Brenda didn’t accept things. She waited.
When her car finally pulled into the driveway just after two, I was outside before the tires stopped rolling.
I opened the back door and Leo looked up at me with a face so wet and blotchy it barely looked like my child. In his little fist, he was clutching something curled and blond. One of his curls. The rest of them were gone. All those soft golden spirals that bounced against his forehead and ears had been shaved down into a choppy, uneven buzz cut. It was so rough I could see where the clippers had bitten too close in one spot above his temple.
Whatever Brenda had done, she hadn’t taken him to a barber who cared. It looked rushed. It looked angry.
“Leo, baby, what happened?” I asked, though I already knew.
