Page 14 of The Light Year (Stardust Beach #6)

“Mommy?” Huck asks Barbie in the middle of her reverie. His little legs are sticking out straight as he sits in the swing. Barbie is pushing him from behind. She walks around to the front of the swing so that he can see her face.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Mommy, I love you.” Huck smiles at her, and her heart melts.

He’s the sweetest and cuddliest of her three boys, and she thanks her lucky stars nearly every day that she’s got him as her last baby.

As Huck grows, she’ll miss the hallmarks of toddlerhood, of raising little ones, of kissing scraped knees and cutting crusts off sandwiches, but at least she’ll have the memories of falling asleep next to Huck on his tiny bed during afternoon naps.

She’ll remember quiet days at the park, just the two of them, and, hopefully, he’ll remember those days, too, and grow up to defy the old adage about sons only being sons until they take a wife.

“I love you too, Hucky,” she says, reaching out and grabbing his tiny feet to stop his swinging. He gasps with delight at the quick halting of the movement. “I love you so, so, so much.”

It had come to her on different occasions over the years—that night she spent at the clinic with her mother—particularly as she learned what they’d truly had to do to the women she saw coming in and out of that nighttime clinic, and she’d wondered even more about their lives as she’d grown into her own.

She’d wondered how they’d each come to be in a position where they felt the clinic was their best and only option, and each time she thought of them, she felt gratitude to have never been in that situation herself.

“Can we go home, Mommy?” Huck asks, looking tired as he rubs his eyes.

Barbie reaches down to pick up her three-year-old from the swing, and rather than set him on the ground, she holds him on her hip, savoring for just a moment that feeling of having a little one cuddle up to her neck and bury his face in the scent of his mother for comfort.

Barbie crosses the park with her purse over one shoulder and Huck’s head on the other, remembering how fortunate her life has been, despite the tragic way she’d lost her mother.

Marion Mackey had been so many things in her own life: college student, young wife, mother, scorned woman, passionate lover, community activist, feminist, alcoholic, and then, finally—nothing at all.

Just a memory to those who’d loved her. But not to Barbie.

To her own daughter, Marion had been a champion; someone who always did what she felt was right, and who did her best to pitch in where she was needed, even if no one ever knew about it.

The afternoon sunlight warms Barbie and Huck as they make their way across the grass to their parked car, and she smiles at the way her child feels in her arms. If she can impart to her own sons even half of what her mother had given to her, she will count herself a lucky woman.

If she can let them know how important it is to be bold, to be brave, and to help others in the ways that their grandmother had, then that will be enough.

In that way , Barbie thinks, setting Huck on the backseat of the car and watching him lay on his side and pull his knees to his chest as he closes his eyes, in that way, my mother will live forever .

“Father Watkins,” Carrie says, bowing her head slightly as she and Barbie walk down the aisle of the church. “It’s so good to see you.”

The First Baptist Church of the Gospel is on a rundown street on the outskirts of Cocoa Beach, with more boarded-up storefronts than open ones.

As they'd driven up, Barbie had noticed the knots of Black children and teens riding around on rusted bikes, or sitting on sidewalks just talking and laughing.

Some had eyed the unfamiliar cars pulling into the church's parking lot with open suspicion.

“Caroline!” Father Watkins calls out, lifting a hand and giving her a wide, familiar grin. “You came back.”

“I did,” Carrie says. “And I brought a friend to help.” She turns to Barbie, beaming. “Father Watkins, this is Barbara Roman.”

Barbie can’t help but feel nervous as she blushes under the intense gaze of the tall, Black man in clerical robes. “Thank you for having me,” she says.

Father Watkins spreads his hands wide. “Barbara, the Lord brings all kinds of people to our church, and we’re grateful for every single one.

” He reaches out to offer a hand for Barbie to shake, which she does.

Father Watkins places his other hand on top of hers and holds the pose for a moment, looking at her with a long, serious gaze.

Finally, he releases her hand. “I’m so glad you’ve come to be a part of our ministrations, and I trust Caroline will show you around. ”

Carrie leads the way to a hot kitchen in the back of the church, where several Black women wear aprons and headscarves. They pass big bowls and containers down the assembly line they’ve formed at the cracked counter.

“Ladies,” Carrie says, pulling an apron off a hook behind the swinging door. “I brought more hands to help. This is my friend Barbie.”

Seven sets of dark eyes turn to look at Barbie, and she flushes again. She’s never been much of a blusher, so this response surprises her—she’s going red yet again here in this perfectly lovely church.

“Hi,” Barbie says hopefully, smiling at the women. They stop what they’re doing and just stare at her, as if they’re waiting for her to break into song. Or to turn around and leave.

Barbie does neither.

The oldest and largest of the women looks her up and down with a dubious expression, her eyes making the full journey from Barbie’s tanned face and blonde hair, all the way down her powder blue dress to her flat shoes, and back to her face again.

But just when Barbie is about to panic, the woman breaks into a huge smile and a hearty laugh.

“Oh, baby, you’ll do just fine. Wash your hands and grab you an apron.” She turns back around to the other women, signaling for them to carry on, which they do.

Within minutes, Barbie is sandwiched between two women from the church congregation who are already nudging her and laughing as they talk, making her feel like one of them.

She takes her spot on the assembly line seriously, slicing bread and passing it on for sandwiches, and then switching with someone else to bag up the finished meals, which she lines up in a neat row on the counter.

The afternoon passes with the gospel music from a radio on the windowsill filling in the gaps between laughter and stories, and Barbie relaxes into the flow of their meal production.

As she listens to the women talk—their speech cadences and delivery so different from her own—she’s reminded of the comfort she found amongst the kitchen staff in her own home growing up.

As a little girl, listening to Winnie speak to the other maids and cooks had soothed Barbie.

Their laughter was as warm as anything coming out of the oven, and it had felt like home.

After an hour or two of being in the back of this church in Cocoa Beach, Barbie feels much the same.

"You were good at that," Carrie tells her when they leave through the back door and walk out into the bright October sun together. "I have to admit, I wasn't sure you'd blend in that easily. I'm impressed."

Barbie squints in the sunlight as she pauses next to the door of her car. "I meant it when I said I wanted to get involved, Carrie. I admire all that you do, and I want to be a part of it."

Carrie leans against the warm metal of Barbie's car with her arms folded across her chest. She looks Barbie in the eye.

"There are a lot of things to be a part of, Barb.

" Carrie purses her lips. "It's like—all this ttime, I’ve just been going about my life and not realizing how many people are basically cast out by society.

How many children are going to bed at night feeling hungry.

How many of our young men are dying to fight other countries' wars.

We just need to pick something and then dive in.

Try to help. Even if we can't fix the world, we can do our part, you know? "

Barbie does know: she'd seen her mother quietly go about doing her part for most of her life.

"I hear you," she says. "And I thought I'd need to try a bunch of things to know where I belonged, but I think this is it—this church.

The food, the fellowship, the community.

I really liked the feeling I got from Father Watkins. "

A huge grin crawls across Carrie's face. "Yeah? Me too!" She reaches out to grab Barbie's upper arm gleefully. "The first time I met him, I just felt... safe. And seen. He's such a good man. And this church does a lot of positive things for the community."

"I can tell." Barbie looks around at the parking lot; hers and Carrie's are the nicest and newest cars there, and she feels a certain way about that.

"I never want to look down on anyone's life or standard of living, but I know how fortunate we are," she says quietly.

"And, specifically, I know how fortunate I am.

My family has never gone without, and many people struggle daily. I get that."

"The fact that you see it and get it is half the battle, Barbie. You would be amazed at how many people want to close their eyes to injustice." Carrie is still holding Barbie's arm, and she shakes her a little for emphasis. " We need to keep our eyes open."

It's Carrie's utter sincerity that really seals the deal for Barbie—well, that and the fact that an idea has suddenly crystallized in her mind, and she knows she won't be able to rest until she sees it through.

"I want my eyes opened even further," Barbie assures her. "I want to see what's happening beyond the borders of my own neighborhood."

There is a fiery spark of recognition in Carrie's eyes as she looks at Barbie from a new vantage point. "Okay, Barbara Roman," she says, folding her arms across her chest once more and nodding at Barbie. "Then buckle up. Because I have things to show you."