Page 81 of When Love Takes Root

“No, ma’am. I’m trying to keep your scalp from starting a rebellion.”

Ms. Ruthie pointed to herself. “I’m next.”

“You sure? You don’t want to beat Clarence first?”

“I can do both. I’m blessed with range.”

She turned her chair so I could stand behind her, and I draped another towel across her shoulders. Her hair was fuller than Alberta’s, snow-white and springy, with soft curls that needed more patience than product. I misted it lightly, worked a little oil through my fingers, and began massaging her scalp while she hummed an old hymn under her breath.

The first notes were shaky.

By the third line, Mrs. Alberta joined in.

By the time I started braiding Ruthie’s hair into one thick braid over her shoulder, the hymn had traveled across the table and into the corners of the room. Even Mr. Clarence got quiet, though he pretended to be studying his cards. My hands moved with the hymn until the room settled around it.

Through the open doorway, I felt movement before I looked.

Josiah stood in the lobby near the refreshment table with his grandfather and Juice, but his eyes were on me.

Not in a way that made me feel exposed.

In a way that made me feel witnessed.

He watched my hands until I laughed. When our eyes met again, something in his expression had changed.

The man looked at me like he’d discovered another language I spoke and wanted to learn it fluently.

My fingers paused for half a second in Ruthie’s braid.

“Baby,” Ms. Ruthie said without turning around, “don’t let that tall man distract you and have me walking around here with a crooked plait.”

Mrs. Alberta leaned to the side to see. “He watching?”

“Alberta,” I warned.

“Don’t Alberta me. Is he watching or not?”

Mr. Clarence looked over. “He watching.”

I tugged gently on Ms. Ruthie’s braid. “Everybody at this table is about to lose peppermint privileges.”

Mrs. Alberta fanned herself with her Uno cards. “Worth it.”

The table laughed, and I finished Ruthie’s braid with my face warm and my heart doing entirely too much for somebody who had asked God for clarity and received a man watching her grease scalps with reverence in his eyes.

Josiah eventually turned back to his grandfather, but I felt the weight of what he had seen. He’d seen something in me no appointment or dinner could’ve revealed.

Something about that scared me more than being called pretty.

Because pretty could be admired from a distance.

What he had seen was closer to the bone.

For the next hour, we played Uno with the seriousness of a Supreme Court hearing and the moral flexibility of a back-alley dice game. Mrs. Alberta accused Mr. Clarence of hiding Draw Four cards in his sleeve. Mr. Clarence told her she needed to repent from suspicion. Ms. Ruthie reversed the game so many times I threatened to call her a traffic hazard.

And still, my attention kept drifting.

Through the open activity room doors, I caught glimpses of Josiah with his grandfather. Once, he pushed him toward the courtyard while Juice walked backward in front of them talking too much. Another time, he opened a pack of crackers for him while listening closely to a nurse.