15. Celeste #2
JJ laughed. “Smart man.”
Kayden muttered, “It’s a bowl.”
I turned slowly.
Kayden looked at me, then at the bowl, then away.
“It isn’t just a bowl.”
Zuri nodded with full seriousness. “That’s the bowl Nana almost fought Aunt Denise about.”
Skye chimed in, eyes shining with the urgency of family history. “At Thanksgiving.”
Maya kept her pencil moving across the page. “Aunt Denise brought watery greens.”
JJ shook his head. “Dark day.”
Josiah’s eyes came to mine, amused and warm. “I’ll put it back.”
“Carefully.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Kayden pushed off the doorframe. “You always say yes, ma’am that much?”
The knife in my hand paused against the cutting board.
Josiah placed the bowl back in the cabinet. “When I’m talking to a woman, yes.”
Kayden gave a dry little laugh. “That your thing?”
JJ’s fingers tightened around the pitcher handle.
Josiah closed the cabinet and turned without rushing. “Respect?”
Kayden shrugged. “Performance.”
The kitchen went too bright around me.
“Kayden Jeremiah.”
“What? I’m asking questions.”
“No, you’re being disrespectful in my kitchen.”
His eyes flashed, but his voice stayed low enough to pretend innocence. “So nobody can ask him anything?”
JJ set the pitcher down with more force than necessary. Water slapped the glass. He stared at Kayden for a second, nostrils flaring once, then looked down and dragged his thumb along the edge of the counter.
Maya’s pencil stopped moving.
Zuri lowered herself back onto the stool.
Skye hugged her spelling test to her chest.
Kayden’s jaw flexed because he’d thrown something sharp, and Josiah had refused to bleed where he could see it.
I wanted to snap. I wanted to pull Kayden into the hallway and ask him who he thought he was talking to. I wanted to apologize to Josiah, then apologize to my children for needing to apologize in the first place.
Instead, I pointed at Kayden. “Dining room. Plates. Now.”
For one breath, defiance flashed through his eyes.
Then he grabbed the stack of plates from the cabinet and walked away with his shoulders too high.
JJ watched him go, then swept his hand over his face again. The muscle in his jaw jumped, but he swallowed whatever had climbed up his throat and went back to setting out glasses.
Patient.
Steady.
Too aware to miss exactly what Kayden was doing.
That patience scared me because it gave my fear nothing ugly to point at.
The food was simple: baked chicken, rice, green beans, salad, rolls, and the lemon pound cake Leilani had dropped off sitting under foil on the counter.
Sunday dinner carried more ceremony, but this was real dinner, and my children loved to act like cereal nights were evidence of hardship when the cereal had name-brand money behind it.
When we carried everything to the dining room, Josiah paused near the table.
His eyes went to Jamal’s chair.
I felt Kayden notice.
“Don’t sit there,” Kayden said.
The room tightened.
“Kayden,” I warned.
Josiah kept his hands at his sides. “I wasn’t going to.”
Kayden lifted his chin. “Good.”
JJ’s eyes snapped toward him. “Chill.”
“I said good.”
“You said it like you wanted him to swing on you.”
“JJ.”
JJ exhaled through his nose and looked away.
Josiah pulled out the chair to my right then looked at me before sitting. That small pause nearly undid me. I hated how quickly I noticed. Hated how well he knew to ask with his eyes. Hated how my body answered before my mouth could.
I nodded.
He sat.
Kayden dropped into the chair directly across from him like the table had called him in for questioning.
We prayed before eating because that was one piece of my old life I refused to surrender.
Jamal had prayed over dinner most nights, especially when the kids were small and liked to add requests in the middle like God was taking drive-thru orders.
After he died, I tried to let JJ do it once, but his voice cracked on the second sentence, and I took it back without asking again.
Since then, I prayed. Some nights, it sounded pretty.
Some nights it sounded like, “Lord, thank You for this food, and please keep me from losing my mind.”
Heaven knew my heart either way.
I reached for Josiah’s hand on one side and Skye’s on the other. Skye took Zuri’s, and hands linked with familiar ease until only one connection remained. Josiah extended his free hand across the table toward Kayden.
He pulled his hand into his lap.
Josiah saw it.
So did JJ.
Josiah placed one hand on the table, palm down, and bowed his head.
My throat tightened.
“Lord, thank You for bringing us home safely, for food on this table, for work restored, and for every hand that helped us today. Bless this house, bless my children, and cover everybody sitting at this table. Amen.”
“Amen,” everyone said.
Kayden’s came late and low.
Dinner began with plates passing, forks scraping, Zuri asking for rolls before touching a vegetable, and Skye explaining to Josiah why cafeteria nuggets couldn’t be trusted.
Skye’s little face pinched with concern. “One of them had a corner. Chicken should not have corners.”
Josiah paused with his fork halfway to his plate, fighting a smile. “That sounds like a valid complaint.”
Skye nodded with relief. “Thank you. Nobody takes food geometry seriously in this house.”
JJ’s brows lifted. “Food geometry?”
Skye lifted her chin. “Yes.”
“Fork down,” I said.
She lowered it with grace she absolutely did not feel. “I was emphasizing my testimony.”
Maya smiled into her glass.
Josiah’s attention shifted to the sketchbook resting near her elbow. “May I see what you’re working on?”
Maya’s fingers tightened over the cover. Her eyes moved from his face to mine before returning to him. “It’s not finished.”
“Most things worth looking at are still becoming something.”
Her grip loosened by a fraction.
She turned the sketchbook just enough for him to see, keeping one hand near the page like she could close it if he looked wrong.
Josiah leaned in with his forearms away from the table, careful not to crowd her work.
The drawing was one of her faceless women, all curved lines, heavy hair, and flowers blooming where eyes should’ve been.
He studied it long enough for Maya’s mouth to tighten with nerves.
Then he nodded once. “You draw like you understand people can be beautiful and hidden at the same time.”
Maya’s eyes lifted fast.
The table softened around her.
Josiah glanced from the page to her face. “I don’t know art like that, but I know care when I see it. You didn’t rush her. Every line looks like you wanted her protected.”
Maya looked down at the sketch, her lashes low, her thumb brushing the corner of the page.
“That’s what she is.”
Josiah’s voice softened. “What?”
Maya’s voice came smaller now. “Protected. She just doesn’t know it yet.”
My throat pulled tight.
Josiah’s expression gentled. “Then keep drawing until she believes you.”
Maya’s mouth tucked in at the corner.
For Maya, that was a standing ovation.
JJ asked Josiah about the panel, and they drifted into a conversation about load calculations, circuit separation, engineering prerequisites, and whether field experience made classroom theory better or worse.
Josiah answered without talking down to him.
JJ sat a little taller with every response, his fork pausing halfway to his mouth because the subject had caught him.
Kayden watched all of it with his fork sitting untouched near his plate.
Every time Josiah answered somebody with patience, Kayden’s face tightened like grace itself annoyed him.
When Skye laughed, he looked toward Jamal’s chair.
When Maya asked another question, he pushed rice around with the back of his fork.
When JJ nodded at something Josiah said, Kayden’s eyes cut to his brother with something wounded and hot beneath them.
Then he went looking again.
“So how long you been doing electrical work?” Kayden asked.
Josiah picked up his glass. “Since I was a teenager.”
Kayden leaned back. “That supposed to make us feel better?”
“Kayden.”
Josiah looked at him over the rim of his glass. “It’s just the answer.”
“Anybody can say they know what they’re doing.”
“True.”
Kayden’s brow twitched, thrown off by the agreement.
Josiah set his glass down. “That’s why I pull permits, document my work, and let inspections speak where my mouth doesn’t need to.”
JJ’s lips pressed together like he wanted to smile and cuss Kayden out in the same breath.
Maya murmured, “That was actually a good answer.”
Kayden heard her.
Of course he did.
He stabbed a green bean with enough force to scrape porcelain.
I felt my patience stretch thin enough to shine.
Zuri lifted her roll, curiosity brightening her whole face. “Mr. Josiah, do you fix outlets too?”
Josiah glanced over at her. “I do.”
Zuri pointed toward Maya with the roll in her hand. “Oh, good. Because the ones in Maya’s room don’t work.”
My hand stopped halfway to my glass.
Maya’s head snapped up from her napkin sketch. “Zuri.”
“What?” Zuri blinked at her. “They don’t.”
The dining room shifted before anybody moved. The chandelier glowed warm over the table, but the light suddenly felt too bright on Maya’s face. She lowered her pencil. Her shoulders curved inward, and her fingers crept over the corner of her napkin like she wanted to fold herself inside it.
I looked at her. “Maya, why didn’t you tell me your outlets weren’t working?”
Maya’s throat moved. Her eyes dropped to her plate, lashes low and heavy. “I didn’t wanna bother you with more.”
The words found a soft place in me and pressed hard.
My face fell before I could hold it up.
Across the table, JJ’s fork went motionless in his hand. Josiah’s eyes lifted to me, then shifted to Maya with a gentleness that made my chest ache. Even Kayden looked away from his plate, his mouth flattening when he saw what Maya’s words did to my face.
For two breaths, only the air conditioner spoke through the vent above the China cabinet.