Page 16 of Cuffed By Your Love

“Detective Edmonds.” She smiled. “You have EJ smelling like cocoa butter and baby cologne again.”

“You know I have to keep my son moisturized and marketable.” I winked.

EJ rolled his eyes like he was grown.

I knelt to his level and zipped his hoodie all the way up. “Be good today. Listen. Share. Don’t push anyone unless they push you first.”

“Daddy!”

“I’m just kidding. Well, kinda.”

He giggled.

I prompted our little affirmation we always did before we left each other.

“I’m a young king, strong and brave.”

EJ responded, “I’m a young king, the world I’ll pave.”

I continued, “My dreams are big, my light will gleam.”

EJ followed with, “My voice is power, I dare to dream.”

And we finished together. “I am important, I am seen.”

We did our secret handshake. I kissed the top of his head, stood back up, and watched him walk away like it was nothing, like he hadn’t been the only thing holding me together for the last two years.

The thing about EJ was that he was joy personified. He didn’t know that his mama died in my arms. He didn’t understand whyI flinched when I heard gunshots just two blocks away from our house. He didn’t realize that sometimes, when he laughed really hard, I had to step into the next room to cry because the sound of joy still felt like a betrayal to my grief.

But I carried it well because he deserved to laugh without any echoes of the past.

As I turned to leave, I paused by the window just long enough to watch him settle in. He took a toy dinosaur from his pocket and handed it to a little girl who seemed to need a friend. That was how I knew we raised him right.

As I walked to my truck, her face came back to my mind.

Jonay.

That strong name with soft syllables and a weary voice that carried deep truths tucked inside it. That stare was sharp enough to cut, yet soulful enough to soothe.

I didn’t know her, not truly. But her pain felt familiar, as if it were drawn from the same grief I’d been concealing in my beard and burying in my badge reports.

And I kept asking myself:Why can’t I stop thinking about her?

I sat in my truck for a second, hands on the steering wheel, eyes closed. She wasn’t ready. Hell… maybe I wasn’t either.

But I knew one thing: whatever she was running from, maybe I’d be the one to catch it or crash while trying to protect her from it.

The cemetery was too quiet, eerily still, not just peaceful. It felt as if the trees were holding their breath out of respect. I parked my truck near the oak tree, right next to the crooked stone that bore a name I still wasn’t ready to stop saying out loud:

TEMPEST NICOLE EDMONDS

1989 – 2023

Wife. Mother. Warrior.

That last line was my idea. She ain’t want anything fancy. Swore she’d haunt me if I put butterflies or hearts on it. So I kept it simple but genuine—just like her.

I sat down cross-legged in the grass, elbows on my knees, fists pressed under my chin. The stone blurred the longer I stared, and before I knew it, memory pulled me under.