The Red Dress at the VFW Hall

When It Came Out

They tell you it will happen between two and three weeks after the first infusion. Mine started on day fifteen. I was rinsing my hair in the shower and my hands came away full.

I stood there with the water running and looked at it. Long brown strands across my fingers, more than I could hold.

I did not scream. I turned off the water and called for Nick.

He came in and saw my hands, and he did not say anything at all.

He took a towel off the hook and wrapped it around me, and he held on until the shaking stopped.

I was on leave from school by then, because my counts were too low to be around twenty-two runny noses. I missed the kids more than I can tell you.

Five-year-olds do not care what you look like. One little boy had mailed me a drawing of me with purple hair and a crown. I had it on the refrigerator.

So that Sunday, I went to dinner at Marlene and Harold’s planning to take the jar home. I thought it would be the easiest thing I did all week.

The Drive Home

Nick came out to the truck about ten minutes after me. He got in and did not start it.

He just looked at me, and I knew from his face that his mother had not told him either.

“Mom said you left upset,” he said. “What happened?”

I told him. I watched his jaw go tight. Nick is not a yeller, never has been.

He is the kind of man who gets quiet and careful when he is angry, like he is carrying something that could spill.

“I’m going back in,” he said, and put his hand on the door.

I took hold of his arm. “Please don’t. Not tonight.”

He stared at me. “Laura, that was your money. People gave that to you.”

“I know whose money it was.”

I want to be honest about why I stopped him. I was tired in a way I did not know a person could be tired.

Chemo tired is not sleepy. It is like your bones are full of wet sand.

And their 50th anniversary was less than a week away. Fifty years. Marlene had been planning it since spring. Half of the county had a card on their refrigerator with the date on it.

If Nick went back in that house, there would be a fight. It would be loud.

It would be in front of his uncles. Somebody would say something that could not be taken back, days before his parents’ fiftieth.

I did not have it in me to be the reason for that. Not with my hair coming out in my hands.

So I asked him to drive home, and after a long minute, he did.