But that was proving to be a challenge. Dr. Grant couldn’t seem to get the teeth of the comb through her unruly hair. “It’s very tangled,” he said.
“I know. It’s a disaster. I haven’t had time to deal with it.” This was a lie. There was a salon on her corner that advertised twenty-dollar blowouts; she could’ve had one every day if she wanted to. Instead, she shoved her hair into a ponytail, often falling asleep with it in a tangle at the base of her neck. She was, as her mother might say, allowing herself to go to pot.
He hit another snag. “Wow, it’s almost dreadlocking in places.”
“You know what?” she said as he attempted to detach the comb. “Let’s cut it off.”
“If I managed Mallory’s hair, I can manage yours.”
“Not all of it. Just hack a hunk off. To here.” She pointed to the top of her neck. “Do you have some scissors?”
“Not haircutting scissors.”
“Any old kind will do.”
“I really can handle this. I don’t think cutting your hair is necessary.”
She wasn’t sure if it was necessary but right now it felt urgent.
“And you might regret it,” he added.
She had not cut her hair short since the summer before senior year of college, when, inspired by Demi Moore in Ghost, she’d gotten a pixie. Her mother had warned her she might regret that—curly hair and short cuts did not mix, she said—but Maribeth had loved the jagged look of it. Or at least she had until she’d seen Jason’s expression upon returning to school a few weeks later. “You cut your hair,” he’d said mournfully, as if she’d amputated a limb.
“I won’t regret it,” she told Dr. Grant. “Look, if you don’t want to do it, just give me some scissors. I’ll hack off the four or five inches and we can carry on.”
They stared down one another’s reflections in the mirror. And then Dr. Grant dropped the chunk of hair he’d been holding and left the bathroom.
As soon as he did, she thought of the pink ribbons in his office. They’d seemed so incongruous on his bookshelves. She’d glimpsed more on the bookcase in the parlor.
They were breast cancer ribbons. Felicity must have died of breast cancer. (She now remembered she still had not gotten a mammogram.) Maybe Felicity’s hair had fallen out from the chemo. Maybe he’d had to preemptively shave it for her. Maybe he’d shaved his own head in solidarity. That was why he hadn’t wanted to cut her hair. And now she’d practically bullied him into it.
Sometimes she really did think her heart no longer functioned. Sure, the muscle beat fine, but the feeling part of it was completely damaged.
“Never mind,” she called out in a reedy voice. “It’s okay.”
“Why? You lose your nerve?” Dr. Grant returned snapping a pair of surgical scissors. He did not look the least bit mournful.
She couldn’t help but grin. “No.”
He stood behind her, fingering the greasy locks. “Should we rinse it first?” he asked. “So I can be more precise.”
“I’ve spent most of my life trying to tame my hair,” she said. “I think I’m just going to give in to the mess.”
He liked that. She could tell. “Where to then?” he asked.
“Here.” She pointed to a bony vertebra at the top of her neck.
“That’s C-5, if you want to be anatomical about it.” He gathered her hair into a pony tail and twisted. It hurt but pleasantly so, the force paradoxically draining her of any remaining tension. She felt like a kitten, held snug by the scruff.
“Ready?” he asked. “One, two.”
Three.
She heard the wet slap of hair dropping to the floor, felt a tickle of breeze against her newly bare neck.
She looked up. The itching had stopped, though she knew she must still have lice. And her face, it looked lighter, less haggard. For the first time since the surgery, she felt like putting on some lipstick.
“Better?” he asked.
She didn’t answer. Only smiled.
“Shall we finish the job?”
“Go forth.”
He tidied up the cut as best he could with the oil in it and then he picked out the nits. As he did, they talked easily. He told her more stories about Mallory, who had graduated from college last year and was in California, making her way in the working world. She in turn told him about initiating the search for her birth mother.
Beneath the chitchat, Maribeth sensed a whole other conversation taking place. One about the family she’d left behind. One about the family who’d left him behind. It was as though they already knew, as though they’d mutually decided to bypass huge chunks of their history and get straight to the heart of the matter.
29
Maribeth, Todd, and Sunita were driving to their weekly shopping trip when the conversation turned to plans for the upcoming holiday.
Thanksgiving was in four days, a fact that Maribeth had managed to ignore until a few days before, when she’d looked out her living room window and seen a balloon turkey wearing a Steelers cap and realized the holiday was imminent. She’d been gone almost four weeks. How had that happened?
It wasn’t that she was unaware of time. But with no deadlines, no staff meetings, no potlucks, no playdates, no school week, no work week, the indicators changed. She had a few repeating events—trips to the library, shopping with Todd and Sunita, checkups with Dr. Grant—but those weren’t what demarcated time anymore. Rather, she noted the days passing by the way her leg no longer swelled if she went an entire day without wearing a support stocking, or how back-drawer words (ubiquitous, semiannual) were becoming easier to pull up. Or by the stack of letters to the twins, which had grown as thick as her thumb.