Why Two Electric Hair Clippers Appeared on the Dance Floor at Our Reception
It was a picture of Mason when he was six, sitting on a wooden fence next to Maribel at a county fair.
Maribel was laughing, her long silver hair falling around her shoulders in thick waves under the summer sun.
“She looks so happy there,” I said, sitting on the carpet next to him.
“She was always the strongest one,” Mason said, his thumb tracing the edge of the photograph. “She used to carry me on her shoulders when we went to the creek.”
I looked at the silver hair in the photo and then at the cardboard box on the floor.
“Mason, I think she is ashamed of how she looks now,” I said.
“My grandmother does not feel shame,” Mason said, setting the photo on his knee. “She has too much pride for that.”
“People change when they are sick,” I said. “They don’t want the world to see them lose their strength.”
“She has never hidden from anything,” he said.
“She is hiding her hairbrush under a peach towel, Mason,” I said. “And she would not even let me talk about her scarf today.”
