Page 87 of When Love Takes Root

“You can’t compete with a memory and call yourself a man. You got to honor what fed her before you got there.”

I swallowed, feeling each word press against places God had already been dealing with in me. “Yes, sir.”

“And don’t be rushing Him because your blood got excited.”

Juice coughed into his hand.

I gave him a warning look, but my grandfather was not finished.

“Your granny made me wait,” Granddaddy said. His eyes moved beyond us, past the windows, past the nursing home, past Friday afternoon, until he was somewhere decades older and younger at once. “I knew I loved that woman the first time she told me no and meant it. She had a yellow dress on, hair pressed, lips shining, Bible tucked under her arm, and enough sense not to be impressed by my foolishness. I tried to walk her home from church. She told me, ‘James Brooks, you can walk beside me if you know how to behave. You can walk behind me if you don’t.’”

Mr. Wallace grinned. “She had you trained early.”

Granddaddy ignored him. “I walked beside her. Every chance she gave me. And when fear rose up in her, I didn’t punish her for it. I waited until she could see I wasn’t another thing she had to survive.”

That one took my breath without asking.

Across the room, laughter spilled out of the activity area, bright and warm. Then Celeste stepped back into view with a towel over one arm, a small bottle in her hand, and an elderly woman seated in front of her like royalty preparing for service. Celeste bent over the woman’s head with care, parted her silver hair, warmed oil between her palms, and touched her fingers to the woman’s scalp with a gentleness that changed the temperature of the whole room.

My body went still.

I’d seen beauty before. Plenty of it. Women who knew they were beautiful and had every right to. But this was different. This was beauty with work in its hands. Beauty that didn’t need to announce itself, because it was busy tending to somebody else. Celeste stood behind that elder with her shoulders relaxed, her face focused, her lips moving as she spoke low enough that the woman had to lean into it. She wasn’t performing care. She was giving it like it belonged to her.

Part. Oil. Massage. Smooth.

Her hands had rhythm. Not rushed. Not careless. Not salon-fast. She touched that woman’s head like there was memory there. Like scalp and silver hair deserved reverence. Like dignity could be restored with a comb, a towel, and hands that understood tenderness as ministry.

The elder’s eyes closed.

Celeste’s mouth lifted.

Something in my chest pulled so hard I had to look down at my own hands.

“Mm,” he said.

I didn’t ask what that meant.

I already knew.

Juice leaned closer, voice lower than usual. “She got you, huh?”

I watched Celeste finish one braid, smoothing the end with her fingers before tying it with a satin band. The elder reached up and patted her hand, and Celeste bent to kiss the top of her head. The kiss wasn’t dramatic. Nobody clapped. No music swelled. But it put a lump in my throat because tenderness like that was rare. The honest version. The version that showed up when no money changed hands, and nobody with influence was watching.

“She has my attention,” I said.

Juice smiled, but he didn’t joke.

Good.

Because if he had, I might’ve had to repent later.

Celeste lifted a mirror so the elder could see herself. The woman said something that made Celeste laugh, and the sound traveled across the room like light finding a crack under a door. I felt it in the center of me. Not in a way that made me want to rush her. In a way that made me want to go back to God with her name in my mouth and my pride on the floor.

Lord, give me patience.

Because my flesh saw her and wanted to stand near her.

My spirit saw her and wanted permission.