My Mother Recognized My Fake Fiance From an Autumn Night Five Years Ago
“I will tell her your parents passed away,” I said, looking at the yellow paper. “And that you do not have siblings.”
He did not answer, but his silence felt heavy, like a door closing in an empty house.
At eleven, we walked down Maple Street to Frank’s barbershop, where the scent of hair tonic and old leather always hung in the air. Frank, a retired barber who still kept his shop open for old friends, looked up from his newspaper with a booming, cheerful laugh.
“Mia,” Frank said, shaking his head. “I haven’t seen you since the library fundraiser.”
“Frank, this is Christopher,” I said, keeping my voice polite and brief. “He needs a quick trim before we head out to my parents’ place.”
Christopher sat in the heavy barber chair, his tall frame dwarfing the vinyl seat. Frank tied a white cloth around his neck and shook out his scissors, wiping the blades with a clean white rag.
“You have the hands of a man who knows labor,” Frank said, looking at Christopher’s calloused fingers in the mirror.
