clippers back over her head, not looking anywhere except at the pale stripe of skin that appears as her hair falls away. One swathe. Another.
My wife’s scalp, which I love because it protects her—because it’s part of her. Her skin, her blood, her bones. I drag the clippers back again. More hair rains to the floor. A few freckles appear in the place where Liv parts her hair. I pull a few strands stuck to the blades and keep going.
Her pretty ears, each with a tiny, hurtful hole piercing the lobe. The oval birthmark right at the top of her nape. The arch of her hairline. The slope of her collarbone. The ridge where her neck meets her spine.
Mine. My wife. Always my perfect, beautiful Liv.
The last strands of her hair fall to the floor. I run the clippers over her scalp again. Not a trace of hair remains.
I know how to get a job done.
I brush my hand over her head, finding some solace in the warm, smooth feeling of her scalp. Then I dig for courage and look at her in the mirror.
She’s gazing at her reflection, dry-eyed and somber. Without the softening tumble of hair, her features are sharper, more enhanced. Her lips look fuller, her cheekbones more prominent, her brown eyes bigger. She’s like an exotic forest creature, an elf or a fairy. Ethereal. Transcendent.
She turns toward me, finally lifting her eyes to meet mine. I rub my hand over her head again and swallow hard.
“Hey, beauty,” I whisper.
Liv manages to smile before she presses her face against my torso and cries.
Chapter 29
Dean
Nicholas and I sit at a window table with our chocolate ice-cream cones. He swings his legs back and forth, working industriously at the ice cream and looking outside at the frozen lake.
“So it’s just gone,” he says.
“For now.” I’m wearing a baseball cap, though of course Nicholas noticed that something was off about me as soon as he saw me waiting for him outside the school.
At Liv’s suggestion, I’d agreed to pick him up and tell him about both Liv’s and my hair before Bella gets home. Maybe if Nicholas deals with it well, she will too.
He glances at me. There’s a ring of chocolate around his mouth.
“You’re not sick too, are you?” he asks.
“No. I did it so your mother wouldn’t have to be the only one.”
“Will hers grow back too?”
“One day, yes. But it might take a while.”
“What about yours?”
“Mine will grow back faster, but I’m going to keep it shaved off until your mother is better again.”
“So she won’t be the only one?”
“Yeah.”
Nicholas processes this as he licks a ring around his cone. “Does she look funny?”
“She looks like Mom. Just without hair. It’ll take us all a little time to get used to it, but it doesn’t change anything about her. She’s exactly the same.”
He shrugs. “Okay. Can I see your head?”
“Sure.” I lean forward so he can take off my baseball cap.
He does, then studies my head for a minute. “You look weird.”
“I know. But do I still look like your dad?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s all the matters, then.”
He seems to accept that. We finish our cones in silence and toss the napkins into a nearby trash can. I put the cap back on.
“I’m counting on you to help Bella be okay with this,” I tell Nicholas as we walk back out to the car. “She doesn’t really understand about Mom being sick, so it could upset her to see both Mom and me without any hair.”
“Is Mom wearing a hat?”
“She’ll wear a scarf most of the time, I think, but not always.”
“What about you? Will you always wear the hat?”
“No. I just wore it so I could tell you first. It’s a little easier for men not to have hair because a lot of men lose their hair as they get older. But it’s harder for women.”
“Is Mom crying?”
My chest constricts. I have to think about the best way to respond.
“She did cry when we first cut it off,” I finally admit. “But she’s not anymore.”
Nicholas nods. I get him buckled into his seat and we return home. Liv is waiting for us in the kitchen. She’s dressed in a polka-dot blue skirt and a white blouse, with a pale blue scarf tied around her head. She’s wearing makeup, little silver earrings, and her Fortune Favors the Brave necklace. Though Liv always looks good, I can tell she’s taken extra care with her appearance.