9. Celeste #2
I wished my heart understood resurrection as easily as my garden did.
Inside, the kitchen waited with crumbs on the island, syrup on Skye’s chair, and the ghost of questions I hadn’t answered honestly.
I rinsed bowls in warm water and stared at the ring on my finger until the diamond blurred.
I still wore it some days. Not every day.
Not with the same ache. But that morning, I had put it on without thinking, and now it gleamed beneath the faucet like a witness.
Jamal.
My throat tightened around his name.
I could still see him at this island, leaning on one elbow with coffee in his hand, watching me run the morning like a military operation wrapped in hairbows and waffles. He’d smile while I fussed, then catch me by the waist when I moved past him too fast.
“Baby, breathe,” he would say.
And I’d roll my eyes because, back then, breathing had seemed automatic.
Now it took discipline.
I turned off the water and pressed my damp hands against the edge of the sink.
Last night hadn’t felt wrong while I was living it.
That was the part that scared me. Sitting across from Josiah had felt easy in places I had expected to feel locked.
His laughter hadn’t erased Jamal’s. His attention hadn’t insulted my memories.
His voice had made room for the woman I was now—not only the wife I had been before grief redrew me.
But ease could become dangerous if a woman mistook comfort for readiness.
What if I was lonely and calling it discernment?
What if I liked being seen because motherhood and widowhood had made me useful before they made me desired?
What if Josiah’s intentionality felt beautiful because I had been standing in absence so long that any warmth would look like sunrise?
What if Kayden’s fear wasn’t only fear but warning?
What if my son saw something I didn’t because he still watched the world from the wound his father left behind?
What if I wasn’t ready?
That thought bent me nearly in half.
I gripped the counter and lowered my head. “Lord, I don’t know what I’m doing.”
The house offered no answer. Just the tick of the kitchen clock, the hum of the refrigerator, the faraway bark of somebody’s dog, and my own breathing trying to find a rhythm.
I got dressed because service had always given my grief somewhere useful to put its hands.
Every other Friday, I volunteered at Rosehaven Senior Living, a nursing home tucked behind the medical district on the east side of Self Ridge.
I started going a few months after Jamal died, when the silence in my house became too heavy.
Rosehaven gave me elders who flirted, fussed, prayed, cheated at cards, and called me baby in a way that stitched something tender back into me.
By nine fifteen, I walked through the front doors, carrying a tote filled with Uno cards, sugar-free peppermints, lavender lotion, scalp oil, a rattail comb, satin scrunchies, soft-bristle brushes, and the good pens Mrs. Alberta kept stealing from me while insisting theft was impossible because she was sanctified.
The lobby smelled like lemon polish, coffee, and lavender room spray. Somewhere down the hall, a television preacher declared victory over somebody’s situation, while a nurse laughed at the front desk.
“Morning, Ms. Coleman,” Tasha, the activities coordinator, called from behind the desk.
“Morning, baby.”
“You brought Uno?”
“I brought Uno, scalp oil, and my patience, but the patience is on a timer.”
She laughed. “Mrs. Alberta asked about you twice.”
“She asked about me or my peppermints?”
“Both, but the peppermints had priority.”
“That sounds like Alberta.”
I signed in, clipped on my visitor badge, and started toward the activity room.
Then I saw him.
Josiah stood near the far window with Juice beside him and an elderly man seated in a wheelchair between them.
His skin was deep brown and weathered, his hair silver and close-cropped, his hands rested beneath a blanket across his lap.
Even from across the room, I could tell he belonged to Josiah. It was in the posture and the presence.
Josiah crouched beside the wheelchair, one knee nearly touching the floor, his broad shoulders bent in reverence.
Juice stood on the other side, animated as always, holding a paper cup and talking with both hands.
The old man watched him with dry amusement, then lifted two fingers and said something that made Josiah throw his head back and laugh.
The sound moved through the lobby and reached me before I could prepare for it.
Lord.
I stopped near the doorway to the activity room, my tote strap tight against my shoulder.
I had seen Josiah at my shop, in work mode, careful with tools and words.
I had seen him across a dinner table, focused enough to make a woman forget how to sip a margarita.
But seeing him here, lowered beside an elder, adjusting the blanket over the old man’s knees with hands that could pull wire through a wall and still fold fabric with tenderness, did something different to me.
Not attraction alone.
Recognition.
A man revealed himself by how he handled people who couldn’t offer him anything except history. He listened more than he spoke, received every correction with respect, and treated the older man’s touch like an honor instead of a burden.
Juice said something else, and the old man swatted at him with the back of his hand.
Josiah laughed again, lower this time, then leaned closer while the older man spoke near his ear.
I couldn’t hear the words, but I saw what they did.
Josiah’s face shifted. The humor moved aside, and something solemn took its place.
He nodded once, slow and respectful, then covered the old man’s hand with his own.
My chest pulled tight.
“Ms. Celeste?” I turned too fast. Tasha stood beside me, looking between my face and the lobby with a smile she had no business having. “You okay?”
“Yes.” I adjusted my tote. “Absolutely.”
Her smile widened. “You sure?”
“I’m at a nursing home with Uno cards and contraband peppermints. I’m doing the Lord’s work.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Tasha.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You said plenty with your eyebrows.”
She laughed and pointed toward the activity room. “Mrs. Alberta is waiting on her scalp and her rematch.”
I walked in before my face told on me any worse.
The activity room held its usual Friday congregation.
Mrs. Alberta sat at the round table closest to the window in a lavender cardigan, pearls, and an expression that suggested she had already judged my lateness and planned to announce the verdict after chapel.
Mr. Clarence sat across from her, wearing a Veterans cap and shuffling cards with the confidence of a man who had cheated in three wars and at least two marriages.
Ms. Ruthie, tiny and sharp-eyed, had a cup of tea in front of her and a tissue tucked beneath her watchband.
Mr. Solomon slept in his recliner near the wall, though he would later swear he had only been resting his eyes and monitoring the room spiritually.
“There she go,” Mrs. Alberta announced. “Late and pretty.”
I kissed her cheek. “Good morning to you too.”
“You brought my peppermints?”
“I brought peppermints for everybody.”
“I’m not everybody.”
Mr. Clarence slapped the table. “That’s the problem with church women. Always thinking they got assigned seating in Heaven and priority over candy.”
Mrs. Alberta narrowed her eyes. “Clarence, you better hope Heaven has a back door.”
I laughed and set my tote on the chair beside her. “Y’all starting early today.”
“We old,” Ms. Ruthie said. “We don’t buy green bananas or waste good insults.”
I pulled out a towel, the oil, and my comb. “All right, Alberta. You want your scalp done before Uno or after?”
“Before,” she said, already sitting taller. “I need to be anointed before I deal with Clarence’s foolishness.”
“Baby, that’s scalp oil, not the blood of Jesus.”
“It can be both if you pray right.”
I laughed, draped the towel across her shoulders, and warmed a little oil between my palms. I worked oil gently into her thin, silver hair until her shoulders finally relaxed.
Mrs. Alberta’s eyes closed.
The room softened around us.
There was something holy about caring for a head.
I worked my fingers along Mrs. Alberta’s scalp, gentle around the tender spots, careful where her skin dipped near the temples. “You been scratching again?”
She opened one eye. “Don’t start fussing.”
“I’m asking.”
“You ask like a woman getting ready to fuss.”
“Because I see flakes, and I know you know where that moisturizing cream is.”
Mr. Clarence grunted. “She don’t listen.”
Mrs. Alberta’s eyes opened all the way. “Clarence, your hairline been running from your forehead since 1983. Please don’t enter this conversation.”
Ms. Ruthie slapped the table and laughed until her tea shook.
I kept working until Mrs. Alberta’s shoulders relaxed. When I finished, I brushed her hair back and gathered it into two soft braids, securing the ends with satin bands because Alberta liked to look “kept” as she called it.
She turned her head one way, then the other. “Mmm. Now that’s a woman who loves her elders.”
“You only saying that because you got peppermint privileges.”
“I said what I said.”
I kissed the top of her head. “You look beautiful.”
Her mouth trembled before she could hide it. She looked away first, reaching for a peppermint with more attitude than necessary. “You trying to make old women cry before lunch?”
“No, ma’am. I’m trying to keep your scalp from starting a rebellion.”
Ms. Ruthie pointed to herself. “I’m next.”
“You sure? You don’t want to beat Clarence first?”
“I can do both. I’m blessed with range.”