10. Josiah
Friday Afternoon
Granddaddy James cheated at dominoes with a Bible verse on his tongue and a peppermint tucked in his cheek.
That was the first thing I had to accept when Juice and I got to Rosehaven that Friday.
Age hadn’t made James Brooks more honest. It had only made him slower with the evidence.
He sat in his wheelchair near the window with a wool blanket folded over his legs, a cream cardigan over his shoulders, and the same sharp eyes that used to catch me taking apart radios on his back porch before I could hide the screwdriver.
His hair had gone silver, his hands had thinned, and his knees had betrayed him years ago, but his mouth still worked like it had been called, anointed, and assigned to trouble.
He slapped his last domino on the table and leaned back like he had just defeated nations.
Mr. Wallace groaned from the other side of the table. “James, you ain’t had that five all this time.”
Granddaddy looked offended enough for church testimony. “You calling me a liar in a public facility?”
“I’m calling you what the table already know.”
Juice fell back in his chair laughing. “Granddaddy, you been holding that bone since Moses crossed the Red Sea.”
Granddaddy pointed at him. “Don’t put me in the Bible if you gon’ slander me.”
I sat beside him with my elbows on my knees, smiling, because some places in a man’s life didn’t need much to remind him what still mattered.
An old table. A room smelling like coffee, lemon polish, and somebody’s medicated rub.
Men who had outlived their knees but not their competitive spirit.
My cousin running his mouth. My grandfather looking around like he still owned every circuit, every wall, and every argument in the building.
When I was a boy, Granddaddy’s hands could make dead rooms light up.
He’d walk into a house with a tester, a tool belt, and an old hymn humming in his chest. Folks called him when breakers kept tripping, when outlets sparked, when old wiring got tired of pretending it was safe.
He taught my father the trade the way some men taught sons scripture, line by line, correction by correction, hand over hand, until respect became muscle memory.
Then my father taught me. Three generations of Brooks men learning that power was never something to play with just because you knew where the switch was.
Granddaddy could barely hold a screwdriver now without his fingers aching, but when he talked about current, he still sounded like a man standing inside his calling.
He tapped the domino table twice. “Siah.”
“Yes, sir?”
“You hear Wallace lying on me?”
“I hear him making a compelling argument.”
Granddaddy’s eyes narrowed. “Compelling?”
Juice leaned forward. “You know Siah got to use graduate-level words before three o’clock, or his head hurt.”
“I’m saying Mr. Wallace might have a point.”
“My own blood,” Granddaddy muttered. “Sat right here and chose betrayal.”
Mr. Wallace slapped the table. “That boy got sense.”
“That boy needs a wife,” Granddaddy said, turning on me so fast I almost laughed before his eyes finished finding my face. “Where my damn grandbabies at?”
Juice lost whatever sense he had left.
I dropped my head and rubbed my beard because I knew better than to let that man see too much amusement. “Granddaddy, I have to find a wife first.”
He squinted at me, studying my face with the same attention he used to give breaker panels.
The man could walk into a room, hear one flicker, smell one heated wire, and tell you where the danger had been hiding before the wall ever came open.
Apparently, age hadn’t stolen that either, because one look at me had him smiling like he had located a short in my spirit.
“Hell, you sitting over there looking all sweet-eyed and tender like I used to do when your granny walked into the room. You sure you haven’t found her already?”
The laugh came before I could stop it, but it didn’t have anywhere to hide once it left me. It sat there between us, warm and guilty, telling on me harder than my mouth ever would.
“I hope so.”
Granddaddy’s smile crept in slow. “There it is.”
Juice sat up. “Wait a minute. Granddaddy got a read?”
I gave him a look. “Don’t start.”
“I’m not starting. I’m receiving revelation.”
Granddaddy tapped the table again. “Who is she?”
I looked toward the lobby because my body knew before my mind caught up.
Celeste Coleman stood near the activities desk with a tote over her shoulder, speaking to one of the staff members.
She wore a green blouse tucked into black slacks, gold hoops at her ears, and her red-and-brown locs falling down her back like autumn had learned how to behave.
She wasn’t dressed for attention. She didn’t need to be.
Some women walked in, and the room adjusted because it recognized value before anybody announced it.
My chest tightened in a way that had nothing to do with fear.
Last night flashed through me in fragments.
Her hand close to mine, near a sweating margarita glass.
Her eyes wet when she talked about the mail still coming in Jamal’s name.
The way she looked at me when I told her I wanted marriage, like my honesty had knocked on a door she didn’t know whether to open.
Her voice asking if I was paying attention.
My own heart answering before my mouth did.
Yes, ma’am. I am.
Granddaddy watched me watching her.
Juice went still beside me, which meant he heard what I hadn’t dressed up. Granddaddy heard it too. Men like him didn’t need a full sermon when truth walked in wearing one sentence.
Celeste didn’t see me at first. She signed in, greeted Tasha at the desk, then turned toward the activity room. She stopped when her eyes found us. Just for a breath. Just long enough for recognition to pass over her face before she gathered herself and moved on.
She didn’t come over.
I respected that.
She had a life before me, a routine before me, ministry before me. I didn’t need to step into every room she occupied just because my chest got foolish when she entered. A man could be interested and still know how to stay in his seat.
Granddaddy leaned closer. “That her?”
I didn’t answer right away.
Juice looked over his shoulder. “The fine one with the locs?”
Granddaddy smacked his arm. “Boy, don’t say fine in front of me like I’m not elderly and sanctified.”
“You said damn two minutes ago.”
“That was medical.”
Mr. Wallace laughed so hard he started coughing, and Juice handed him his water with the dramatic seriousness of an usher catching somebody in the Spirit.
I looked back toward the activity room. Celeste had disappeared through the doorway, but I could still feel the shift she’d left behind. The room seemed more alive for having held her.
“Her name is Celeste Coleman. She owns Celestial Crowns Hair Haven. She’s a widow.”
Granddaddy’s amusement softened. “Children?”
“Five.”
“How long she been alone?”
“Long enough for everybody to think she should be fine. Not long enough for her heart to agree.”
Granddaddy’s voice lowered. “She good people?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You know that, or you want that?”
The question hit clean.
That was Granddaddy James. He could act like a fool around dominoes and peppermints, then cut straight through a man’s chest without raising his voice.
“I know enough to respect her. I want the chance to learn the rest.”
He nodded once, slow. “That’s a better answer than I expected.”
Juice leaned back. “You hear that? Growth.”
“Shut up.”
Granddaddy chuckled, then reached for his cup.
I adjusted it before he had to ask, making sure the straw angled close enough for him.
His fingers brushed mine when he took it, and for a second, I was ten again, standing under the porchlight while he taught me how to strip wire without nicking copper.
He took a slow sip, then looked toward the activity room. “Don’t run behind a woman with grief in her house if all you got is appetite.”
My smile faded.
Juice’s joking eased back too.
Granddaddy set the cup down, his hand trembling just enough for me to notice. “Pretty will call your eyes. Pain will test your character. Children will test your patience. A dead husband who loved her right will test your ego if you got one. You hear me?”
“I hear you.”
“You can’t compete with a memory and call yourself a man. You got to honor what fed her before you got there.”
I swallowed, feeling each word press against places God had already been dealing with in me. “Yes, sir.”
“And don’t be rushing Him because your blood got excited.”
Juice coughed into his hand.
I gave him a warning look, but my grandfather was not finished.
“Your granny made me wait,” Granddaddy said.
His eyes moved beyond us, past the windows, past the nursing home, past Friday afternoon, until he was somewhere decades older and younger at once.
“I knew I loved that woman the first time she told me no and meant it. She had a yellow dress on, hair pressed, lips shining, Bible tucked under her arm, and enough sense not to be impressed by my foolishness. I tried to walk her home from church. She told me, ‘James Brooks, you can walk beside me if you know how to behave. You can walk behind me if you don’t.’”
Mr. Wallace grinned. “She had you trained early.”
Granddaddy ignored him. “I walked beside her. Every chance she gave me. And when fear rose up in her, I didn’t punish her for it. I waited until she could see I wasn’t another thing she had to survive.”
That one took my breath without asking.
Across the room, laughter spilled out of the activity area, bright and warm.
Then Celeste stepped back into view with a towel over one arm, a small bottle in her hand, and an elderly woman seated in front of her like royalty preparing for service.
Celeste bent over the woman’s head with care, parted her silver hair, warmed oil between her palms, and touched her fingers to the woman’s scalp with a gentleness that changed the temperature of the whole room.