“Take the hood down.”
Her eyes filled immediately.
“Mom, please.”
I walked closer.
“Whatever happened, you’re not in trouble.”
“You’ll be mad.”
“At you?”
She didn’t answer.
I sat beside her.
“Tess, please.”
For several seconds, she just stared at her hands.
Then she slowly reached up, loosened the strings, and pushed the hood back.
I actually stopped breathing.
Her hair was gone.
Not cut to her shoulders.
Not even cut into a bob.
The hair that had hung past her hips the night before had been chopped into a short pixie cut around her ears.
It wasn’t perfectly even either. Some pieces were slightly shorter than others, as if the stylist had been working with very little room.
“Oh my God.”
Tessa looked away.
“What happened?”
“Mom—”
“Who did this?”
Her lower lip trembled.
“Please don’t freak out.”
“Tessa, you cried last year because I trimmed too much off one side. You wouldn’t even let me take an inch. Now all of it is gone.”
She wiped her face with her sleeve.
“Ask Grandma.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“Just ask Grandma.”
“Did Grandma make you cut it?”
“No.”
“Did somebody do something to you?”
Tessa squeezed her eyes shut.
“I can’t tell you.”
My chest went cold.
“What do you mean you can’t tell me?”
“It’s not only my story.”
That sentence scared me more than the haircut.
Ten minutes later, I was in my car.
