Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Thinking about the kids and telling myself that I would move Heaven and Earth to hunt down and castrate anyone who so much as touched so much as a hair on each of my children's precious heads, I bomb toward home, anxious to give them each a squeeze and pile into the car with our stuff and the cat and begin our vacation.

About fifteen minutes from home, I call Pat to tell them my arrive time. He is excited to be going but asks if I can come a little bit later. Liza is turning 50 next week while we are away (Just 50?  Somebody has been whacked with the Ugly Stick one too many times!) and they are going to celebrate early with cake.

Cake...who can resist cake?  I tell him that before I come I will pack most of the car, then bring them back so they can do one last run down of what they are bringing, and then pile in with kitty, and be on the road.

It's a plan.

And it works beautifully. When all is said and done, I can not wedge a pack of matches into the car among the stuff and Trinket is jammed between the kids in the backseat in her carrier, meowing her pants off.

It is late afternoon and the sun is still out. Traffic is going in the other direction.  I am pretty sure I've not left anything undone or unpacked. The kids are joking with each other and yammering about Hil's sleepover planned for next week and the mystery gift Charlotte has gotten for Pat's birthday.  And then Hil is suddenly doubled over laughing recalling Pat's reaction to something that happened that day.

"You should have seen your face, Pat!  You pushed yourself away from the table so fast.  'Jesus H Christ, Liza!' Sorry, Mom!"

I look in the rearview mirror at her, smiling. "That's okay...but what are we Jesus H Christ-ing about, however inappropriately?  Do tell."

They are both giggling now.

Pat starts. He can barely speak for the laughing. It is making Hil laugh. And me, too. 

"We were having cake for Liza's birthday. And when she blew out the candles...."  He can't continue. Tears have begun to roll down his face.

Hil, only slightly more composed, picks up from there. "She leaned over to blow out the candles, and accidently lit her hair on fire!"  She is barely able to continue with her demonstration of how each person at the table reacted. It is priceless. Even in the rearview mirror.

I try to act like I am laughing at what they are laughing at, which is each other, and not the torching of the hair specifically.  It is not as easy at it would seem.

"So Hil, is she OK?"  I ask. "Did she have to call the salon and get an emergency hair cut?" Poor baby, and she's been growing it for the wedding that will never happen. Poor thing.

I can't imagine what it looked like. When I think of Liza's hair, I also think "tumbleweed."  I am picturing a flamethrower. Something cartoonish. One side a charred pile of ash and the other side the usual mousey brown bad home perm frizzies. 

Oh and I imagine the smell didn't exactly leave everyone's mouth watering for cake.

Hil has composed herself and has regained the ability to form sentences.

"It wasn't too bad." And with her big lisp adds, "You know, it just singed one of her braidzth."

Braids?  She's fifty and is now sporting braids? 

I am sure they are not dreds and I am sure they are not cornrows. I am sure they are cowpoke, Swiss Miss Instant Cocoa, Heidi of children's lit fame dorky braids. I can hardly wait to text Charlotte.

And soon enough I will get my chance. As while the story has unfolded, the miles have passed and I am pulling off of the turnpike into paradise. Just a few more miles.

As I drive over the mountain and am greeted by twinkling porch lights and the sound of cicadas and bullfrogs, I can feel my soul begin to breathe again.