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“Again,” she repeated, moving to the next step and dragging her along.
Resigned, Birdie kept reciting the verse, telling herself it would be over soon. Her knees were bloody from slipping and sliding on the waterlogged steps, her arms covered in bruises.
Once they reached the top of the stairs, her hair frayed and ravaged, her mother finally released her, setting the bucket on the landing, panting, covered with sweat from the strenuous activity. She stood and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand.
“Get cleaned up and go straight to bed.”
As Birdie stumbled her way to the bathroom, she heard her mother add, “May God have mercy on your soul.”
Hobbling toward the shower, she turned on the hot water and removed her clothes that were soaking wet, the lye soap stinging as she pulled her shorts down over her scraped and bloody knees.
She stepped into the shower, allowing the scalding water to wash it all away as she leaned her palms on the tile and sobbed.
After a few minutes, she noticed the drain clogging and realized it was from the fallout of her hair. She grabbed the shampoo, washing away as many of the broken strands as possible until the water and hair was swirling around her ankles.
Stepping onto the rug, she grabbed a wad of toilet paper, squatted down and scooped up the strands with her other hand, placing them onto the paper, ridding the shower of as much of her hair as possible until the water began to flow down the drain, unhampered.
Tossing the soggy, hair-ladened paper into the toilet, she flushed.
She stood in front of the mirror and tried not to think about what had happened, but to manage those things she could control. Her hair smelled of lye soap and was half the length it normally was, most of it breaking from her mother’s incessant scrubbing.
Opening one of the drawers beneath the sink in the aluminum cabinet, she found a pair of scissors.
With a thin towel wrapped around her she did her best to cut her hair shorter, so as not to appear so damaged and stringy on the ends.
Despite herself, the tears began to flow. She leaned on her palms on the counter, lowering her head to get ahold of herself. To focus on what she could control.
She silently cried.
Was she ever going to find a way to break out of her cage? She sniffled, thinking one thing was for sure, and that was that no one would be showing up anytime soon with a key. There would be no white knight helping her to escape from her misery.
Gingerly, she pulled the covers back on her sparse bed and slipped between the sheets. All while Maisie slept without a care.
Once again, dreaming of cages, but this time with Lucas at arm’s length, dangling a key in front of her.
The next day, Lucas caught up with her after their last class while she was digging her books out of her locker.
“Hey, I haven’t seen you all day.”
She turned to face him and he drew his head back.
“Whoa, what happened to your hair?”
She shrugged. “I wanted a change.”
“No offense, but maybe you should have let Bernadette cut it. It looks, I don’t know… wonky.”
Self-consciously, she ran her hand over her hair and pushed what little was left on one side behind her ear.
She realized that morning she didn’t do a very good job of trimming in a straight line but didn’t have time to make the necessary adjustments. Not if she wanted to get out of the house before Shelby rolled out of bed and started her ranting again.
She didn’t have enough hair to go another round of Shelby’s fanatical scrubbing.
Lucas hitched his book bag over his shoulder and Birdie noticed how tall he was getting, and muscular. As if he were toggling between a lanky teenager and a man, his arms covered with hair and his voice making the funniest crackling sounds.
Man-boy.
Their relationship had begun to change and looking back, she failed to notice. But now, if she were to label it, she would venture to say they were flirting. He was always teasing her and coming up with reasons to touch her. While she gave him sappy grins and punched him in the arm, just so she could feel his biceps.
