And fear, I had discovered, did not wait to be invited.
The previous night, I had found my daughter standing barefoot in the middle of it.
“Letty?” I’d knocked once on the bathroom door. “Honey, can I come in?”
She was standing before the mirror with kitchen scissors in one hand and a ribbon-tied bundle of hair in the other. Her hair had been chopped to her shoulders, uneven and jagged, and her chin trembled.
First, I looked down at the floor. Then I looked at her. “Letty… what did you do?”
She lifted her shoulders as if preparing herself for a blow. “Don’t be mad.”
“I’m trying very hard to start somewhere before mad.”
That pulled the smallest breath from her, but tears filled her eyes anyway.
“There’s a girl in my class named Millie,” she said. “She’s in remission, but her hair still hasn’t grown back right. Today the boys laughed at her in science. She cried in the bathroom, Mom. I heard her.”
Letty raised the ribboned hair. “I looked it up. Real hair can go into wigs. And mine won’t be enough by itself, but maybe it can help.”
“Baby…”
“I know it looks awful.”
“Like you fought hedge clippers and barely won,” I said.
She gave one small laugh, then wiped her face with the heel of her hand. “Was it stupid?”
Jonathan had lost his hair in clumps across a pillowcase. Letty had never forgotten. I had not forgotten either.
I crossed the bathroom, took the scissors from her hand, and drew her into my arms. “No,” I whispered. “No, sweetheart. Your dad would be so proud of you. I know I am.”
She cried against my shoulder for a while, then pulled back. “Can we fix my hair? I look like a founding father.”
One hour later, we were sitting in Teresa’s salon, Letty wrapped in a cape while Teresa examined the damage and released one quiet sigh.
Teresa’s husband, Luis, walked in halfway through and stopped short when he noticed the ponytail on the counter.
“What’s all this?” he asked.
Before I could explain, Letty said, “A girl in my class needs a wig.”
He truly looked at her then, and smiled at me through the mirror. “Hi, Piper. That’s Jonathan’s girl, all right.”
My daughter sat a little taller beneath the cape. “You knew my dad?”
Luis nodded. “Yes, sweetie. I worked with him for eight years.”
She touched the blunt ends of her newly shortened hair. “He would’ve liked this haircut?”
Teresa gave a snort. “No decent man would support a bathroom haircut, my girl.”
“Mama,” Letty whined.
“But,” Teresa added, her voice gentler, “he would’ve loved the reason for it.”
Luis rested against the station and looked at Letty. “Your dad couldn’t stand seeing people suffer alone. It drove him crazy.”
Letty lowered her eyes to her hands. “Millie tried to act like she didn’t care, but she did.”
“Of course she did, baby,” I said.
Teresa stayed past closing. Between repairing my daughter’s hair and matching it with hair already saved for pediatric wigs, she managed to complete one by the next morning.
—
Before school, Letty and I picked up the wig.
“Do I look weird, Mom?”
“You look like yourself,” I said. “Just with less maintenance.”
That made her smile.
Then she lifted the box slightly. “Do you think Millie will actually wear it?”
“I’m not sure, baby. It might be uncomfortable for her. But even if she chooses not to, she’ll know how brave and kind you are.”
