A Few Weeks Later #3
“You’re brown. We can still see it.”
“Leilani.”
“What?”
Josiah finally set his cup down. “Y’all done?”
Juice answered first. “No.”
Melody put a hand over his mouth. “Yes.”
Dr. Malcolm, who had arrived later with Renee and more coffee than anybody needed, looked over his glasses. “Let the man live long enough to make decisions in order.”
Renee smiled. “And let the woman enjoy her food before y’all start planning seating charts.”
Skye whispered loudly to Zuri, “Seating charts means wedding.”
Zuri whispered back, “Stay focused.”
I closed my eyes.
Lord, these children.
The sun started to sink behind the trees, turning the yard gold and soft. Someone turned on string lights. The kids chased bubbles across the grass. Kayden and Josiah stood near the basketball goal, talking now, no audience, no performance.
I couldn’t hear them, but I saw Kayden’s posture. Open. Relaxed. Still guarded in little ways because grief didn’t vanish just because joy entered the room, but he wasn’t standing like he had to protect everybody from Josiah anymore.
Josiah said something that made him laugh again, then he put a hand briefly on Kayden’s shoulder.
JJ came to stand beside me. “You good, Mama Cee?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
He looked across the yard at Josiah and Kayden. “He’s solid.”
I turned to him.
JJ kept his eyes forward. “I’m not saying that because he got money, property, tools, and a grill setup that looks sponsored. I’m saying it because Kayden doesn’t laugh like that with people he doesn’t trust.”
My throat tightened. “I know.”
“And Maya showed him her sketchbook.”
“I saw.”
“And Zuri and Skye already included him in whatever conspiracy they got going.”
“That part scares me.”
“As it should.” He slipped an arm around my shoulders. “But you look happy.”
I looked up at my oldest son, my first baby, the child who had seen me become a mother before I knew how much motherhood would stretch me.
“I am.”
His smile was soft. “Good.”
That one word almost made me cry harder than anything else that day.
Good.
Permission from my son wasn’t something I needed to live, but his peace mattered. His witness mattered. He had loved his father, loved me, helped hold pieces of our house together after grief had tried to scatter us, and now he was standing beside me, not asking me to shrink my joy for loyalty.
Good.
A little later, Josiah found me near the edge of the patio.
“You got a second?”
“For you? Maybe.”
His smile was slow. “Maybe?”
“I’m very booked. The C-Blacks have a survey, Aunt Hilary needs somebody to watch Juice, and I think Uncle Zeke is about to start a seminar on charcoal.”
“Then I better make this quick.”
He took my hand and led me away from the noise, past the patio, beyond the garden beds near the side of the house, to a small bench beneath an oak tree strung with lights.
From there, I could still see everyone. The kids running.
The adults laughing. Leilani waving a fork while telling a story.
Onyx shaking his head. Juice sneaking another dessert, and Melody catching him without even turning around.
It was beautiful chaos, and somehow, it already felt like ours.
Josiah sat beside me, his hand still holding mine.
“You’ve been watching everybody all day.”
“I’m a mother. We watch.”
“You also worry.”
“I’m a mother. We worry.”
He smiled. “Fair.”
I looked out at the yard. “They love you.”
His thumb moved over my knuckles. “I love them.”
I turned toward him.
He didn’t flinch from the size of what he’d said.
“I do. Not in a trying-to-impress-you way. Not in a let-me-say-the-right-thing way. I love those babies. JJ with his old-man spirit. Kayden with all that armor he’s finally letting somebody help him take off.
Maya with her sketchbook and her wise little eyes.
Zuri and Skye with their tiny board meetings and federal-level interrogations.
” I laughed through the ache in my chest. “And I love how your family comes with noise, questions, grief, snacks, side-eyes, and enough personality to exhaust a lesser man.”
“Lesser man?”
“I said what I said.”
I leaned into him. “Your people are just as bad.”
“Worse. Juice alone is a public health concern.”
I laughed, and he lifted my hand to his mouth.
Then his face shifted.
The humor stayed, but something deeper rose beneath it.
“I meant what I told you, Red. I see a future with you.” My breath caught.
“With all of this. The kids. The family. The hard days. The loud holidays. The moments when grief pulls up uninvited, and we have to make room for truth before pride starts rearranging furniture. I want it. I want you. I want the life God is building from what both of us thought was too broken to grow again.”
My eyes filled.
“Josiah.”
He leaned closer, his voice low and sure. “You’ll be my wife soon enough.”
For a second, I could only stare at him.
This man, sitting beneath string lights with laughter behind us and love in his eyes, had walked into my life without trying to erase what came before him.
He had honored my grief, loved my children, prayed over my fear, and somehow made wanting a future feel less like betrayal and more like grace.
“I’d absolutely love that.”
His smile spread slowly, beautiful and full of promise.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He lifted his hand to my cheek. “Good.”
Then he kissed me.
It wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t for show. It was soft at first, then deeper, a kiss that carried every conversation, every prayer, every hard-won piece of trust between us.
I held his shirt in my fist and let myself kiss him back without guilt, without apology, without looking over my shoulder for sadness to punish me.
For once, love didn’t feel like leaving something behind.
It felt like being allowed to bring everything with me.
A chorus of whisper-screams erupted from behind the shrubs.
I froze.
Josiah’s mouth paused against mine.
Zuri whispered, “Now.”
Skye whisper-yelled, “Operation Baby Brother is in full effect!”
Then they high-fived so loud a bird flew out of the tree.
The entire patio exploded.
Leilani screamed, laughing. Onyx bent over with both hands on his knees.
Juice dropped a lemon bar. Melody snatched Lyric away from the evidence because Lyric was somehow holding a handmade sign that said Future Cousin Loading.
JJ covered his face and walked in a circle.
Kayden pointed at the girls and yelled, “Y’all are weird!
” while laughing so hard he couldn’t even sound convincing.
Maya calmly added something to her sketchbook like she was documenting history.
Jaya cupped her hands around her mouth. “C-Blacks forever!”
Jamilah clapped hard from her blanket, her headphones slightly crooked, her laughter bright enough to make Leilani start crying and laughing at the same time.
Aunt Hilary shouted, “Nobody better be loading nothing until there’s a ring and a reception menu!”
Uncle Zeke lifted his tongs. “And premarital counseling!”
Yolanda pointed her napkin toward him. “And don’t rush my son unless y’all paying for the flowers.”
I buried my face in Josiah’s chest. “I am so sorry.”
His arms wrapped around me, and his laugh rumbled beneath my cheek. “Don’t be.”
“They’re insane.”
“They’re family.”
I looked up at him.
He kissed my forehead once, smiling like the chaos didn’t scare him at all.
Behind us, Zuri and Skye were still celebrating. Jaya and Lyric joined in. Jamilah bounced happily on her blanket while Josiah lifted his hand and tapped the same little rhythm she’d given him earlier against his chest. She saw it, smiled wider, and tapped it back against her toy.
The C-Blacks had apparently entered phase two of whatever unauthorized plan they had created.
Josiah looked at the yard, then back at me.
“You still choosing us?”
His eyes held humor and truth.
I looked at my children. His family. My friends. The laughter. The noise. The way grief and joy had somehow learned to sit at the same table without fighting for the head seat.
Then I looked at him.
“Yes. All of it.”
And as the people we loved kept laughing beneath the string lights, I realized my heart wasn’t asking me to choose between the love that had rooted me and the love still growing.
It had made room for both.
And somehow . . . it had made room for us.