Page 182 of When Love Takes Root

I missed her.

Not the easier version. I missed Celeste with her grief, her children, her walls, her smart mouth, her soft eyes, and her refusal to let anybody carry her while she carried everybody else. I missed the woman who told her babies they could never be too much and then stood on a patio, trying to exile her own heart for needing room.

Wanting her didn’t give me permission to press my fingerprints into places fear was guarding.

So I left with open hands, and every step felt like obedience dragging grief over gravel.

I got out and walked up the path before I talked myself into driving away. Mama’s porch smelled like rosemary, lemon oil, and Sunday food. Grief could survive a lot, but it struggled against a house where greens simmered and love seasoned the air.

I knocked once, then opened the door. “Mama?”

“In here.”

Her voice had the lift mothers used when they already knew something was wrong but wanted you to enter the truth on your own feet.

Uncle Zeke sat at the table with tea in front of him, his salt-and-pepper beard trimmed close, his shoulders filling out the chair like authority had raised him personally. Aunt Hilary stood at the stove beside my mama, laughing under her breath. Mama turned when I walked in, wiping her hands on a towel.

Yolanda Brooks didn’t need interrogation lights.

She had eyes.

The towel stilled in her hands. Her gaze traveled over my face, paused at whatever my mouth failed to hide, and softened around the edges. She crossed the kitchen and touched my cheek with the back of her fingers. My composure recognized home before my pride could stop it.

“What happened, baby?”

I looked at the floor.

That was my first mistake.

Mama’s hand dropped. “Josiah.”

Uncle Zeke leaned forward, forearms on the table. “Everything good, Neph? You walked in looking like somebody repoed ya peace.”

Aunt Hilary turned the burner lower without taking her eyes off me.

I exhaled, slow and heavy. “It’s Celeste.”

Nobody crowded me with questions. They made space for truth to sit down.

Mama nodded toward the back door. “Come sit with me.”

We stepped onto the patio, but Uncle Zeke and Aunt Hilary followed because privacy in my family had always been more of a suggestion than a structure. Mama settled across from me. Uncle Zeke leaned against the rail. Aunt Hilary sat beside Mama with concern resting in her eyes without forcing itself into speech.

I told them everything.

Not every word, but enough. Dinner. Kayden. Jamal’s chair. Maya’s outlets. Celeste apologizing on the patio like my dignity broke in her dining room. Her saying she couldn’t do us. Me asking what I did to make her feel unsafe. Her having no answer. Me leaving because she asked.

By the time I finished, Mama had one hand pressed against her chest.

Uncle Zeke’s jaw worked once.

Aunt Hilary blinked hard and looked toward the yard.

Mama spoke first. “You love her.”

It wasn’t a question.

I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, and rubbed both hands over my face. “I do. I didn’t plan on it moving like this. I knew she was grieving. I knew her babies were grieving. I knew walking toward her meant walking toward a house where love already buried a husband and father. I wasn’t naive about that.”