The Saturday Grandma Got Her Curls Back

“She fought you,” Grandma said, eyes still closed, “because you did it in the bathtub with that handheld shower, and the water ran cold halfway through, and you were in a hurry because the casserole was in. And I was naked in a tub in front of my son’s wife, Darla, and I am ninety-one years old.”

Darla’s arms stayed crossed, but something in her face moved.

“I was in a hurry,” she said. “I’m always in a hurry. Ron’s been gone since the middle of October. I’ve been up at two and four every night for four months. Nobody asked me if I wanted to do this. Nobody asked if I needed a hand. I just did it.”

“I know you did,” I said.

“Do you?” Darla said. “Because nobody in this family came out here once in August to see if I was drowning. Not once.”

That landed, because it was true. I had been busy. Joel had been busy. We had all been glad Darla had it handled.

“You’re right,” I said. “We didn’t. I’m sorry for that.”

Darla looked at me like she had been ready for a fight and did not know what to do without one. Then she looked at the floor.

“I’m not her maid,” she said again, but it came out different. It came out tired.

“No,” Grandma said. “You’re not. You’re my daughter-in-law. I never asked you to be a maid.”

Nobody said anything after that for a while. I finished the knot. It came free all at once, the way they do, and I combed straight through from her crown to the ends without a single catch.

“There,” I said.

Grandma ran her good hand back over her wet head and laughed, a small surprised laugh.

I towel-dried her hair and helped her sit up slow. Then I walked her to a kitchen chair at the table and set out the setting lotion, the box of clips, the fine comb, and my hand mirror.

“Now,” I said, “you’re going to tell me how you want it.”

Lorraine Brandt sat up straighter than I had seen her sit since July.

“Left side counterclockwise,” she said. “Right side clockwise. Two rows across the back, and the bottom row goes up, not down, or it’ll flip out by Tuesday.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Not so much lotion. Thin hair takes less.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And give me the clips. I can’t reach up, but I can hand them to you. I’m not dead.”

So I wound and she handed. I would take a section, comb lotion through it, and wind it flat around two fingers the way she had done every Saturday for sixty years, and she would hold up a clip, already open, without my asking.

Twice she made me take one out and do it over. Once because it was too big. Once because it was going the wrong way, and she could tell by the feel of my fingers, without a mirror.

“You have good hands,” she said, about halfway. “Too fast. But good.”

“I’ll slow down.”

“No. You have a business to run. I was just saying.”

While I worked, Darla came in from the doorway and put the coffee on. She did not say anything. She just did it, and when it was done she poured three cups and set one by Grandma’s good hand and one by me, and kept one for herself, and she sat down at the far end of the table.

It was the first time she had sat down since I got there.