17. Celeste
Monday Evening
By the time I swept the last curl of synthetic hair into the dustpan, my body had started moving like a woman with too many tabs open in her spirit.
Celestial Crowns was closed. The dryers were off.
The gospel playlist had faded into some instrumental worship song that sounded like conviction had learned piano.
I stood near my station with a broom in my hand and stared at the same spot on the floor long enough for Leilani to stop pretending she wasn’t watching me.
She sat in my styling chair with one leg crossed over the other, eating grapes out of a plastic bowl like she was on break from supervising my business and my bad decisions.
Calista leaned against the counter with her arms folded, and Cassia sat beneath the hooded dryer, even though it wasn’t on.
My sisters were twins, but they judged differently.
Calista’s judgment came with eyebrows. Cassia’s came with patience. Both were lethal.
Leilani popped another grape into her mouth. “You been sweeping that same patch of floor for eight minutes.”
I looked down.
A clean floor stared back at me and minded its business.
“I’m making sure I got everything.”
Calista’s eyebrow lifted. “Girl, unless that dust got a resurrection ministry, it’s gone.”
Cassia pointed at the broom. “Put it down before you start naming the bristles.”
I tightened my hand around the handle because letting go felt too much like admitting I needed to sit down. “Y’all came to help me close or to audit my sweeping technique?”
Leilani tilted her head. “We came because you texted one sad purple heart at two seventeen this morning. You don’t get to send a cry-for-help emoji during demon hours and expect me not to pull up. That wasn’t a text; that was a flare.”
Calista nodded. “A single emoji after midnight is a wellness check.”
Cassia’s voice softened. “Especially from you.”
The broom handle shifted in my grip.
Tears had already gathered, hot and stubborn, blurring the row of products lined across my station. I leaned the broom against the cabinet before my hands betrayed me and pressed both palms flat against the counter. The cool laminate steadied me more than I wanted to admit.
Mascara clung to the corners of my eyes. My lip trembled once before I caught it between my teeth.
I looked away first.
Leilani set the bowl down. “What happened with Josiah?”
His name moved through the room like somebody had unlocked a door I’d been bracing my whole body against.
I tried to breathe around it. “I messed up.”
Nobody spoke.
That was worse than questions.
I turned from the mirror. “Kayden was rude at dinner. Not regular teenager rude. Not moody because his mama had a man at the table rude. He was cruel. And Josiah sat there and took it with more grace than most grown men deserve to claim.”
Calista’s eyebrows dropped. Cassia’s hands folded in her lap. Leilani’s face lost the little smirk she kept ready for emergencies.
I kept going because stopping would’ve made me cry. “Then Maya’s outlets were sparking, and Zuri told on her, and Josiah checked them. He found enough wrong to make me sick. He came back Friday and fixed them. JJ and Kayden weren’t there. I could barely look him in the eye.”
Leilani whispered, “Celeste.”
“I sent him away.”
Calista blinked. “You did what?”
“I told him I couldn’t do us.”
Leilani sat forward so fast the chair squeaked. “You told the man who fixed your child’s electrical hazard and respected your grief that you couldn’t do y’all?”
“Leilani.”
“No, I need to understand the ministry of foolishness in full context.”
Cassia shot her a look, but her mouth pressed like she agreed and hated that she agreed.
I rubbed my forehead. “I panicked.”
Calista’s expression softened, but her voice stayed steady. “No, Sis. You grieved. Then you handed grief the wheel and let it drive you straight past wisdom.”
My fingers curled against the counter. The pressure pushed crescent moons into my palms, but I didn’t loosen my grip.
Cassia stood and came closer. “Did Josiah do anything to make you feel unsafe?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Did he disrespect Jamal?”
“No.”
“Did he pressure you?”
“No.”
“Then what happened?”
My eyes burned. “Kayden looked at him like he was replacing his daddy, and I saw my baby hurting. I saw Jamal’s chair at the table. I saw the girls watching me. I saw JJ trying to hold the whole room together. And I just . . . I couldn’t breathe.”
Calista’s face changed. All the bite left her eyes.
Leilani’s voice lowered. “Baby, that’s real. But you can’t keep mistaking every breath for betrayal.”
The tears came before I could stop them. I turned toward the mirror like I could hide from women who knew the sound of my silence.
Cassia stepped behind me and rested her hands on my shoulders. “You love Jamal.”
“With everything in me,” I whispered.
“We know.”
“I will always love him.”
“We know that too.”
Calista came to my other side. “But loving him forever doesn’t mean your life has to keep proving it by staying lonely.”
I pressed my lips together.
Leilani stood and walked toward me. “And your kids need to hear that from you. Not through tension. Not through you flinching every time Josiah breathes near a family memory. From your mouth.”
I wiped my face. “What if it hurts them?”
Cassia squeezed my shoulder. “It already hurts.”
Calista nodded. “You’re trying to keep them from pain, but the pain is already in the house, eating snacks and using Wi-Fi.”
A laugh broke through my tears before I could catch it.
Leilani pointed at me. “Exactly. You still know how to laugh. Praise Him.”
The laugh cracked open and came out wet.
I covered my mouth, but the sob slipped through my fingers anyway.
Cassia’s arms came around me from behind, firm and warm.
Calista took my hand and rubbed her thumb over my knuckles like she was trying to call me back to my body.
Leilani stepped close, waited until I lifted my face, and held my stare with love sharp enough to cut fear and gentle enough not to cut me.
Leilani kept her voice low. “Listen to me. You’re not wrong for being scared. Fear can knock. Fear can warn. Fear can even make you pause long enough to pray. But fear doesn’t get to pastor your house. The Lord is your Shepherd, not your trauma.”
My breath shook.
She didn’t look away. “God didn’t bring you through widowhood, motherhood, bills, grief, salon rent, teenage attitudes, and children who think outlets sparking is a minor plot point, just for you to reject peace because it came dressed like a fine electrician.”
“Leilani,” I cried and laughed at the same time.
“I said what I said. He fine, and he knows breaker boxes. That’s dual anointing.”
Calista lifted one hand. “A practical blessing.”
Cassia nodded. “A man with shoulders and a license.”
I covered my face. “Y’all are not serious.”
Calista pulled my hand down and held it between both of hers. “We’re very serious. Go home and sit with your children before grief keeps translating for everybody. Let them speak without punishing them for being honest. Then tell them the truth without apologizing for being human.”
Cassia’s voice softened. “Especially Kayden.”
My chest tightened around my son’s name.
Cassia kept her hands on me. “He’s not grown, Celeste. He’s a boy standing guard over a door he couldn’t keep death from walking through.”
The room blurred.
I saw Kayden at fifteen in a black suit he’d outgrown emotionally before he ever put it on.
His shoulders had been broad enough for people to forget he was still a child, and he’d stood beside Jamal’s casket with dry eyes while grown folks kept calling him strong like strength wasn’t sometimes just shock with good posture.
I saw him after that, checking locks and standing between his sisters and anything that looked too loud or unfamiliar.
I’d mistaken so much of his vigilance for attitude because attitude was easier to correct than grief.
Grief required me to admit my baby had been carrying a responsibility death handed him, and I’d been too wounded to take it back.
“Lord, give me wisdom,” I whispered. “Not fear disguised as protection. Real wisdom. Wisdom that sees beneath behavior, tends the wound, and still tells the truth. Help me mother what my children haven’t found language for yet. Don’t let me punish pain just because it came out wrong.”
Cassia’s hand moved slowly over my shoulder.
“Amen,” she said.
Leilani picked up her grapes again. “And after you talk to those children, you need to talk to that man before somebody with sense and lip gloss finds him at Home Depot.”
I cut my eyes at her.
She shrugged. “I’m helping urgency.”
Calista grabbed her purse. “Come on. Go mother your children.”
Cassia smiled. “And don’t turn it into a sermon series.”
I frowned. “I don’t overtalk.” All three of them stared at me. I grabbed my keys. “Y’all so raggedy.”
Leilani grinned. “But accurate.”
By the time I got home, the sky had turned the soft blue-gray that always made my house feel tender.
Jamal used to call it the hour when God dimmed the lights so families could find each other.
I sat in the driveway for a moment with both hands around the steering wheel and let myself remember him without flinching.
“I still love you,” I whispered.
The ache rose, familiar and faithful to its assignment, but this time, I carried it with me instead of letting it hold me hostage in the driveway.
Inside, the girls were in the living room.
Maya had her sketchbook open, Zuri was building something with blocks she was too old to still love and too stubborn to give up, and Skye was lying upside down on the couch with her feet in the air like blood flow was optional.
Kayden stood at the kitchen island with a bowl of cereal, even though dinner was less than an hour away.
I set my purse down. “Family meeting.”
Skye popped up. “Am I in trouble?”
“Not yet.”
Zuri froze with a block in her hand. “That sounds flexible.”