I couldn't help but stare at him in amazement. The day had taken on nightmarish proportions. To sit in boiling water and use it for a toilet and then wash my hair in that? Could it be real that I would do this as Chris streamed urine into the commode behind my back? I said to myself, no, this wasn't real, just a dream. Carrie and Cory wouldn't use the bathroom, too, while I was in the tub, dunking my hair in foul water.
It was real enough. Hand in hand, Cory and Carrie came to the tub and stared at me, wanting to know why I was taking so long.
"Cathy, what is that stuff on your head?"
"Why did you put tar in your hair?"
"I must have done it in my sleep."
"Where did you find the tar?"
"In the attic."
"Why did you want to put tar in your hair?"
I hated lying! I wanted to tell her who put the tar in my hair, but I couldn't let her know. Already she and Cory were scared enough of that old woman "Go back and look at TV, Carrie," I ordered, testy and irritable from all the questions she asked, and hating to look at her thin, hollowed-out cheeks, her sunken eyes.
"Cathy, don't you like me no more?"
"Anymore . . ."
"Don't you?"
"Of course I like you, Cory. I love you both, but I put the tar on my hair by mistake, and now I'm mad at myself."
Carrie wandered off to sit once more near Cory. They whispered back and forth in that strange language that only they could understand. Sometimes, I think they were far wiser than Chris and I suspected.
For hours I was in the tub, while Chris concocted a dozen different compounds to test on a bit of my hair. He tried everything, making me change the water often, always making it hotter. I shriveled into a puckered prune as bit by bit he cleared the gooey mess from my hair. The tar came out, eventually, along with a great loss of hair. But I had a lot, and could afford to lose much without making a noticeable difference. And when it was over, the day was gone, and neither Chris nor I had eaten a bite. He had given cheese and crackers to the twins, but he himself hadn't wasted time to eat. Wrapped in a towel, I sat on the bed and dried my much thinned hair. What was left was fragile. It broke easily, and the color was almost platinum.
"You might as well have saved yourself the effort," I said to Chris, who was hungrily eating two crackers with cheese. "She hasn't brought up any food--and she won't bring any up until you cut it all off."
He came to me, bearing a plate with cheese and crackers, and holding a glass of water. "Ea
t and drink. We will outsmart her. If by tomorrow she doesn't bring up some food, or if Momma doesn't show up, I'll cut off just your front hair, over your fore- head. Then you can wrap your head with a scarf, like you're ashamed to be seen bald-headed, and soon enough that hair will grow back in."
Sparingly, I ate the cheese and crackers, not answering. I washed down my one meal of the day with water from the bathroom tap. Then Chris brushed that pale, pale weak hair that had endured so much. Peculiar how fate works things out: my hair had never gleamed more, or felt so much like gossamer silk, and I was grateful to have any left at all. I lay back on the bed, worn out, enervated by emotion torn asunder, and watched Chris sitting on the bed just looking at me. When I fell asleep, he was still there, watching me, and in his hand he held a long coil of my spiderweb, silken hair.
That night I fretted in and out of sleep, restless, tormented. I felt helpless, angry, frustrated.
And then I saw Chris.
He was still in the clothes he'd worn all day. He'd moved the heaviest chair in the room so that it was against the door, and in that chair he sat and dozed, while in his hand he held the pair of long and sharp scissors. He had barred the way, so the grandmother couldn't sneak in again and use the scissors. He was, even in his sleep, guarding me from her.
As I stared over at him, his eyes opened, jolted, as if he hadn't meant to doze off and leave me unprotected. In the dimness of that locked room, always rosy at night, he caught my gaze, and our eyes locked, and ever so slowly he smiled. "Hi."
"Chris," I sobbed, "go to bed. You can't keep her out forever."
"I can while you sleep."
"Then let me be the sentry. We'll take turns."
"Who's the man here, you or me? Besides, I eat more than you do."
"What's that got to do with it?"
"You're too thin now, and staying awake all night would make you thinner, whereas I can afford to lose weight."
He was underweight, too. We all were, and his slight weight wouldn't keep that grandmother out if she really wanted to shove the door open. I got up and went to sit with him in the chair, though he gallantly protested.