I dragged the lice comb down Sarah’s long locks.
She’d been sitting on the sofa when we came in, crying and hugging her legs. I thought maybe she’d prefer Justin or Leigh to do her hair and I would take Alex, but when we came in she scrambled off the sofa and barked “Emma” before stomping to the bathroom. So Justin started on Alex, and I took his sister.
She’d already washed her hair with the shampoo, so we got right to combing.
“This is so embarrassing…” Sarah said.
I shrugged, parting her hair. “Eh, it’s not that bad.” Her face called bullshit in the mirror.
“Really, it’s not. Trust me, I’ve seen much worse.” She looked away from me. “Yeah right.”
“I pulled a sock off a patient once and the foot came off with it.” Her eyes darted back to mine. “No way.”
I combed down to the ends. “I’ve seen things that would keep you up at night. This is not one of them.” I made another part in her hair. “Not much fazes me. This isn’t even a particularly bad case. There’s hardly anything here.”
“This is so stupid. Who even gets head lice?” she said. “I’ve had lice before.”
She blinked at me. “But… but you’re so pretty!”
I laughed. “Pretty girls can’t have lice? Trust me, they can. Lice are actually attracted to clean scalps, did you know that? It doesn’t mean you’re dirty.”
A flicker of gratitude moved across her expression, but then her face darkened again.
“How have you been doing?” I asked. She sniffed, but she didn’t answer.
“My mom was gone a lot too,” I said, wiping the comb on the paper towel. “I was in foster care a couple of times, so I get it.”
“You were?” “I was.”
“What’d she do?” she asked.
I shrugged. “She wasn’t really good at taking care of me.”
She peered at me. “My mom was good at taking care of me,” she said, her voice almost too low for me to hear.
“You know who else will be good at that? Justin. And Leigh too.”
A long pause. “I guess. It’s like, nobody gets it though. Alex is just all Alex and Chelsea’s so small she doesn’t even know. She thinks Mom’s at camp.”
“Camp’s as good of a story as any. Let it be camp.” “Yeah, but it can’t be camp for me. I have to know.”
“She’ll be home one day, Sarah. It’ll come faster than you think. You can visit her and write to her and call her. You can stay close to her—you just have to try. I know this is hard, but good things can still come out of it.”
She rolled her eyes. “Like what?”
“You find out a lot about yourself during times like this. You realize how resilient you are and what you’re capable of.”
“I don’t want to know any of that,” she said.
“Ha. Fair enough.” I worked quietly for a moment. “What are you going to miss the most while your mom’s gone?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe like, her cookies or something.”
“Learn to make the cookies, so everyone can still have them. Maybe you can even bring them to your mom when you visit. I bet Justin can help. He’s a really good cook. You should try what he makes.”
She looked like she didn’t believe me.
“He made me this egg salad sandwich that was, I swear to you, the best one I’ve ever eaten,” I said. “He smokes ribs, and he’s got a really good Mississippi chicken recipe. Seriously. Try it.”
She seemed to consider it. “Yeah. Maybe.”
Several minutes passed. I watched her face in the mirror, deep in thought.
“They’ll make fun of me at school,” she whispered. “’Cause my mom’s in jail.”
I nodded slowly. “They do that.” “Did they make fun of you?”
“They did.” I dragged the comb down to the ends. “My clothes were too small, my hair wasn’t brushed. There were a few weeks I had to use a men’s briefcase for a backpack because I didn’t have anything else. All my clothes were in black trash bags.”
She looked horrified.
I shuddered a little thinking about that time. I didn’t usually dredge up those memories. Of everything, the trash bags were somehow the worst part. They were so dehumanizing. It made me feel disposable. When I finally had my own money, I bought the most expensive set of luggage I could afford. It was the one thing I never skimped on, the one thing that would always be with me, no matter where I ended up. And every year I bought bags to donate to kids in foster care.
Not everything that comes out of crisis is bad. Sometimes your traumas are the reason you know how to help.
It occurred to me that’s why I knew what to say and do now. I guess I had Mom to thank.
“The trick is not letting anyone see you care about anything mean they might say,” I said. “Don’t react. Don’t let them see you cry. They’ll get bored when they don’t get the reaction they want.” I wiped the comb. “And lean on your friends. It helps.”
Justin popped into the doorway. “Hey, how’s it going in here?” “Good,” I said. “Making progress.”
“I just finished Alex,” he said. “Want me to take over?” “I want Emma to do it,” Sarah said quickly.
He put his hands up. “Okay.”
His hair was tousled. “No lice.” He pointed at it. “Leigh checked me.” “Good. Did you check her?”
He paused for a second. Then he disappeared back out the door. I smiled after him. Then I saw how big I was grinning in the mirror and had to make a conscious effort to make my face straight.
Sarah was watching me. “My brother really likes you, I think.” The corner of my lip turned up again. “Oh yeah?”
She nodded. “Yeah. He, like, never talks about girls and he talks about you all the time.”
“What does he say?”
“Emma this and Emma that. Blah blah blah.” I laughed.
“Do you like him?” she asked. “Yeah, of course I do.”
“Why?”
“He’s funny, for one. He’s smart. And handsome—” “Gross,” she said.
“He is. Sorry, it’s just true.” She wrinkled her nose.
“I also think he’s a really good person,” I continued. “I like that he’s taking care of you guys.”
She stared at me through the mirror. Then I nodded at the bag from Sally Beauty on the sink.
“I got you something you might like,” I said. “Grab that.”
She leaned over and picked it up. I watched her face change instantly the second she saw what it was. Her head shot up. “Hair dye?!” She beamed.
“Yup. I made Justin stop at the beauty supply store on the way over. I already asked your brother, he said it’s okay. When we’re done with this, you can pick a color.”
I’d bought the rainbow. Red, orange, green, blue, and purple.
“The time I got lice, one of the older girls staying in the foster home got me hair dye—stole me hair dye. I’m pretty sure she didn’t buy it,” I said. “Anyway, I just remembered it turning the whole day around for me. I was so upset and the instant I found out I got to have pink hair at school the next morning, it changed everything. Reframed the memory into something good.”
Sarah was practically bouncing. “I can’t believe he said yes. Mom never lets me do anything. She won’t even let me get my ears pierced.”
“Well, it’s a new regime,” I said, parting her hair again. “We could do two colors if you want. It’s semi-permanent, so it’ll only last a few weeks.”
“I want the purple and blue! Josie’s gonna be so jealous. Her mom let
her get a henna tattoo and she was bragging about it for forever.” I smiled.
She lined the bottles up on the sink and looked happily at them.
In that moment, maybe for the first time ever for me, she looked like a little girl. She was a little girl. I recognized the mask Sarah wore for what it was.
It was easier to pretend to be angry and tough than to admit to being devastated and heartbroken. And by the practiced way she wielded attitude, she’d been devastated and heartbroken for a long time.
Justin’s family had been through so much trauma. They had so many cracks.
I wondered if Justin was a docking station because of it or in spite of it. Had he learned to be steady and reliable and safe out of the needs of the people he loved, or did he fight to stay their anchor through all the tragedy? Either way, his family was lucky to have him.
Leigh popped her head in the door. “Hey, Emma,” she whispered. She looked over her shoulder and came back to me. “Hey, you think you can convince him to rename the dog? You got that kinda pull yet?”
I grinned. “I don’t know.”
“Well, work on it, will ya? We’ve just about given up. He’s stubborn as a mule, you’re our last hope.”
She vanished again. I waited a second to be sure she was gone and then I leaned in over Sarah’s shoulder.
“I don’t really think he should rename the dog,” I whispered. “Me either,” Sarah said, conspiratorially.
Both of us smiled into the mirror.
