After dinner, the guests began leaving quietly, stopping to hug me on the way out.
Mark’s sister squeezed my hand and held on. I excused myself and stepped outside for some air because I couldn’t sit at that table anymore. Not long after, we decided it was time to leave.
Mark and I were walking toward the car with the kids when the front door opened behind us. Brenda hurried after us. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“I didn’t know. About the promise. About the hair.
I didn’t know any of it.”
Mark turned to her. “But that’s not really the point, Mom.”
“We’re not the ones who decide whether to forgive you, Brenda,” I said. “You need to talk to the kids.”
Brenda found Leo and Lily standing beside the car.
Lily was upset, clutching Terry against her chest. Leo stood next to her, his hand wrapped around hers. Brenda stopped a few steps away, her voice shaking.
Lily nodded slowly, the way children do when they’ve been through enough to understand that holding things inside is heavy. Leo looked up at Brenda. “It’s okay, Grandma,” he said.
“My hair will grow back. I just don’t want you to be sad.”
Brenda broke down completely. This morning, she showed up at our house wearing a scarf tied at the back of her neck.
Brenda is not a scarf person. Mark and I exchanged a look as she reached up and untied it. Her head was completely shaved.
Clean and smooth, her ears looking very exposed, making her seem somehow younger all at once. “If Lily has to be brave enough to lose her hair,” Brenda said, “I can learn a little of what that feels like.”
Then she reached into her bag, pulled out a small white box, and gave it to Lily. My daughter opened it slowly.
Inside was a wig. Golden. Curly.
The curls catching the light exactly the way Leo’s always had. Lily lifted it out with both hands and put it on her head. Leo leaned forward and studied his sister very seriously.
Lily laughed. It was the first time she’d laughed like that in weeks, and the sound of it filled the entire room.
