Giving Up - Bonnie Smetts

A day, it took one day after the conversation with Charlotte. Her daughter had said what she said, the truth. It took a day, one day for the knowledge of what she’d done to seep in. How can you take a child and raise her in a strange place and not have ruined her life, set the course of her life so permanently wrong.

Marjorie was shocked she could now sit in the salon chair and have her hair cut. She starred at her hands and felt the truth of what she’d done. She’d done it. That was it. She’d done it.

“Mrs. Patton, can you look up in to the mirror? You’re squirming a bit today. I can’t make cut your hair evenly with your head sloping down.”

Marjorie laughed, a tiny expression of embarrassment. “I guess your gentle hands on my head were putting me to sleep.”

“That’s OK, ma’am. I’ve had ladies fall asleep on me before. I take it as a compliment. That is unless were talking.” Now the hairstylist laughed.

“How is your Lucy?” Marjorie watched herself walk into the oncoming saw blade.

“She’s such a doll, that girl. You know she’s turning 5 this weekend. She’s a big girl now. And she’ll tell you that.”

As in a nightmare when you scream but no sound comes out, but you know this time you’re going to scream loud enough for someone to hear you…Five years old. Charlotte’s age when they moved away. “And she’s in school near where you live?”

“Of course, and my mum watches her when I’m here.” The hairstylist continued to snip and gently raise and fluff Marjorie’s gray hair. “Have you thought of a rinse? We could make your hair a bit shinier, a bit brighter you know. Not a big change.”

Marjorie starred at herself. The person who set her child’s future without knowing it would be irreversible. “Yes, I’ll …no, I hadn’t thought about it. But why not today.” Marjorie was beyond thinking about making the best of herself, but why not the rinse.