Jem opens the closet door and looks at himself in the mirror. He plays with the ends of his hair, tugging them straight and measuring the length against his neck.
“I want you to cut my hair,” he says.
“You’re joking.”
“No, I’m serious,” he insists. I tell him that it doesn’t matter to me how long his hair is, and that teasing from one’s siblings is never to be taken seriously.
“It’s been a year,” he says, gesturing to his hair. “I think I’ve made my point.” That makes me laugh. He grew his hair long for him, for a sense of security, not because he needed to prove to anyone that he could.
I shake my head. “No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“Think about it for a few days. This shouldn’t be an impulsive decision.”
“It needs to be,” Jem says, and heads for the bathroom. “Come on, before I lose my nerve.”
I get up and follow Jem to the bathroom. It seems best to humor him, so I go along with it. But I take my time setting things up, giving him a chance to think about this and if he really wants to do it. He produces a stool from the kitchen and I locate a pair of sharp scissors. There’s a kit with an electric shaver under the bathroom sink, but the mere mention of it makes Jem choke, so I let it go. He sheds his shirt and I wrap a towel around his shoulders like a barber’s drape.
“You’re sure about this?”
“Yeah.” Jem shows me how short to cut it. The ends of the strands will touch his jaw instead of his shoulders. I comb a little water through it and prepare to make the first cut. This has gone a little farther than just humoring him.
“Positive?”
Jem answers yes, but he’s wincing. I cut just a small chunk of hair, barely enough to pinch, and let it hang there next to his face.
“That’s not so bad, is it?” But from the look on his face, it really is that bad.
“I need a minute.” Jem sits back from the counter and puts his head between his knees. From anyone else, a panic attack over a haircut would be downright silly, but coming from Jem it’s sort of heartbreaking.
“C’mere, love.” I hug him and he rests his forehead against my chest, breathing deeply. I pet his head and rub his back, waiting for his moment of insecurity to pass.
“Will you miss running your hands through it?” he asks.
“If you’re looking for an excuse not to cut it, then yes, I’ll miss running my hands through your hair.”
Jem sits up. “I wasn’t looking for an excuse.”
I tuck the hair around his face behind his ears. “How did you wear it before chemo?” Maybe I can reason him through this.
It takes Jem a few minutes to find an old photo. He used to wear it fairly short around the sides and back, and a little longer on top. Short hair makes his cowlicks more obvious.
“You don’t want it cut like that again, do you?” I want him to admit that he doesn’t want this, that it isn’t the right time to make such a drastic change to his appearance.
He sits down heavily on the stool and sighs. “Maybe.” Jem looks to me like I have the answer. “Think you could like that guy?”
I kiss his temple. “We’ve had this conversation before. You’re never going to be that guy again. This is about a haircut. And it’s about what you want, not me.”
“Would it be okay if I didn’t do this?”
“Of course, love.” I wrap my arms around his neck and rest my cheek against his head.
“I’m sorry.” He tosses the photo on the counter and buries his head in his hands. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“You knew I was going to back out, didn’t you?”
Jem looks up and I smile at him in the mirror. “Yeah. I know you. If and when you cut your hair, it’ll be for you, not because Eric called you a girl.”
“Don’t forget Elise.” He has a point; Elise doesn’t usually join in the ‘Jemma’ taunt.
“Well you teased her first, you bugger.”
“She deserved it,” he protests.
I hold my hand to my cheek like a phone and mimic his sister. “Ohmigod I’m going to miss you so much. I can’t believe I have to wait all day to see you again.”
Jem smiles. I continue the one-sided mushy conversation, kissing his ears and pinching the apples of his cheeks when he gives up and laughs.
“Enough.” He grabs my arms around his neck and holds me close. “Cut my hair.”
“No, silly.”
“The longer I put it off the scarier it’s going to get.” Jem cups my cheek, drawing my face close against his temple. “I want you to do it.”
“You don’t really want a haircut.”
“I want to do this with you.”
I pick up the scissors and hand them to Jem. “Okay, but you have to make one cut. See that it’s no big deal.”
I comb out another piece of hair and hold it while Jem closes the blades around it. The hair falls to the floor, vibrant copper against the white tile.
“See?”
Jem looks at the cut hairs with a strange expression. He snorts self-deprecatingly and says, “Last year it was falling out in clumps on this floor.”
So much for easing the pain. We’ve got a long way to go.
*
The process of cutting Jem’s hair falls somewhere between making love and delivering a ten-pound baby. Halting, painful, emotional, intimate. I have to turn him away from the mirror to get the job done, because watching it happen is too difficult for him. His hands reach up for mine half a dozen times, narrowly missing the scissors each time, and he asks me to stop or slow down. He panics occasionally, and we have to stop so he can breathe through it. I need to kiss him. He needs to hear that he’s loved and that’s okay to feel unsettled by this change. Sometimes we just need to hold each other and breathe for a few minutes. By the time I have the basic shape of the haircut fleshed out, we’re both sweating and nerves are raw.
“We can stop here,” I tell him. I smooth the short hairs over his temples. I’m hoping he’ll say yes so I don’t have to watch him suffer anymore.
Jem runs his hands through his hair, feeling the shape and length. I’ve left it a little longer than it was in the photo. It seemed best—or as good as can be managed under the screwed up circumstances.
“Finish it,” he whispers.
“You sure?”
He nods.
“Okay, just give me a minute.” I’ve sweated through my shirt in the last hour, so I take mine off and borrow one of Jem’s t-shirts. Tessa’s urn ends up hanging outside the collar, dangling from my neck when I lean in front of Jem to level his hairline. He reaches out and grips it in his sweating fingers.
“Did she give you this much shit about shaving her head?” he says. He says it with a lighthearted tone, like he’s trying to joke, but he’s on edge and his voice trembles.
“She cried,” I admit. “Loudly, for a long time. I cried too.”
Jem smiles a little bit, knowing that he’s not alone with this strange weakness. I take Tessa off and loop the chain around his neck. “Hang on to her for a while, okay?”
Sometimes that bullet-sized urn is far heavier than it looks. Other times, it can provide buoyancy unparalleled by anything else. Much like Tessa herself.
*
Ivy calls the family to dinner just as Jem is stepping out of the shower. We’re the last two to get to the table, and I’ve never heard a room go silent so quickly. Jem acts like he doesn’t notice a thing, but his ears are as red as tomatoes. His ears are actually visible for the first time in months.
“Holy shit,” Eric finally says, mouth full of mashed potatoes. That breaks the silence and Elise practically launches herself at Jem. “Can I play with it?” She’s already running her hands through the longer strands on top, trying to create a tidy part amid the cowlicks.
Jem pushes her back to her seat with a smile.
“Eat your dinner, okay?”
Ivy laughs nervously, like she doesn’t know what to make of the haircut, and that gets everybody else going. Suddenly everyone is leaning over the table to pet his head, like they have to touch it before they believe the haircut is real. Even Celeste touches him, and all Jem can do is laugh helplessly and put up with it.
Dr. Harper raises his glass. “To rebirth—spiritual, physical, communal…” We drink to that, and finally settle into a comfortable, happy dinner. Together.
Acknowledgments
I owe thanks to the wonderful people who supported me throughout the writing and editing of this book, especially Dan and Kim. Thank you also to the people who gave me a wonderful education in letters and psychology. You have all given me so much more than I could have ever asked for.
My thanks and appreciation to the artists and bands whose songs I have mentioned in these pages for providing me with inspiration and for being the medium through which so many real people have been able to communicate the things for which there are no easy words.
Table of Contents
Jem: January 19 to 23
Willa: January 25 to 30
Jem: January 30 to February 6
Willa: February 7 to 14
Jem: February 14 to 22
Willa: February 22 to 28
Jem: March 2 to 9
Frank: March 10 to 13
Jem: March 14
Willa: March 17 to 23
Jem: March 21 to 29
Willa: March 29 to April 8
Jem: April 9 to 13
Willa: April 11 to 17
Jem: April 18 to 22
Willa: April 23 to 28
Jem: April 29 to May 3
Willa: May 3 to 7
Jem: May 3 to 7
Willa: May 8 to 12
Jem: May 12 to 19
Willa: May 20 to 25
Jem: May 26 to 29
Willa: May 29 to 31
Jem: June 1 to 4
Willa: June 4 to 6
Jem: June 6 to 7
Elise: June 7 to 10
Eric: June 8 to 10
Willa: June 8 to 10
Jem: June 10 to 11
Willa: June 10 to 13
Jem: June 14 to 15
Willa: June 17 to 19
Jem: June 20 to 24
Willa: June 24
Jem: June 28 to 29
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Wake Page 84
