LAST SATURDAY
Mabel splashes water from the faucet onto a face she does not recognize. The reflection in the mirror is at odds with how she sees herself, her once-freckled caramel skin now an ink blotter of dark stains. The bags beneath her eyes extend down to her cheeks in an apparent hostile takeover. She sees her great-granddaughter standing behind her, reflected in the mirror, her expression combining curiosity and sadness.
“Good morning, Grammy May,” Priscilla has just arrived with her father.
“Hi, honey. Will you just look at this hot mess?” Mabel tugs at her Afro as if pulling shrubs from the garden. “My hair looks like the ventricles of a heart, these two bushy sections split right down the middle. I look like a sheep dog.”
Priscilla hugs her. “Why don’t you get it cut?”
“What’s the point? It’s not like anyone is actually lookingatme anymore,” she groans.
“Mommy kept hair products in her bedroom. Let me get them and see what we can do.” She races off and returns with a wooden hair pick and a bright orange bottle of Cream of Nature hair conditioner and detangler. Seeing her granddaughter Michelle’s conditioner causes Mabel to tear up. “Oh, dear,” she utters to no one in particular.
“Grammy May, come sit on the chair and I’ll see what we can do with this,” Priscilla looks cute in her yellow sundress, hair braided with the bright beads Michelle gave her for Christmas. Mabel sits and Priscilla begins twisting small sections of hair into manageable handfuls. She rubs cream into each handful, starting at the ends and working her way toward the scalp, using the hair pick to detangle.
“That feels so good, dear.”
“Your hair is completely dried out,” she massages more cream into the ends of each bunch.
“Did your mother teach you how to do this?”
“She did,” Priscilla works with characteristic earnestness.
They remain silent for several minutes as Priscilla finishes pulling Mabel’s hair into large braids, adding more cream to the dried ends. She takes one braid at a time and combs it out, until she is able to sculpt her great-grandmother’s hair into a more uniform Afro.
John Anderson wanders in looking for his daughter. “Wow, look at you two.”
Priscilla stands back, proud. “Much better, right Grammy May?”
“Yes, although I look like some old sixties radical, which at my age is probably not such a great idea.”
“Maybe we can get your hair cut this week while I’m visiting.”
John looks concerned. “I don’t want you two driving much while I’m at the conference. Just to the diner and church, please.”
They understand why he feels this way. His wife Michelle—Priscilla’s mother and Mabel’s granddaughter—was killed three months ago when a tractor trailer swerved in front of her as she drove to the supermarket. John and Michelle were hosting Ole Miss faculty friends for a cookout at their home. John, a sociology professor, is suffering from survivor’s guilt, feeling he should have been the one driving to Kroger for more hamburger buns, not his wife.
Mabel once again utters: “Oh, dear.”
The three of them head into the living room. Grammy May’s modern home is tucked into a steep incline
