Chapter 3
The lock clicked and I pressed it again just to hear it twice. Diane stood on the porch with the clippers still in her hand. I didn't look at her face again. I looked at Ellie's car seat and the buckle and the way the strap had twisted the last time Mark had put her in.
I slid Ellie across my lap into the seat. She was light. Her purple shirt rode up a little and I saw the pale skin of her back and the faint red mark on her forearm where the blade had caught. She didn't cry. She just held onto my gray t-shirt with one small fist and didn't let go, even when I tried to shift her to thread the harness.
My hands were shaking until I put them on the buckle. Then they stopped.
I said it out loud because I needed to hear myself say it and because she needed to hear it too. I kept my breathing low and even, the way you do when you're trying not to scare a dog.
"I've got you. We're going to the doctor," I said.
Ellie nodded against my chest. Her bald head was cold when my chin brushed it. I could see a thin line of blood near her ear where the scalp had a nick, not bleeding much, just beading. I wiped it with the pad of my thumb without thinking and then stared at the faint pink on my skin.
I pulled the harness tight. It clicked. I checked it twice.
Diane hadn't moved. The front door was still open behind her. I started the engine and the air kicked on, cool against my neck. I put the car in reverse and kept my eyes on the mirror. She stayed on that porch, teal polo bright against the white trim, and I watched her get smaller as I backed into the street.
I turned onto our street before I let out a full breath. The houses slid by, lawns green from the rain earlier that week, a trash can still at the curb two doors down. A school bus stop sign was folded up on its pole. Everything looked normal. Ellie made a small sound in the back and I glanced at her in the rearview.
Her eyes were open now, looking at me, looking past me. Her hand was still fisted in my shirt where she'd grabbed it from the car seat, stretching the fabric. She wasn't crying. That was worse.
"Mama," she whispered. "Where my hair go?"
My throat closed. I kept my eyes on the road, on the stop sign coming up. I didn't want to give her Diane's words or Mark's words or any adult's reason. I didn't want to fill her head with discipline or grandma knows best or any of it.
"I know, baby," I said. "I know you're feeling it. We're going to have the doctor look and make sure you're okay."
She touched the top of her head with her free hand, light, like she was checking. Her fingers came away and she looked at them, confused that there was nothing there to feel.
"Did I get haircut?" she asked.
I swallowed. The light turned green at the intersection by the gas station and I went straight, toward the urgent care on Highway 9.
"You got a cut," I said. "And we're going to get you taken care of. You're doing so good staying still for me."
It wasn't an answer and I knew it. But I couldn't say what had happened like it was normal, and I couldn't lie and say it was a regular haircut. I left it open. She seemed to accept the sound of my voice more than the words and leaned her head back against the car seat. The bald scalp caught the daylight coming through the window.
At the next red light I checked the mirror again to see the traffic behind me. My own face looked back. That's when I saw them.
Three thin scratches on the left side of my neck, red and fresh, and another one across my forearm where my sleeve had pushed up. I stared at them. I hadn't felt them happen. In the hallway, when I'd pulled Ellie against me and Diane had been in the doorway, there had been that second where I'd reached, where hands had bumped, where the clippers had buzzed so close I felt it in my teeth. I remembered the pressure on my arm, the heat on my neck. I hadn't registered it as scratches then. I thought I'd just been holding on too tight.
I touched the one on my neck. It stung now that I noticed it.
The light changed. I drove. My breathing stayed controlled because if I didn't control it Ellie would feel it. I counted the blocks out loud in my head. Four more to the urgent care. The parking lot would be half empty at this hour. I kept one hand on the wheel and reached back without looking and found her knee and rested it there.
May you like
Her hand was still on my shirt, even stretched that far.
Diane was behind us now. The house, the dark wood floor, the clippers, all behind us. The blood on Ellie's scalp hadn't stopped beading, but it wasn't running. I watched the road and kept driving and didn't call Mark yet.
