9. Celeste #3
She turned her chair so I could stand behind her, and I draped another towel across her shoulders.
Her hair was fuller than Alberta’s, snow-white and springy, with soft curls that needed more patience than product.
I misted it lightly, worked a little oil through my fingers, and began massaging her scalp while she hummed an old hymn under her breath.
The first notes were shaky.
By the third line, Mrs. Alberta joined in.
By the time I started braiding Ruthie’s hair into one thick braid over her shoulder, the hymn had traveled across the table and into the corners of the room. Even Mr. Clarence got quiet, though he pretended to be studying his cards. My hands moved with the hymn until the room settled around it.
Through the open doorway, I felt movement before I looked.
Josiah stood in the lobby near the refreshment table with his grandfather and Juice, but his eyes were on me.
Not in a way that made me feel exposed.
In a way that made me feel witnessed.
He watched my hands until I laughed. When our eyes met again, something in his expression had changed.
The man looked at me like he’d discovered another language I spoke and wanted to learn it fluently.
My fingers paused for half a second in Ruthie’s braid.
“Baby,” Ms. Ruthie said without turning around, “don’t let that tall man distract you and have me walking around here with a crooked plait.”
Mrs. Alberta leaned to the side to see. “He watching?”
“Alberta,” I warned.
“Don’t Alberta me. Is he watching or not?”
Mr. Clarence looked over. “He watching.”
I tugged gently on Ms. Ruthie’s braid. “Everybody at this table is about to lose peppermint privileges.”
Mrs. Alberta fanned herself with her Uno cards. “Worth it.”
The table laughed, and I finished Ruthie’s braid with my face warm and my heart doing entirely too much for somebody who had asked God for clarity and received a man watching her grease scalps with reverence in his eyes.
Josiah eventually turned back to his grandfather, but I felt the weight of what he had seen. He’d seen something in me no appointment or dinner could’ve revealed.
Something about that scared me more than being called pretty.
Because pretty could be admired from a distance.
What he had seen was closer to the bone.
For the next hour, we played Uno with the seriousness of a Supreme Court hearing and the moral flexibility of a back-alley dice game.
Mrs. Alberta accused Mr. Clarence of hiding Draw Four cards in his sleeve.
Mr. Clarence told her she needed to repent from suspicion.
Ms. Ruthie reversed the game so many times I threatened to call her a traffic hazard.
And still, my attention kept drifting.
Through the open activity room doors, I caught glimpses of Josiah with his grandfather. Once, he pushed him toward the courtyard while Juice walked backward in front of them talking too much. Another time, he opened a pack of crackers for him while listening closely to a nurse.
He never interrupted or tried to turn my service into a moment about him.
But whenever I looked up, his eyes were there.
Present.
Careful.
Taking me in without taking anything from me.
My hands stilled over my cards.
Mrs. Alberta leaned toward me. “Baby, you gon’ play that yellow seven or stare at that man until Jesus comes back?”
Ms. Ruthie cackled.
Heat rushed up my neck. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Mr. Clarence looked over his shoulder toward the lobby. “Tall fella with the shoulders?”
“Clarence,” I warned.
“What? I might be old, but I’m not blind. That man built like the Lord gave him a blueprint and an inspection sticker.”
Mrs. Alberta fanned herself with her cards. “Amen.”
I dropped my face into my hand. “Can we please play Uno?”
“We are,” Ms. Ruthie said. “You’re just losing in two rooms at once.”
The table erupted.
I laughed because I had no defense. None that would hold up under cross-examination anyway.
When I finally played my card, my mind went back to the kitchen, to Kayden’s eyes, to the lie that hadn’t felt like a lie until it had filled the space between my children and me.
Last night, Josiah had said he was paying attention, and this morning, my children had done the same thing.
Everybody was watching me become a woman again, and I didn’t know how to do that without making somebody ache.
During a break between games, I excused myself and walked down the hall toward the courtyard doors.
The garden outside Rosehaven was small but loved, with raised flower beds, bird feeders, two benches, and a crepe myrtle whose branches reached toward the sky in pale, twisting lines.
I stood behind the glass with my palm against the cool metal doorframe and watched sunlight spill over marigolds and purple salvia.
“God,” I whispered, barely moving my lips. “I need You to help me. Because last night felt beautiful, and this morning felt like consequence. I don’t want to run from something good because I’m scared, but I don’t want to call something good just because I miss being chosen.”
My eyes burned, but I kept them open.
“I loved my husband. You know I did. You know I still do, in the ways love keeps breathing after somebody leaves this Earth. But I’m tired of feeling guilty every time my heart notices light.
I’m tired of wondering if wanting to laugh with somebody means I’m letting Jamal go.
I don’t want to let him go like he didn’t matter.
I don’t want to hold on so tight I stop living in front of the children he loved. ”
I pressed my hand to my chest. “If it’s too soon, show me. If it’s fear, correct me. If it’s You, make it plain enough that I don’t talk myself out of it.”
Behind me, laughter rose from the activity room. Mrs. Alberta was accusing somebody of fraud again.
I wiped beneath my eye, took a breath, and returned to the table.