Page 38 - Vol. VII #7

Dewitt Henry
“R
sins of everything. It’s perfectly all right to dye your hair. Just to see what you look like, anyway. You can wash it out again. I want to see you with brown hair—the way it was once.”
Dyeing Mother’s Hair (1955)
eally, you should dye your hair—there’s noth-
stepped out.
ing sinful about it. You always want to make
“Now don’t laugh—it looks just fine. But you know how bashful she is—! Mother, come! Come out.”
That was Judy talking, home from college. Talking to my mother. I remembered when I was younger, my mother had gone away and I had gotten sick, suppos- edly to make her return. Downstairs, in my mother’s desk, had been a photograph, in color, a tiny oval cov- ered with glass in a wooden case that opened and had red velvet inside. By myself, I sometimes took out the medallion, which was smooth and cool, and stared
“No, Judy. I don’t want to—”
“Come on. It looks fine. Don’t be idiotic.”
at my beautiful mother with the brown hair, the dark eyes—younger and more beautiful than I had ever known her. Then once I fell sick, the twelve-year-old Judy had tended my bedside; I begged her for the me- dallion and she had brought it to me, letting me kiss and hold it in my hand. A week later, at long, long last, Mom herself appeared and took me in her arms.
“I should never have done it. Look at me!” Mom said, turning her head and scowling in the mirror.
“Will you do it?” Judy asked now, mocking.
It wouldn’t wash out, not entirely. For hours, they tried rinse after rinse, and Mom’s penance, presum- ably for vanity, was to have pink hair for a week.
“All right, yes. I suppose.” My mother gave in.
My sister exulted and went out to buy the dye. When she came back, she disappeared with my mother into the bathroom. They were in there a long time, behind the locked, mirrored door. I heard my mother’s voice, complaining, doubtful, excited (“I shouldn’t. I know
Henry is the founder of Ploughshares literary magazine; author
of Sweet Marjoram: Notes and Essays; The Marriage of Anna Maye Potts (winner of the Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel); Safe Suicide: Narratives, Essays, and Meditations; Sweet Dreams: A Family History; and Falling: Six Stories. He has edited five anthologies, including Sorrow’s Company: Writers on Loss and Grief. A graduate of Amherst College, MA, he earned a PhD at Harvard University. He is Professor Emeritus of Emerson College, MA, and Prose Editor for The Woven Tale Press.
She came out then. Her hair was brown. I couldn’t take my eyes away. Her hair was brown, her eyes bright, brimming with tears.
Dad wasn’t home. Nor were my two older brothers.
I shouldn’t!”), and Judy’s voice reassuring, and the water running and footsteps. I pressed my ear to the cold mirror on the door. The door opened; my sister
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