Page 63 of When Love Takes Root

“I did something similar after Pops died. Everybody in the house started reaching for a job grief hadn’t assigned them, trying to make it easier on everyone else,” I stated, reminiscing.

Celeste’s smile faded, but she didn’t look away.

I hadn’t planned to say that much. Work usually kept my mouth where it belonged. But her eyes stayed on mine, listening.

“I started checking locks, taking out trash before Mama asked, fixing things that weren’t broken. I thought if I stayed useful enough, maybe the house wouldn’t feel what it lost.”

Her fingers loosened around the notebook.

I kept my voice low. “Took me a while to understand a child can help carry a house without trying to replace the person who’s gone.”

Her throat moved. She looked toward the front windows, then back at me.

“Yes,” she whispered. “That’s exactly what I’m trying to teach him.”

The salon seemed to fade around us. Celeste’s eyes stayed on mine, glossy but steady.

Don’t reach for what she hasn’t offered.

I stepped back first. Not because I didn’t feel it. Because I did.

“We’ll get started,” I said.

She blinked like she’d been pulled back into the room. “Okay.”

Work kept me honest.

For the next hour, we opened what needed opening, labeled circuits, removed the damaged outlet, and confirmed what I suspected. Loose neutral. Heat damage. An overloaded run feeding equipment it never should’ve carried. Somebody had made the old setup function, but functioning and safe weren’t the same thing.

Bad electrical work wasn’t just lazy. It was disrespectful. It gambled with people who didn’t know they were at the table. Every client who sat beneath a dryer in the back row had trusted the building to hold up its end of the bargain. Whoever patched this wiring together had failed them.

Celeste stayed near the front with her first client while Starr got settled. The shop woke up around us, music drifting through the speakers, coffee filling the air, and combs clicking against counters beneath the sound of my tools.

I watched Celeste work without making it obvious.

She was good. She remembered a client’s tender spot near the crown, another woman’s daughter’s recital, and whose mother was in the hospital. She carried those details as naturally as she parted hair.

When I glanced toward the front, I found her eyes already on me in the mirror. She held my gaze through the reflection for one beat before lowering hers to the comb in her hand.

Juice walked past with a toolbox. “Mirror ministry.”

“Work.”

“I am. Spiritually and professionally.”

“Juice.”

He kept walking, smiling like an idiot.

By late morning, I understood the shop better. Celestial Crowns wasn’t just where women came to get their hair done. They walked in carrying work, stress, family burdens, and jokes too loud for polite company. Celeste offered advice when invited, silence when needed, and a final look in the mirror that made women taller before they left.

No wonder losing part of the shop hurt her.

A few hours later, I walked to the front to update her. She was finishing a loc style, her hands moving with a precise rhythm I could appreciate. I waited until she pinned the last gold cuff and stepped back.

“There,” she said. “Turn for me.”

The client looked into the mirror and covered her mouth. “Celeste.”