The Barkeep Tries Again

Teddy and Allie divorced quietly. They sold their house in the same exclusive neighborhood Antoine and Elizabeth had resided in, moving to a spacious home midway between the haughty part of town that Allie was familiar with and the blight of a neighborhood Antoine had called home. Here there was a mixture, white couples struggling to stay in the middle class, Black couples ambitious enough to escape to the middle class, and couples like Antoine and Allie, that were a mixed bag of each.

Oddly enough, Teddy didn't fight custody, and Allie brought her daughter, Brooke, into this new situation. Vivacious, with honey blonde hair, Brooke was a product of her upbringing. More than a touch of arrogance, she wanted it all -- to be the prom queen, the head cheerleader, the everything, and take her position in society that was hers by right.

Brooke inherited stepsiblings cut from a much different rug. They had had to come to grips with their biological mother being caught in the web of the sex industry. Both Elizabeth and Antoine had agreed she couldn't have any sort of custodial relationship. So Antoine had the unenviable task of raising Aaron, Emily, Katie, and his half-Black daughter, Tanya, as a single parent.

Allie was of course keen enough to recognize the Lancaster (now Jefferson) children as being Elizabeth's. She wasn't particular close to Elizabeth, but she quashed the questions she had over it, given her own relationship tumult. And the two began again as one.