Xlibris, March 2018), Johnny Reb's (Xlibris, May 2018), Jar of Broken Hearts (Xlibris, September 2018),Tears from the River of Love (Xlibris, September 2018),and False Love (Xlibris, June 2019).

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

B ILLY MET JILL right after he finalized his divorce with his wife. She was at the beach reading a dime-store novel when he walked over to her and said hello. In the coming weeks, Jill became quite fond of Billy. She wanted to make the friendship more formal. Billy, on the other hand, wanted to keep things simple. The last thing he wanted to do was get married.

At first, Billy and Jill were very compatible. They went to the beach a couple of times a week. They also went to the movies. Billy was a real movie fan. Despite the long distance that separated them, Billy did his best to visit Jill and spend a lot of time with her. But his last visit with Jill left Billy doubting her integrity. On the evening Billy arrived from New York, Jill received a phone call from another man. Apparently, this man didn’t know Billy was at Jill’s house. Jill told him not to worry about it. When she finally hung up, she had a very guilty look on her face, and hid the cell phone from Billy.

But that wasn’t the last time she communicated with her secret admirer while Billy was with her. One night, Billy stepped outside to smoke a cigarette. Just as he finished his cigarette, Billy noticed Jill was composing a text message. So, the next night he went outside again to smoke a cigarette. Only this time he walked up to the glass sliding door to get a closer look at what she was writing. He was able to look over her shoulder and read what she was typing because the chair she was sitting in was up against the glass sliding door. Billy was able to read every word she wrote.

Billy couldn’t believe Jill had another man in her life. He thought about confronting Jill, but decided not to until he had more information. Yet everything seemed to point in that direction. All Billy had to do was leave Jill for a moment. She always had her cell phone nearby, and would text the guy as soon as she was alone. Several times she wouldn’t be done by the time Billy came back. He could tell something was up by the guilty look on her face. She would always put the cell phone face-down when Billy came back into the room.

When it came time for Billy to leave, Jill drove Billy to the airport. After she dropped him off, Jill drove her car down to the end of the drop-off zone. Billy decided to have a cigarette before going inside the terminal. Just as he was about to go inside, he noticed Jill was still in her car. She was speaking to someone.

On his flight back to New York, Billy thought matters over. He had just bought a ticket for Jill to come to New York City during the Christmas season. He also bought two tickets to the Radio City Music Hall’s Christmas Spectacular. But now he was no longer interested in having Jill visit him, or going with her to the show. Like a number of other women in the past, Jill had betrayed Billy.

CHAPTER 2

B ILLY LIVED IN New York six years ago. After three years in the Upper East Side, Billy bought a house in Florida. He stayed in Florida for three years, then he moved back to the same apartment building in August. Billy never saw Jill again. His decision not to see her anymore was based on his belief he could never trust her. Billy was never fond of long distance relationships anyway. The thought that Jill was with another man while he was a thousand miles away was too much for Billy to handle.

Billy felt it was time he found himself. Tired of others telling him what to do, Billy followed his instincts and began to base his decisions on doing what was best for him. He believed the way he could find his true identity was to set out on his own and experience as much as he could by himself. His plan was to spend time in places he had never been to before. He would meet as many people as he could, and learn as much as possible from them. The hardest thing he would have to do was avoid negative people. Billy had a heart of gold, and all of his friends knew it. They never hesitated to take advantage of his generosity. Billy had to make sure he didn’t allow that to ever happen again.

A couple of days passed. No one saw Billy. All of his friends had no clue where he was. Some people said he went to see Jill. But in reality, he was home. Billy didn’t answer any calls. He decided to do his shopping in places none of his friends would expect him to be. One place he enjoyed going to was Spanish Harlem. All he had to do was take the M103 bus to 116th Street. There were quite a few discount stores along this street. In fact, Billy’s father was born in one of the many brownstone houses between Lexington and Park Avenues. Just as Billy was about to board the bus on 3rd Avenue, a blind man slowly approached the front door. Billy was a saint. He took the blind man by the arm and helped him board the bus. This simple act of kindness was typical of Billy. He never hesitated to help someone in need.

One of the nicest things he saw that day was a group of young schoolchildren being led into Central Park. The sound of their laughter brought tears of joy to Billy’s eyes. Billy was also moved by a sidewalk sweeper who went about his work oblivious to the sea of humanity around him. The street cleaner was like a ballet dancer performing on a stage to the rhythms of the street.

CHAPTER 3

B ILLY WAS HUNGRY, so he decided to walk into a local lunch counter to get something to eat. It was a very popular restaurant that was always full of local customers. Billy took a seat at the counter and wound up ordering beef stew. It was absolutely delicious.

After he finished his meal, he decided to call it day and walked across the street to catch the next bus home. While he was waiting for the light to change, a white pigeon landed in the middle of Lexington Avenue. It wound up going under a New York City Bus. Women started screaming at the bus driver not to move the bus. At that very moment, Billy crawled under the bus and grabbed the pigeon. Apparently, it had a broken right wing. Billy didn’t know what to do with the bird. If he left it alone, it would most likely die. A woman standing near Billy suggested that he take the wounded bird to the East Side Animal Rescue Center located on 135th Street. This was a good idea. Unfortunately, Billy had Parkinson’s disease. He was only able to walk only a couple of blocks at a time. The Rescue Center was nineteen blocks away.

Just when the situation appeared hopeless, Billy saw a New York City policeman in a patrol car one block away. As Billy approached the patrol car, Police Officer John Passarella came out of the patrol car to meet Billy. Billy told Officer Passarella what happened, and asked him if it would be possible to bring him and the wounded pigeon up to the East Side Animal Rescue Center. At first Officer Passarella said he couldn’t, but after he consulted with his partner, Police Officer Dimitri Kalinin, the officers decided to give Billy and the bird a ride.

On the way there, Billy told the officers either way he could have been found guilty of cruelty to animals. Specifically, it would have been cruel not to do anything, and it would have been just