The front door of Judith’s colonial house on Elm Street was unlocked. I walked inside without knocking, the heavy oak swinging back against the brass stopper with a dull thud. The entry hall smelled of beeswax polish and wool coats, a dry, cold scent that never changed, even as the mid-May humidity began to settle over Oakhaven.
From the top of the stairs, a low mechanical hum vibrated through the plaster walls. It was a steady, insect-like buzz that stopped and started in short, sharp bursts.
I climbed the carpeted steps, my palm sliding along the cool oak railing. The guest room door at the end of the hall was closed, but a thin strip of yellow light showed on the floorboards.
When I pushed the door open, the hum stopped.
My eight-year-old daughter Meadow was sitting on the floor in the corner of the room, her small shoulders curved inward. Her lap was filled with thick, soft drifts of her own hair. The light brown curls lay in heavy clumps around her knees and on her white cotton socks. Her head was completely bare, the scalp pale and dotted with three thin red marks near the crown where the metal had scraped too close.
Judith stood over her, holding a pair of heavy silver clippers by the black cord. A few stray strands of Meadow’s hair clung to the front of her gray knit vest. She stood with her arms crossed, tapping her middle finger against her elbow.
“She needed to learn to look people in the eye,” Judith said, her voice calm and even.
I did not answer her. I dropped to my knees on the floor, my leather flats sliding through the piles of shorn hair. I pulled Meadow against my chest, tucking her face into the crook of my neck. Her skin was cold, and her small body was as rigid as a piece of pine.
Meadow did not cry. She did not make any sound at all. She only reached up and took a tight grip of my left wrist, her fingers locking directly over the bare skin where my wedding band used to catch before I took it off that morning.