by Nicole Baart
“Well, yeah, but Jo sold her hair to a wig shop so that her mother would have enough money to visit her sick father. I don’t see how this has anything at all to do with me. With us.”
“Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with us.” Kat cocked a shoulder to her ear. “But sometimes when the earth moves, you need to move with it. Know what I mean? There has to be a change—something big. Something different. Because life will never be the same and someone, somehow, has to acknowledge that fact.” Stepping toward Dani, Kat stretched out her hand and took the end of her sister’s long ponytail between her fingers. “I don’t want that to have to be you. Let me do it.”
Dani regarded her sister, bottom lip between her teeth. “You have beautiful hair.”
“But it’s not my one beauty. We’ve already established that.” Kat smirked. “Come on.” She held her hand, palm up, and waggled her fingers. After a pause, Dani reached back and took the ponytail elastic out of her own hair.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“How short?” Dani asked.
Tugging her chestnut waves into a low ponytail at the nape of her neck, Kat turned around. “This short. Cut it above the elastic.”
“That’s pretty short.”
“It’ll be dramatic. A memorial.”
The unexpected word stopped them both short, and for the span of a few ragged breaths they stood in complete silence. Then Kat nodded once, a command of sorts, and Dani thumbed out the knife. The blade sprung with a muted click.
“You’re sure?” Dani whispered.
“For shit’s sake, Danica Greene, just do it!”
At first the blade merely glanced off the shiny breadth of Kat’s dark hair. But then Dani wound the length of it around her hand and pulled the ponytail taut. The next slice carved a chunk from the thick rope of hair.
Kat shrieked. “That hurts like hell!” she howled. “Do it fast! Just get it over with!”
Dani worked quickly after that, moving the blade in clean, even strokes. When it was over, Dani held the weight of her sister’s gorgeous hair in her hand and felt a grief so profound it almost leveled her.
Kat touched the naked plane of her slender neck, combing strands of hair with her fingernails. She didn’t turn around right away, didn’t face Dani, and in the interim there was a silence between them that seemed charged with things unspoken. Dani felt an apology bubble inside her, a regret that rose until it threatened to spill from her lips in a torrent of repentance. I did this to you, she mourned.
But then Kat turned and regarded her with a look so pure it made Dani feel sorry for all the times she had doubted her sister, all the times she was sure Kat was on a path fraught with failure and destruction.
“I look hot, don’t I?” Kat asked, trying out a seductive stare. She pouted her lips. “Glamorous. Sexy.”
Dani attempted a smile, but it wisped away long before it formed.
Kat didn’t seem to mind. She took the length of hair from her sister’s hands and studied it with narrowed eyes. Then she flung it, overhand, into the water. It sailed out over the river before landing with a tiny splash. “Here’s to new beginnings,” she whispered.
Dani wanted to echo Kat’s sentiments, to let the breeze off the water baptize her in the sort of hope that had the strength to believe in a fresh start. But the words stuck in her throat, and try as she might, she couldn’t tear her gaze from the place where her sister’s offering had sunk. It felt futile. An unseen sacrifice.
Beauty given in vain.
Danica
We walked straight to the salon from the river, stopping for just a minute or two at the house so I could grab my keys. While I rummaged through the kitchen junk drawer to locate my key chain, Kat studied her hair in the side mirror of her car, smoothing it one way and then another, and experimenting with different parts. Keys in my pocket, I stood for a few seconds behind the screen door and watched her as she styled and tugged. I was looking for some sign that she regretted our mutilation, but either she was a good actress, or she really didn’t mind what I had done to her. The only expression on her face was one of mild amusement.
It felt strange to fit my key in the front door of La Rue. And even stranger to stand in the middle of my salon and absorb the way the sun played off the copper ceiling and bathed the shop in golden light that rose like fairy dust in the still air. It was a second homecoming, and in some ways this one hit me harder than even those first few moments in the house I had shared with Ell. This was my life. This would be my return to normalcy. And somehow that thought slashed at my chest and left me panting.
But I couldn’t let Kat see how my shop affected me. I flicked on the lights, dispelling the lovely, dancing dust, and settled my sister into a chair without giving my surroundings another thought. I spun a black cape around her and secured it tight against her neck. When she yanked at it a bit with her fingers, I slapped her hand away. “You’ll itch like crazy if any of those tiny hairs get under your shirt.”
“I’ve never had to worry about tiny hairs before.” Kat wiggled her shoulders as if this was a delicious dilemma. “Are you going to use the clippers on me?”
“Maybe a bit in the back.”
She shivered again, and I couldn’t tell if it was from anticipation or dread.
I spent nearly ten minutes massaging Kat’s scalp with shampoo that smelled of a beach in the summertime. Then I rinsed and conditioned, and dedicated the next half hour to shaping a long pixie cut that framed her delicate face. There were sweeping strands that curved along her cheekbones, and a fringe of bangs brushed to one side that accented her eyes. The back was boy-short, but I notched it a bit so she could tease it out if she wanted to.
When I finally spun her around to face the mirror, even I was shocked by the result. Kat looked amazing—sophisticated and elegant, like she should be modeling couture instead of serving up Miller Lite on tap at the disgusting hole in the wall where she worked.
“You’re going to have to get a different job,” I said. It was a risky pronouncement; Kat hated it when I nagged her about bartending. But I felt bold. I had just transformed my sister into Audrey Hepburn circa Sabrina.
Kat angled her chin, studying the cut from every angle she could. She grazed her fingers along her forehead and blended a stray hair back into place. “Everything else is changing,” she mused. “I just might.”
I suppressed the urge to clap and instead plucked the broom and dustpan from beside the counter where it stood in wait. There wasn’t much to clean up, but I swept the curling tendrils of my sister’s fallen hair for a very long time.
Kat stayed with me for two uninterrupted days, and although the thought of her constant presence had filled me with anxiety at first, by the time she had to go back to work, I wondered what I would do without her. For almost forty-eight hours we existed in a time between, an interim from the real world where I didn’t have to deal with the fallout from my husband’s disappearance, or even think about the fact that he was gone.
We didn’t do much. Sometimes we cooked extravagant meals together only to discover we had no appetite for them. And then at midnight we met each other in the kitchen and warmed up the homemade crab cakes with sweet chili sauce and curls of green onions so peppery and strong we almost couldn’t eat them.
For the most part, we reverted to our childhood. Kat painted her toenails blue, but didn’t like the way the color made her feet look anemic, so she repainted them green. I opted for something in an iridescent mauve, a shade so discreet it was almost as if I weren’t wearing polish. We smeared on Kermit-green facial masks. And we watched movies. Some obnoxious new release, and then My Fair Lady because Kat had put me in mind of Audrey Hepburn and it was the only one of her movies we could find in all of Blackhawk.
On the second morning, Char showed up, and for a few hours the Vis girls were almost complete. I felt a brief stab of longing for Natalie, but I quashed it quickly because I could only imagine what would h
appen if they all gathered around me. A return to life before Ell and a hint of what it would be like after him. It terrified me.
But having Natalie join our ranks would have been preferable to dealing with Char on my own.
My mother arrived sober and subdued, dressed in a pair of plain blue jeans and a crew-neck T-shirt that for once didn’t hug every curve. Her hair was somewhat faded and held back with two clips that made her look younger than her fifty-five years. But the thing that surprised me most about her sudden appearance on my doorstep was not the very un-Char-like veneer. It was the look in her eyes.
“Hi, honey,” she said, forgoing the pot of coffee on the counter and coming across the kitchen to stand before the chair where I was sitting. At first I didn’t know what she wanted from me, but then she put her arms out awkwardly and I realized she expected a hug. I rose and acquiesced, a one-armed embrace that was halfhearted and laced with all the disappointment I harbored because she hadn’t bothered to come and see me sooner. Shouldn’t my own mother have been waiting for my defeated return? I had been home for thirty-six hours before she bothered to come and see me.
“How are you girls doing?” Char asked, sinking into a chair between us. The question was directed at both of us, but she didn’t take her eyes off me.
“Fine,” I said a little too brightly. “I cut Kat’s hair.”
Char blinked at me for a moment before she turned her head slowly to my sister. “Oh!” Her jaw dropped a little. “Wow, Katrina. I don’t know what to say.”
“Say it’s gorgeous,” Kat instructed. She drowned the last gulp of her coffee and rose to dump her mug in the sink.
“It’s gorgeous,” Char repeated obediently.
“I’m going to shower.” Kat departed the kitchen without a backward glance, and I was left to wonder if something had happened between her and our mother, or if she was just as tired and sleep-deprived as I was.
“She looks really different,” Char said when Kat was gone.
“I love it.”
Char just nodded.
We sat in silence, and I took several deep, steadying breaths as I contemplated bringing up her absence and my failed trek to Alaska. I wanted to hold her accountable for her actions—or lack thereof—but I didn’t want to do this with everyone. To rehash my sad narrative until the words were sucked dry of all meaning. But I decided it was expected. I opened my mouth to give her some truncated version of my story of heartache and loss.
I didn’t get the chance to say anything before Char burst into tears.
It was so shocking to see my mother cry that I sat stock-still for a minute or so as she sobbed messily and tried without success to speak through snot bubbles. Then Char moaned, a heartbroken little sigh, and I came to my senses. There was a box of tissues on the counter, and I grabbed them and placed them on the table before her. While she tried to sop up her tears, I poured her a glass of water from the pitcher in the refrigerator and tapped out two ibuprofen into my palm for good measure.
“Here,” I said, handing her the cool glass and the small, white tablets. “Take these. Crying always gives me a headache.”
“Me too,” she mumbled.
We sat in silence for a few awkward moments, and I wondered if I should do something to console her. Pat her back maybe, or offer some words of comfort. But I didn’t know how to handle Char in such an atypical state, and instead of feeling a sense of connection with my grieving mom, the distance between us seemed only to widen.
“Do you know what I’ve been thinking about all night?” Char asked finally, raising her swollen eyes to mine. She gifted me with the faint impression of a crooked smile, but then her lip trembled and she heaved a heavy sigh. “I’ve been thinking about the afternoon that Etsell asked me for your hand in marriage.”
Her words were like a blow, but I squared my shoulders and placed my hands on my thighs to steady myself. “Oh,” I said.
“Do you remember that?”
Of course I remembered. But I studied my lap and held my tongue. Maybe if I acted disinterested she’d abandon her obvious attempt to break my heart.
“I thought it was so weird,” Char said, oblivious to my distress. “Ell called me up and asked if he could come over for coffee. Can you imagine? That earnest little boy treated me just like a lady. Of course, he was nineteen and hardly a boy anymore, but all I could think about was how young he looked. How childlike. And though he’d seen me in robe and rollers, there he was all formal and trying to act grown-up, pretending like we were practically strangers.”
I didn’t know that Etsell was going to ask my mother for permission to marry me, but she loved to tell the story after the fact. How he showed up when I was at work and sat across from Char in the tiny dine-in kitchen of our double-wide with his hands folded on the table like a gentleman.
“He sat there like a churchman. Remember those visits we used to have when you were a little girl? When two men in black suits would come to the house and inquire after the state of our sorry souls?” Char laughed a little, though the memory of those visits was no laughing matter to me. I could still feel the lead in the pit of my stomach as those grave men bored holes into my forehead with their eyes and condemned my silence.
“Ell wasn’t like that,” I murmured.
“No, of course not. But he was so serious. He said all these sweet things about how much he loved you and how he wanted to spend the rest of his life with you. . . .”
I would have asked her to stop, but my throat was filled with something molten. I couldn’t even open my mouth.
“And do you know what I said?” Char shook her head as if she couldn’t believe it even now. “I asked if you were pregnant. I told him, ‘I’m too young to be a grandma. Ain’t no way some baby is gonna call me grandma yet.’”
She couldn’t have any idea how deeply her words pierced me, how they mined a deep well of emotions and came up bloody-fingered from the raw wound of my ruined hopes.
Ell had wanted kids right from the start. He loved the idea of rubbing my pregnant feet and pushing back strands of sticky hair from my face as I delivered a houseful of giggling, apple-cheeked babies. But I refused. At first I said we were too young—we weren’t ready for the responsibility of kids. And it was true. For a while, at least. When he brought it up a couple of years later and begged that I go off birth control, “just to see what happens,” I pretended to agree, but didn’t stop popping those tiny pink pills every morning. I hid them in the pocket of a jacket I never wore that hung in the very back of my closet.
I don’t know exactly why I was so terrified of having children. It had nothing to do with Etsell; I knew that he would be an amazing father. But just the thought of bringing another person into the world gripped me with the sort of fear that left me short of breath and clammy. Maybe it was because I didn’t know what it looked like to be a mother. Or I couldn’t envision, no matter how hard I tried, the careful harmony of a family tuned to the mysterious song of a complete and happy parental unit. Neither could Etsell. What did we know about raising children? What did we know about functional families?
“It just . . .” Char fumbled for words. “It just kills me. How could I say that to him? How could I know?”
But there was no way anyone could have predicted it. No way we could have parted the curtain and peeked at all that was to come, the eventual softening that would cause me one day to stop taking the pills, to actually watch the calendar and hope. And there was no way I could have prepared myself for the fact that just when I started to long for the same thing as Etsell, the possibility would be forever snatched away.
A part of me wanted to tell Char that now she’d never be a grandma. She’d never have to hear that dreaded word cross the cherubic lips of a child who bore our mingled DNA. But it was too cruel. So I didn’t say anything at all, and we brooded in the weighted stillness of a taut, uncertain morning. Brooded, and mourned for something that we both would never know.
9
&n
bsp; A Simple Kindness
For the first ten days after Danica returned home from Alaska, she lived like a hermit. When Kat left to resume her normal life, Dani circled in on herself, cocooning the edges of her existence around her so that she could pretend to forget that the world was going on as if nothing had ever happened. Sometimes she showered twice in a day. And once she went three days without stepping into the bathroom to do anything other than relieve herself. She dreamed about Etsell when she closed her eyes at night, and when the sun dazzled Blackhawk with warmth, she had visions of mountains and a vast, bottomless ocean. Of Alaska.
The clouds on the edge of the horizon were the hunched shoulders of the Aleutians, the darkening sky behind ascended to mark the Kenai Peninsula. The air shimmered when she blinked, revealing impenetrable forests and water frothed with ice as cold and snow-white as winter itself. It was madness, and she knew it. But Danica couldn’t stop. She kept looking for him.
She knew what they were thinking. All of them. It was time to bury Etsell. But there was nothing to put in the ground, no remains to tether him to the earth and give her a constant—a place where she could litter flowers upon his memory like the tears she couldn’t cry. How could she bury an empty casket? For some reason, a hollow grave was worse than none at all.
Char visited a few times, but Dani was short with her and distant, so after a couple of days her mother decided to leave her alone. And the phone rang infrequently—Hazel tried, and Natalie too—but when Dani didn’t answer, even the calls thinned and then stopped altogether. Presumably there was a backlog of messages on her machine at La Rue, but Dani didn’t really care if she lost her clients. She wasn’t even sure that she wanted to go back to her salon, to that place where Etsell was imprinted on the framework like an indelible watermark. All she really wanted to do was follow her husband. To disappear.
She was doing a pretty good job of it until Benjamin rapped on her back door late one afternoon.