“Work,” Rayna said, easy. “Electrician. Whitaker Electric.”
Grandma’s eyes flicked. “You work with your family?”
“Yes, ma’am. My daddy started his business thirty years ago.”
“Good,” Grandma said. “I like a woman with a trade in her hands. Keeps a house standing.”
Rayna’s chin lifted. “That’s the plan.”
“What you building now?” Jada asked.
“A boutique hotel in East Liberty. Third-floor bathrooms are mine this week.”
“Mmm.” Grandma tapped her spoon. “Fancy on bones.”
Rayna went still. Not offended. Honest. “Yes, ma’am. That’s been on my mind.” She was referring to the gentrification of the neighborhood. The people who had moved indidn’t even call it East Liberty anymore. They call it East Side.
Grandma nodded, satisfied. “As long as you see it. Work don’t wash your conscience. It just gives it context.”
“Grandma,” Jada warned.
“What? She grown. She can hold two truths. Most of living is two truths at the same time.”
Rayna half-laughed, half-sighed. “Yes, ma’am.”
We moved on, as families do. Jada told a story about a parent meeting that ended in a parking-lot reconciliation. Grandma cackled. I threw in a punchline, dodged a biscuit. Rayna fit rhythm like she’d always been here. No auditioning. Just present.
Halfway through, Grandma set her fork down. Ruth Hale making space for truth.
“You work with your hands,” Grandma said again, like a thesis before a conclusion. “Good hands. Careful hands. You care about what you do.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Her gaze didn’t waver. “A woman like you don’t just light a room. You pass light down.”
Rayna blinked, caught. Jada softened. I felt something flicker inside, the kind of ache that didn’t come from food.
Grandma leaned a little closer, voice dropping low, like she was saying it to the table as much as to us. “We don’t always get to choose when that light moves through us. The Lord’s calendar ain’t public. When it’s time, it’s time—ready or not.”
The spoon in my hand went still. Hope—or something shaped like it—sat up in my chest before I could tell it to stay down.
Across from me, Rayna dropped her eyes to her lap, then lifted them again. Heat. Fear. Something new, unspoken, lodged behind the calm she tried to wear.
“Yes, ma’am,” she said softly, but the words felt heavier than manners.
“Go walk,” Grandma ordered after dishes. “Porch won’t sit itself.”
Outside, even with our jackets on, the evening packed a chill. Rayna leaned on the rail, arms folded, jeans drawing every line I wanted memorized.
“You all right?” I asked.
She nodded, then shook her head, then nodded again. “Your grandma is… a whole book.”
“Hardcover,” I said. “Big print. No pictures.”
She laughed, loosening the knot in my ribs. “I like her.”
“She likes you.”
