Page 88 of When Love Takes Root

There was a difference.

I had enough sense to know wanting a woman was easy. Reverencing her life took discipline. Desire could pull up fast, loud, arrogant, smelling like cologne and bad decisions. Love moved differently. Love paid attention. Love asked what grief needed before it asked what a body wanted. Love didn’t throw a man’s ego at a woman’s wounds and expect her to call it healing.

I leaned back in my chair, watching her braid another elder’s hair while my grandfather studied me with a knowing in his eyes that made me feel exposed and grateful at the same time.

Granddaddy said, “You took her to the Lord?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You gon’ keep checking in with Him?”

“Every step.”

“Good. Because a woman like that ain’t a hallway. She a house. You don’t run through her. You learn where to take your shoes off.”

Juice muttered, “Whew.”

I looked at Granddaddy, and for a second, I couldn’t speak.

He had given me a lot of things over the years. Wire cutters. Work gloves. Warnings. Lessons about current and voltage. But that right there felt like inheritance too. A man could pass down tools and still leave his son empty. Granddaddy passed down ways to handle what had power.

And Celeste had power.

Not loud. Not threatening. Hers was steadier. It lived in the way elders relaxed beneath her hands, the way children gathered around her, the way a room seemed to breathe easier when she started moving through it with purpose.

I looked toward the activity room once more.

She glanced up then.

Our eyes met.

I didn’t wave. Didn’t move toward her. Didn’t put her on display. I just let her see that I saw her.

All of her.

The woman with the guarded heart. The mother with a house full of children. The widow still learning how to stand in sunlight without apologizing to the dark. The stylist with oil on her palms, laughter in her throat, and care moving through her fingers like something she’d been raised to give.

Her hand paused in the elder’s hair for half a breath before she looked back down.

Granddaddy laughed under his breath. “Boy.”

I looked away, but it was too late.

The old man had me.

By the time we got ready to leave Rosehaven, the sun had shifted lower, throwing amber across the lobby floor. Granddaddy had fussed at the nurse, forgiven the nurse, asked Juice if he had gained weight, accused Mr. Wallace of cheating, and told me three times to stop standing so tall because I was making the room look unfinished.

I bent to hug him, careful of the blanket and the tender places time had left in his body. His hand gripped the back of my neck with surprising strength.

“Don’t play with that woman,” he said near my ear.

“I won’t.”

“And don’t let fear make you act noble when God telling you to move.”

That one made me pull back and look at him.

His eyes were wet, but his mouth stayed firm. “Patience ain’t cowardice. But hiding ain’t patience either.”