PART ONE — THE HAIR SHE TREASURED
For as long as I could remember, my daughter Maya had treated her hair as something almost sacred.
She never asked for fashionable cuts or begged to copy a celebrity’s hairstyle. In fact, she resisted even the smallest trim. Every few months, she would sit at the kitchen table with a towel around her shoulders, watching my reflection in the mirror while I clipped away the split ends.
“Only a little, Mom,” she would warn me.
“I know.”
“You said that last time.”
“And I only took off half an inch.”
She would narrow her eyes as though half an inch were a serious betrayal.
