Epilogue
Two years later
Before I moved Celeste's rocking chair for the third time that morning, I was outside with dirt beneath my fingernails.
The garden behind our new home still had room to grow.
Most of it had already come alive. Hydrangeas leaned toward the morning sun.
Lavender danced with every breeze. Rosemary spilled over its planter like it had somewhere important to be.
The magnolia we'd planted the day we broke ground had taken hold beautifully, its branches stretching a little further with every season.
This morning, I knelt beside one of the empty beds and pressed another flowering shrub into the soil.
Roots first.
Flowers later.
I’d learned that from loving my wife.
By the time I came back inside, Celeste had moved the rocking chair three times before breakfast.
Closer to the window first because she wanted the babies to have sunlight.
Then further from it because sunlight apparently had boundaries.
Then angled beneath the mural Jaxon had commissioned across the nursery wall, where oak branches stretched toward painted stars, and roots curled through rich, brown soil as if the whole room had been waiting years to bloom.
I moved it each time.
Not because I lacked an opinion, but because my wife was standing barefoot in the middle of the room with twins beneath her heart, one hand supporting the curve of her belly and the other pressed to her back.
Her locs were swept up, her robe hung loose around her shoulders, and the morning light touched her face with enough tenderness to make me forget every sensible thought I’d ever had.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, sliding the chair into place.
Celeste studied it for a long second.
One of our babies kicked first.
The other answered like they already had a language of their own.
She looked down at her stomach, then back at me with her brows raised.
“See? They agree.”
“They always agree with you.”
“As they should.”
I crossed the room and placed both hands over her belly. The babies shifted beneath my palms, small and miraculous, already part of the conversation. Celeste’s breath caught, and for a moment, she simply rested against me.
Some mornings came with graduation traffic, moving boxes, and children yelling through the walls. Others came with this—my wife leaning into my embrace inside a nursery built for the life we’d prayed into existence, letting me hold the future God had trusted us to carry together.
I kissed her temple.
Then her cheek.
Then the corner of her mouth.
“Josiah, we have to get to Maya’s graduation.”
“We will.”
“You said that twenty minutes ago.”
“And yet here we are. Married, blessed, expecting twins, and only mildly behind schedule.”
She laughed, and the sound filled the nursery better than any music ever could.
Jaxon had designed this house around her heart.
He’d taken my scattered list of everything Celeste loved and somehow turned it into walls, windows, and purpose.
A reading room with floor-to-ceiling shelves and a deep window seat.
A studio for Maya whenever Langston University sent her home on breaks.
A workout room for Kayden whenever Hampton Heights University released him long enough to remind us that college students could eat enough groceries to bankrupt a household.
A guest suite JJ had already claimed despite being a full-grown engineer with his own address.
A room for Zuri and Skye with enough storage for glitter, science projects, and whatever nonprofit for dramatic children they eventually decided to start.
And just beyond the back porch . . .
A garden.
That had been my only request.
I wanted Celeste to have a place where she could sink her hands into good soil, pray without interruption, and watch beautiful things grow without asking anybody’s permission to take up space.
She’d already started filling the house with life.
Prayer plants rested along floating shelves while ferns framed the living room windows. Small, green pots filled every corner until the whole house felt alive.
A snake plant stood in my office because, according to my wife, I needed “something low-maintenance that could survive masculine neglect.”
The house already felt like her.
She reached up and straightened my collar.
“You’ve been staring at me all morning.”
“I stare at my wife.”
“Your wife is round, emotional, and hungry.”
“My wife is beautiful, carrying my children, and looking at me like she knows exactly how much I love her.”
Her eyes softened. “I do know.”
I bent to kiss her again, slower this time. Her hand slid across my chest before curling into my shirt, and for a few seconds, graduation schedules, moving boxes, and every responsibility waiting outside that room faded into the background.
Then one of the twins kicked between us.
She laughed against my lips.
“Sir.”
“What?”
“If you start something in this nursery, we’re missing the ceremony.”
“I can be efficient.”
She laughed harder. “Absolutely not.”
“Later then.”
She walked toward the door, shaking her head. “Behave, Pop Siah.”
I smiled. “You started that.”
“Zuri and Skye started it.”
“And you encouraged it.”
“It fits.”
I had no rebuttal.
At the old house, Maya’s bedroom looked like somebody had packed memories into cardboard boxes.
Langston University sweatshirts covered the bed beside neatly folded jeans. Sketchbooks, paintbrushes, pencils, and half-packed art supplies sat in organized little piles only Maya could understand.
Near the closet, Zuri, Skye, Lyric, and Jaya sat cross-legged around a three-ring binder labeled:
DORM SURVIVAL PLAN
“Emergency snacks,” Skye announced.
“Prayer cards,” Zuri added.
Lyric carefully pressed a glitter sticker onto one divider.
“Emotional support sparkle.”
Jaya tapped another tab proudly.
“And this section is called ‘Men Are Distractions Until Proven Otherwise.’”
Maya looked at all four of them.
“I’m going to college, not witness protection.”
Kayden leaned against the dresser, home from Hampton Heights for the weekend and already eating chips he absolutely hadn’t purchased.
“With y’all involved,” he said, “it could be both.”
JJ walked in behind him, carrying a small toolkit and an envelope tucked inside a graduation card.
“For emergencies.”
Maya smiled.
“Real emergencies,” he clarified. “Not coffee emergencies.”
She hugged the card to her chest.
“Thank you.”
Across the room, Celeste folded one of Maya’s hoodies.
She didn’t cry.
She didn’t fall apart.
She simply pressed the fabric to her face for one quiet breath, inhaled the last little pieces of girlhood she was preparing to release, and tucked it carefully into the suitcase.
I walked over without saying a word.
“Come here.”
She smiled without looking at me.
“I’m fine.”
“I didn’t ask.”
Her eyes found mine, bright but peaceful, and she stepped backward into my arms.
I wrapped one arm around her, the other settling gently beneath the babies.
From the bed, Maya groaned dramatically.
“Can y’all be adorable after my graduation? My lashes are under attack.”
Kayden pointed at her. “You cried over markers.”
“They’re professional markers.”
“They’re colors with rent.”
Celeste laughed, and I kissed the side of her neck simply because I could.
Because she was my wife. Once, she had braced herself against happiness. Now, she leaned into it.
By the time we reached the graduation venue, our family had taken over an entire row and spilled into the next one.
Mama sat with tissues folded neatly in her lap as if she believed preparation could keep her from crying.
Aunt Hilary had snacks hidden inside her purse and called them medicinal.
Uncle Zeke sat beside Kayden, giving him advice about posture, credit scores, and proper tire pressure while Kayden nodded like he hadn’t heard the same lecture during every break from Hampton Heights University.
Leilani held her youngest daughter while Onyx sat beside her, staring a little too long at Celeste’s belly.
She caught him without turning her head. “No.”
Onyx lifted both hands. “I ain’t say nothing.”
“You thought son.”
“I thought blessing.”
“You can bless yourself with flag football. I’m done.”
Celeste shook against me with laughter. I rested one hand over hers where it sat on her belly, feeling one of the twins shift beneath our palms.
Zuri leaned across Skye. “Which one was that?”
“Our son,” Celeste whispered.
Skye narrowed her eyes at her mother’s stomach. “Tell him this is Maya’s day.”
“He cannot hear you.”
“He can feel authority.”
JJ leaned around Kayden. “That baby ain’t even born, and she already trying to supervise him.”
“She’s preparing him for this family,” Zuri said.
“That child needs prayer,” I muttered.
Skye pointed at me. “That’s what Pop Siah is for.”
My heart still reacted every time one of them called me that.
It had started as one of Skye’s declarations and became part of the family before I had time to understand what they had given me.
I wasn’t their father. I would never ask to be.
Jamal’s place belonged to him, rooted in every memory, every resemblance, every story they still told with love in their voices.
But Pop Siah belonged to me.
It meant I had a place without taking anybody else’s.
Kayden nudged my arm. “You got the extra graduation programs, Pop Siah?” The question was casual. His eyes stayed on the stage while he held out his hand. Still, I looked at him. He glanced over. “What?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
His mouth pulled into a grin. “You looking emotional already.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
I pressed the program into his hand. “Take the program.”
He accepted it with a grin. “You gon’ be crying before Mama.”
“I’m a grown man. I can express joy.”
“You can express it without hollering when they call Maya’s name.”
“No promises.”
He shook his head. “Exactly why I asked you to sit by me. Somebody gotta regulate.”
“You chose the wrong man.”
Before he could answer, the lights dimmed.