Page 203 of When Love Takes Root

Maya stood and walked toward the tree. She touched one of the small leaves with the tip of her finger, then pulled her hand back like the tree had spoken too gently for her to keep touching it. “Can we come here on his birthday?”

Josiah looked at me.

I could barely speak, so I nodded.

“Yes. Whenever y’all want.”

Zuri sniffled. “Can we bring flowers?”

“Yes.”

Skye wiped her nose with her sleeve before I could stop her. “Can we bring snacks?”

“Lord have mercy,” JJ muttered.

Josiah smiled. “Maybe not on the stone, baby girl. But we can have a picnic nearby.”

Kayden stared at the plaque. His face was wet, open, and younger than he’d allowed himself to look in two years. The hardness he wore so often had slipped off his shoulders and pooled somewhere near his feet, leaving my boy standing there with grief in his eyes and a tremble in his mouth.

He turned to Josiah. “Thank you.”

Josiah’s jaw flexed once. “You’re welcome.”

Then Kayden hugged him.

Not fast.

Not easily.

He stepped forward like every inch cost him pride, guilt, and fear. His arms lifted, hesitated, then closed around Josiah with the uncertainty of a boy who hadn’t decided whether he was allowed to need another man and the desperation of one who already did. Josiah held him with one hand at the back of his head and the other across his shoulders, his chin lowered, his eyes closed, his whole posture understanding the assignment wasn’t replacement.

It was covering.

JJ came next.

He didn’t say anything at first. He just shook Josiah’s hand, pulled him into a hug, and held on longer than either of them expected. JJ’s jaw clenched over Josiah’s shoulder, and his eyes squeezed shut like he was trying to keep the last two years from spilling out in public. When he stepped back, his eyes were red.

“You honored him.”

Josiah nodded. “That mattered to me.”

“It matters to us.”

Maya started crying harder. Zuri joined. Skye asked if group hugs were mandatory or optional, then shoved herself into the middle before anyone answered. For a few seconds, my babies clung to one another and to Josiah beneath that young live oak, and I stood there, watching a man take their father’s memory and plant it instead of stepping over it.

Something inside me rooted beside him.

I looked at the tree and thought about Jamal. His laugh. His hands. His voice calling the children from the backyard. The way he used to say love didn’t stop being love just because life changed the assignment. My fingers found the charm bracelet at my wrist, and I rolled the tiny charm between my thumb and forefinger until the edge pressed into my skin.

Then I looked at Josiah.

He was crying too.

Not loudly. Not for attention. He stood there with tears on his face, one arm around Skye, one hand resting on Kayden’s shoulder, letting my family’s grief touch him without making it about him.

I stepped closer and took his hand.

His fingers closed around mine.