DESTINATION: ROMANCE
Sufficient Grace

“What’s on your mind, Grandpa?” As if she couldn’t guess.

A small smile tweaked the corners of Grandpa’s mustache. “Reckon we could go out to the river Sunday afternoon? I’d like to a visit with Eve.”

Nora knew Grandpa’s heart called to him to return to the burial place of his love. Grandpa’s Cherokee bride, his Eve, rested beneath a simple mound of rocks along the riverbank. The passage of fifty-two years hadn’t erased Grandpa’s grief. Nora heard his heartache every he talked about raising their young son, Nora’s father, alone.

Nora fixed a scrutinizing gaze on him. “If you feel up to it.”

He flapped his hand toward her. “I’m just fine.”

He’d never admit to the progressive weakness that was stealing his vitality. The walk wasn’t easy for him, even if they took the buggy as far as they could. But if she tried to suggest he shouldn’t go, she knew he’s just go by himself. “We’ll go, Grandpa.”

As with every visit she could remember from the time she was a child, they sit while Grandpa “talked” to his late wife. Then he’d reminisce and tell Nora stories–most of which she’d heard many times before–about when he was a young man and fell in love with a Cherokee girl, and the animosity and bigotry they faced. Even after his wife died and the Cherokees were removed by way of what some called the Trail of Tears, some people still treated Hosea Courtland with disdain over the years.

“We’ll make sure nobody sees us.” The painful thoughts must have shown on her face.

Grandpa rose from his chair and brought her his empty coffee cup. He squeezed her shoulder. “Nora girl, it’s been more’n fifty years. Most folks have forgotten all about those times.”

She slipped her arms around his neck. “But you haven’t.”

“No,” Grandpa’s shoulders sagged. “I’ll never forget.”