Page 168 of Can't Get Enough

That’s community.

Yes, there is power in making your own way and joy in sharing it. Sharing it with your family. Sharing it with your friends.

And—if you find the blessing of it—with the love of your life.

“You ready?” Maverick asks, shoving his hands into his pockets and eyeing the large gate that guards the Sky Park entrance.

“Yeah.” I kiss Soledad’s and Yasmen’s cheeks. “Great job organizing everything tonight, Yas. And, Sol, you supernova. That first episode is fantastic. Tomorrow, the red carpet!”

We squeal and squeeze and laugh. All the while, Maverick is tugging me away and toward the park’s exit by inches.

“Ready to go, were you?” I laugh once we settle into the back seat of the car.

“I’m sorry.” He loops our fingers together. “I thought you’d want to check on your mother before it gets too late considering we have to leave so early in the morning.”

“No, you’re right. I just had to tear myself away because it was such a great night.”

He pulls the car into the drive of the contemporary house in the heart of Skyland I bought for Mama, Aunt Geneva, She-she, and me. It’s more space than we need, but I love the extra room so we aren’t always on top of each other. There are also enough bedrooms that the nurse who comes in a few times a week has her own.

“Where’s She-she?” Maverick asks, glancing around the empty foyer.

“Probably upstairs asleep at the foot of my bed. Prissy self.”

He chuckles and slips his arms around my waist. “I don’t mind having you to myself for a few minutes without her yapping at our heels and demanding all your attention.”

“Jealous?” I whisper, linking my arms behind his neck.

“Always.” He bends and drops a kiss on my lips. “Let’s go out back.”

He walks us to the kitchen and toward the door leading to Mama’s garden.

“You want to go out here?” I frown, but don’t stop his progress. “At midnight?”

“I want to see how all our hard work in the garden is paying off.”

He slants a grin over one shoulder, and I melt. Not just under the heat of his smile, but from the warmth of memory. Him out backhelping my mother plant her “prize” ranunculus in the backyard where I grew up and then again here when Mama moved to Skyland. The transition hasn’t been perfect or without its setbacks, but Mama has adjusted surprisingly well. I know this garden Maverick helped her plant gets some of the credit for that.

I may have questioned the rationale of coming out here this late, but I can’t deny this place’s serenity. In the blossoms that are a legacy of my grandmother, whose flowers won my mother’s heart. Of the star-studded sky and the gentle breeze whispering through the trees surrounding the garden. All the tension of the night, the excitement and anticipation, dissolves.

We sit on the bench that Maverick had delivered the day we moved into the house. It bears my parents’ initials. A testament to their love. Some days I look through the back window and see Mama lost in her own thoughts; in the labyrinth of her own mind, just tracing their initials with her fingers.

Only now I’ve come to realize that maybe she’s not lost out here, but this is where she feels most found.

“I know it sounds crazy,” I say, my voice cracking the smallest bit. “Because we didn’t live in this house, didn’t grow up in Atlanta, but sometimes when I sit on this bench, I can feel him. Daddy, I mean.”

“Doesn’t sound crazy to me. I never met him, but I imagine that he’s here surrounded by ranunculus and this bench memorializing their love.”

I lay my head on his shoulder. “That’s sweet, Mav.”

“Matter of fact, the last time I was out here,” Maverick goes on, “I had a talk with him.”

I lift my head to peer at him in the shadows of the garden.

“Are you serious?” I ask, laughing a little.

“Yeah.” He nods in that decisive way he has that dares you to question even his most outrageous investment, his riskiest move. “For a while actually.”

“What’d you… Well, what’d you say?”

---