Page 80 of When Love Takes Root

I kissed her cheek. “Good morning to you too.”

“You brought my peppermints?”

“I brought peppermints for everybody.”

“I’m not everybody.”

Mr. Clarence slapped the table. “That’s the problem with church women. Always thinking they got assigned seating in Heaven and priority over candy.”

Mrs. Alberta narrowed her eyes. “Clarence, you better hope Heaven has a back door.”

I laughed and set my tote on the chair beside her. “Y’all starting early today.”

“We old,” Ms. Ruthie said. “We don’t buy green bananas or waste good insults.”

I pulled out a towel, the oil, and my comb. “All right, Alberta. You want your scalp done before Uno or after?”

“Before,” she said, already sitting taller. “I need to be anointed before I deal with Clarence’s foolishness.”

“Baby, that’s scalp oil, not the blood of Jesus.”

“It can be both if you pray right.”

I laughed, draped the towel across her shoulders, and warmed a little oil between my palms. I worked oil gently into her thin, silver hair until her shoulders finally relaxed.

Mrs. Alberta’s eyes closed.

The room softened around us.

There was something holy about caring for a head.

I worked my fingers along Mrs. Alberta’s scalp, gentle around the tender spots, careful where her skin dipped near the temples. “You been scratching again?”

She opened one eye. “Don’t start fussing.”

“I’m asking.”

“You ask like a woman getting ready to fuss.”

“Because I see flakes, and I know you know where that moisturizing cream is.”

Mr. Clarence grunted. “She don’t listen.”

Mrs. Alberta’s eyes opened all the way. “Clarence, your hairline been running from your forehead since 1983. Please don’t enter this conversation.”

Ms. Ruthie slapped the table and laughed until her tea shook.

I kept working until Mrs. Alberta’s shoulders relaxed. When I finished, I brushed her hair back and gathered it into two soft braids, securing the ends with satin bands because Alberta liked to look “kept” as she called it.

She turned her head one way, then the other. “Mmm. Now that’s a woman who loves her elders.”

“You only saying that because you got peppermint privileges.”

“I said what I said.”

I kissed the top of her head. “You look beautiful.”

Her mouth trembled before she could hide it. She looked away first, reaching for a peppermint with more attitude than necessary. “You trying to make old women cry before lunch?”