When my son came home with half a haircut, I marched him straight back to the barber. But instead of apologizing, Mr. Lewis asked one question that made my stomach drop.
My son came home from the barber with only half his hair cut.
The right side was neatly trimmed, tapered clean above his ear. The left side hung long and untouched, exactly as it had been when he left the house forty-five minutes earlier.
“Tyler, honey. What happened to your hair?”
“Can I have two dollars for a lollipop?”
He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Mr. Lewis stopped.”
“Stopped? Why?”
He shrugged, one small shoulder rising and falling under his jacket.
***
An hour earlier, I’d been drinking my second cup of coffee while Tyler laced his sneakers by the door, humming some cartoon tune.
“Mom, can I have two dollars for a lollipop?”
“Mr. Lewis, your barber, gives you those for free, sweetheart.”
“Mom. I’ve done it a hundred times.”
“I know. But I wanna buy him one this time.”
That was my son, Tyler. Eight years old and already softer-hearted than most grown men I knew.
He had been going to Mr. Lewis’s barbershop three blocks away since he was four. Mr. Lewis knew Tyler liked the Cardinals, kept grape lollipops behind the counter for him, and always let him choose the music.
“You gonna walk carefully?”
“Mom. I’ve done it a hundred times.”
“Humor your old mother.”
He rolled his eyes.
My parents died in a car accident.
I watched until he disappeared around the corner, then went inside and checked the lock twice. I always checked things twice. My mother used to say I could turn worrying into a profession.
My parents died in a car accident the winter Tyler turned five, and I moved us into their old place because I couldn’t bear to sell it. Their coats still hung by the back door.
Lately, though, Tyler had been unusually chatty about a new friend.
Tyler’s haircuts never took long.
“He tells the best stories, Mom.”
“Yeah? Someone from your class?”
“Kinda. He knows about baseball from a long time ago.”
I’d assumed he meant a classmate’s grandfather.
Tyler was shy and didn’t make friends easily, so I hadn’t questioned it.
I checked the clock. Twenty minutes. Tyler’s haircuts never took long.
Thirty minutes.
Instead, he was crying.
***
At forty-five, I heard the front door open, and then his footsteps, slower than usual. Not the excited stomp of a boy freshly barbered and clutching a lollipop.
“Tyler?”
He appeared in the kitchen doorway, and I nearly dropped my coffee.
I called Mr. Lewis, expecting a simple explanation.
Instead, he was crying.
“A photograph.”
“I couldn’t finish after what Tyler did,” he said.
“What happened?”
“Please come with him. He brought something here you need to see.”
“What?”
“A photograph.”
I looked at Tyler. He dropped his eyes.
I grabbed my purse, and we headed back to the shop. During the three-block walk, I tried everything to get Tyler to tell me about the photo. He wouldn’t say a word.
“What man?”
****
When we arrived, Mr. Lewis silently led me to his chair.
An old photograph lay beside his clippers. A young man stared at the camera, a dark birthmark above his eye.
“Why did you stop in the middle of his haircut?”
His eyes went to Tyler. “Buddy, the man who walked you here. How long have you known him?”
I turned to my son. “What man?”
“An adult man has been meeting you at the park?”
Tyler stared at his sneakers. “Just a friend.”
“What friend?”
“He sits by the ballfield sometimes. We talk about baseball.”
