They became a measure of time Lily could hold onto.
Before scans, she would twist one around her finger and call it her lucky spring.
On days she didn’t want to leave the hospital bed, Leo would lean beside her and say, “See? Mine’s still here.
Yours is coming.” When his curls got long enough, he told Mark he wanted to donate them one day to a charity that made wigs for kids who lost theirs.
“But only after Lily isn’t sad anymore,” he said.
Brenda knew Lily had been sick.
She knew about the hospital stays, the nausea, the way our life had narrowed into medicine schedules and blood counts and long nights.
But she’d brushed Leo’s hair comments aside as childish nonsense.
To her, a boy’s haircut mattered more than the reason behind it.
Maybe she had forgotten the promise.
Maybe she never listened in the first place.
