***
Then Lily’s treatments started taking a visible toll.
She began losing her hair. Even when she tried to be brave about it, everyone could see how much it affected her.
I was still processing the change and how much it affected Diane and her daughter when something else changed.
***
One evening, I was folding laundry in the living room when I heard Aaron’s footsteps on the stairs. Something about the rhythm felt different: slower and deliberate. I looked up, and the basket slipped from my hands!
Lily’s treatments started taking a visible toll.
My son’s head was completely shaved! Not trimmed or buzzed short, but smooth, pale, and unfamiliar under the lamplight.
“Aaron,” I breathed as he came downstairs. “What did you do?”
He ran a hand over his scalp, almost shy.
“I knew you’d freak out a little.”
“A little? Honey, your hair! Why?” I stepped closer, reaching up before I could stop myself, my palm finding the cool, strange skin where his curls used to be.
“What did you do?”
Aaron didn’t pull away. He just watched me with those steady brown eyes that had always seemed older than his years.
“Mom, Lily is losing hers in clumps now,” he said quietly. “She tried to laugh about it last week, but I caught her crying in the bathroom when she thought I’d gone to get coffee.”
My throat tightened. I lowered my hand.
“I just,” he went on, “I wanted her to know that beauty isn’t in her hair. And that she doesn’t have to go through any of this alone. If she’s gonna look like this, then I will too. That’s all.”
I couldn’t speak for a moment.
Aaron didn’t pull away.
I just looked at my teenage boy, who’d somehow figured out something most adults spend a lifetime trying to learn.
“You’re a good kid, Aaron,” I finally said, my voice catching. “You’re a really, really good kid.”
