the only way to place her own face back into her mother’s world without forcing it.
So Meadow eased onto the edge of the bed. She tugged the blanket up and touched Magnolia’s hand lightly, not enough to startle, just enough to anchor her.
“You wanna hear a story?” Meadow asked.
Magnolia’s brows relaxed just a little and her eyes lit up. “A…pretty one.”
“Okay,” she sputtered, slipping into the role she’d created months ago,
the one Magnolia remembered even when she didn’t remember her own daughter.
The Black queen…the survivor…the girl who kept her land alive.
A version of Meadow that Magnolianeverforgot.
“Once,” she began, “there was a Black queen named Marai. Her kingdom sat at the edge of the world where red clay met river water. The soil was cracked, the air was dry, but her people still planted seeds.” Meadow looked out the window. “Every dawn, Queen Marai walked the land barefoot so she could feel what needed healing. When she found a weak spot, she knelt and pressed her palm to it until the earth remembered its strength.
Some said that made her soft. Others said it made her holy,” Meadow looked down at her Mama. One day, men came fromthe North with gold on their tongues, promising to build towers if she gave them the land. Marai smiled and told them, ‘The ground already knows my name. I don’t need towers to prove it.’ The men left angry. The next morning her fields bloomed anyway.”
“Aww,” Magnolia crooned.
Meadow did everything in her power not to cry. “And when her people asked how she kept faith through drought and doubt, she said, ‘Because someone has to.’”
Magnolia’s eyelids fluttered. “That’s a nice story…what happens next?”
“I’ll tell you more later, Mama.”
Magnolia hummed already drifting away again, breath evening out, features softening.
Meadow sat there another second, letting herself feel the sting, the pride, and the grief all at once.
Some days her Mama forgot her name.
Other days she forgot the world.
But sheneverforgot Queen Marai.
And that was enough…it had to be…even if Meadow wished it weren’t the only thing left.
She kissed Magnolia’s forehead. “I’ll be back, Beautiful,” she whispered.
Then she slipped out the room, closing the door with care.
The morning airhit her face as soon as she stepped back onto the porch.
Down by the mower shed, her father tinkered with something under the hood of an old golf cart. His old Army Vet baseball cap was tilted sideways. There was grease on his fingersand he hummed a Luther Vandross song like he had no worries in the world.
“Hey, Daddy,” Meadow called, smiling at the age written all over his face.
Raymond was sixty-five and built from the type of cloth time couldn’t recreate anymore.
Black, sturdy, Southern, and stubborn as hell.
The Juniper Falls’ sun had carved lines into his skin, each one telling a story of long days and even longer sacrifices. His beard was mostly gray now…soft around his mouth but sharp along his jaw. His shoulders weren’t as broad as they used to be, but they still carried everything that mattered.
His walk had slowed a little over the years, but his spirit was faster than a golf ball whizzing through the air.
Raymond moved with purpose, he talked with certainty, and he loved with quiet, steady hands.
