Just above her shoulders.
Goldie looked nervously at her father.
“Is that okay?”
He shook his head.
“Don’t ask me.”
She blinked.
Then he smiled.
“It’s your hair.”
Goldie’s entire face brightened.
Before the stylist began, however, her father crouched beside the chair.
“I need to tell you something.”
Goldie took his hand.
“For years, I kept telling myself this was your mother’s promise,” he admitted. “But it wasn’t only that.”
His voice began to break.
“Brushing your hair every morning, washing it, braiding it before school… it made me feel close to her.”
Goldie squeezed his fingers.
“When your mother was sick, she worried about missing all the ordinary things she wanted to do with you. School mornings. Pictures. Birthdays. Dances.”
He wiped his eyes.
“After she died, taking care of your hair became one of the ways I still felt connected to her.”
Then he admitted something even harder.
“Somewhere along the way, I stopped asking whether that promise was still right for you.”
Goldie smiled faintly.
“I like when you do my hair.”
“I know.”
“Just not this much hair.”
