“Dad? Would
you comb out my hair?” His daughter was drying her hair with a bath towel. She
was dressed in simple blue pajamas, but her feet were covered in neon striped
slipper socks. At 10 years old, she was
still comfortable being different. He
said a small prayer that she would be strong enough to stay that way in the
years to come.
“Sure,” he
replied as he set down his Sports Illustrated. He went to the master bath to
grab a comb and detangle spray. When he came back his daughter was sitting at
the kitchen island.
“I turned
on the radio, is that OK?”
“That’s
fine,” he said.
She sat
back against the chair. He started to run the comb through her hair, fascinated
at how the water would collect on the bridge of the comb. The teeth of the comb making solid lines in
her light brown hair. They sat there
quietly. Not needing to fill the air
with useless chatter.
He moved
the comb to capture the hair on right side of her head. He moved the comb above
her ear, then down to her neck. The comb snag, bringing her head back quickly.
“Sorry.”
“No
problem, Dad.”
He gritted
his teeth as the comb caught another knot.
“Sorry.”
She laughed
a little, “No problem.”
He continued, falling into a rhythm of clean runs with an
occasional knot that he would work through by placing his hand on her skull
above the knot to minimize the pull on the roots of the hair. Just like his
wife had taught him.
After a few
songs he thought he was done, but he didn’t quite want the moment to end, so he
ran the comb through her hair a few more times. He moved the comb to catch a
few stray hairs by her left ear. As he ran the comb down toward her neck he
caught a small knot. His daughter’s head snapped back.
“Sorry,” he
said softly.
She didn’t
answer. He thought he heard a small sob.
“Sorry,
little one. Didn’t mean to hurt you.”
She raised
her hand to say OK. He felt something
change in the room. He didn’t know what
it was, or what to say. He paused for a
few seconds fighting the temptation to see if she was crying. Instead he went back to combing her
hair. It was drying out and he knew he
would have to stop soon or her hair would become frizzed from static
electricity.
He felt he
should say something, “I’ll work on getting the knots better.”
He defiantly
her sob this time. “I miss her, dad.”
He had to
set his jaw quickly to fight the pain in his chest as the cracks in his heart
opened. Images and sounds flashed in his mind. The red and blue lights. The
blue civic bent at an incredible angle. The delivery truck sitting on the curb
as if it was waiting for the drive thru of Burger King to move. Every time his wife, her mother’s face tried
to surface the pain in his heart would grey it out.
“I miss
her, too,” he said through his emotions.
He placed
his hand on her head to minimize the pain and started to workout the knot.
