Page 77 of When Love Takes Root

“With him?” Maya asked.

Her tone held more curiosity than judgment. The girls looked curious more than anything. Skye looked thrilled by the imagined baby brother. Zuri looked concerned, only because tension made her nervous. Maya looked like she was collecting material for later commentary.

“Yes,” I said.

Zuri’s mouth opened. “Like a date?”

“No.” The answer came too fast.

Too sharp.

Too guilty.

JJ’s smile faded into something gentler. Kayden heard it too. That little crack in my voice. The truth I had tried to outrun and brought into the kitchen on the bottom of my slippers.

I softened my voice. “It wasn’t a date. We were hungry. The shop ran late. We got food.”

JJ watched me the way his father used to. JJ set his glass down. “Mama Cee, nobody’s mad you ate.”

Kayden looked at him. “Speak for yourself.”

“I am, and I’m speaking with sense.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Then stop acting like Mama got caught sneaking in through a window.”

Kayden’s face tightened. “You don’t care?”

“I care that she’s happy.” JJ looked at me then, and the softness in his eyes nearly undid me. “Or trying to be.”

The kitchen went still again, but this time, the stillness had weight instead of shock.

I looked at my oldest son, at the man he was becoming, at the boy still tucked inside him somewhere with his daddy’s laugh and my stubbornness. “I’m good.”

Another lie. I wasn’t good. I was trying to be.

JJ’s brow lifted. “Mama Cee.”

I sighed. “I’m trying to be.”

His mouth curved with approval. “That’s better.”

Kayden picked up his bowl and carried it to the sink harder than necessary. “Just text us next time.”

“I did text.”

“Not the real update.”

My chest tightened.

His words stayed behind after he walked out of the kitchen, dragging his backpack from the chair near the hallway. Not the real update. His words stayed with me. But Kayden wasn’t my confessor. He was my son.

So, I packed lunches. I fixed bows. I signed a field trip form I should’ve signed two days earlier. I told Maya her attitude needed breakfast. I told Skye her shoes were on the wrong feet. I reminded Zuri that lip gloss wasn’t a personality. I kissed every forehead I could reach and accepted Kayden’s cheek when he bent just enough to let me have it, though the stiffness in his shoulders told me he was still standing guard at a door no one had asked him to protect.

By seven thirty, the house emptied in stages until only the echo of them remained.

JJ paused on the porch, keys in hand, and looked back at me. “For real, Mama Cee. Don’t let Kayden make you feel bad for living.”