“Your plastic surgeon?”
“I cannot have a scar.”
“It wouldn’t matter if you had fifty stitches,” I tell her, and my throat tightens unexpectedly. “You’re beautiful, Anna.”
She softens at that, really softens, the way she only does in private moments. “When I get a call that I need to be here, for you,” she says as she hugs me and whispers. “My friend.”
“Are you better, Aunt Anna?” Lucy’s small voice comes from behind us.
“Come here, my little love.” Anna squats, opening her arms.
Lucy barrels into her like she always does, no hesitation, full trust. Anna holds her tight, sunglasses slipping down her nose. For a second, it looks like she might cry, but she swallows it and presses a kiss into Lucy’s hair.
Lenzin leaves, already running behind schedule, and Anna smiles at us, “If I’m going back to Germany to face my mother and my surgeon, we are doing this properly.”
“Doing what properly?” I ask.
“Restoration,” she says simply. “Come. Both of you.”
So, we end up stepping into the kind of place Anna would choose. Marble floors. Cream walls. Soft instrumental music that probably has a composer with three names. The front desk smells faintly of citrus and something expensive.
Lucy grips my hand, eyes wide. “Is this a princess place?”
“It is a queen place.” Anna smiles. “Which is better.”
We are ushered to plush leather chairs in front of long mirrors framed in gold.
The stylist assigned to Lucy runs her fingers through her hair and actually gasps. “Oh, my goodness. Look at this color.”
I smile because yes, I know. Lucy’s hair is the kind of red people try to recreate and never quite achieve. Thick, long, wild when it wants to be. Mine is darker, deeper copper, but just as heavy down my back.
“Just a trim,” I say immediately, protective. “No length.”
Anna waves a dismissive hand. “Maintenance. Shine. Health.”
Lucy sits very still as the stylist sections her hair. I watch the strands fall, small pieces, nothing dramatic. Just enough to make it look tame instead of wild. They wash it with something that smells like vanilla and rosemary, and Lucy closes her eyes like she is at a spa retreat instead of being three years old.
When they blow it out, I nearly laugh.
She looks polished. Like a tiny redheaded heiress. Her hair falls in smooth waves down her back, glossy and impossibly soft. She keeps flipping it over her shoulder the way Anna does her long blonde locks.
“I look fancy,” she whispers to me.
“You do,” I agree.
Then it is my turn.
Warm water at my scalp, fingers massaging slowly, and I exhale deeper than I have in years. I hadn’t realized how tense I have been until my shoulders drop nearly a foot. They apply a deep-conditioning treatment, wrap my hair in a warm towel, and I sit there with my eyes closed, breathing in eucalyptus and pretending, just for a moment, that life is uncomplicated.
When they blow-dry my hair, smoothing and shaping it, I barely recognize myself. The copper catches the light and shines in a way my home treatments could never match.
Anna stands behind me in the mirror.
She says quietly. “You are allowed to shine, Hildy.”
Lucy hops off her chair and runs to me. “Mommy, you look like a movie.”
Hormones or not, I still can’t get used to all these feelings, the good kind, let alone the compliments.
