The Heart Remembe

“Harley? What are you doing with that?”
I hesitated and looked over my shoulder when I heard the name I’d been given in a voice that was slowly becoming familiar. My guardian, Zade, was standing in the open doorway.
Looking back to the mirror, I studied the unfamiliar face staring back at me. Releasing my grip on a length of thick curls, I slowly lowered the rusty hacksaw blade that I was gripping in my other hand. I stared in horrified fascination at the nearly scalped man gazing back at me from the mirror.

“I don’t know, sir.”
“Okay,” Zade’s voice was calm and soothing. “Why don’t you come with me?”
“Yes, sir.” I placed the saw blade in his outstretched hand and obediently followed him from the bathroom, sitting on the sofa that he motioned me to.
“I’ll be right back. Wait here, please.”

A choked gasp caught my attention, telling me that Zade and I were no longer alone. Zade’s husband, Levi, stood in the doorway, his blue eyes sad. He inhaled deeply and then forced a smile.
“Hey, Harley.” He held a hand out to me. “Why don’t you come with me and we’ll see what I can do to help finish your haircut?”
“Yes, sir.” I rose and walked over to take his hand, my eyes trained on the floor.
“Oh, Harley,” Levi said softly, leading me into the kitchen and seating me like I was a child. “You don’t need to call me sir. I’m Levi, remember?” He ran gentle fingers through the length of hair that I had been holding when Zade interrupted me. “Um, we’re going to have to cut this pretty short,” he said slowly, “unless you want to try something a little edgier?”
“Whatever you think is best, sir. I mean, Levi.” After all, I didn’t even recognize the person in the mirror, what difference would it make to me what he looked like?
Levi moved around me in a circle, his head tilting as he studied me. Finally, he stepped back and nodded his head, raising the hand holding the scissors. “Okay. I think I have an idea.”
I sat perfectly still as Levi snipped and clipped, catching the occasional curl from the corner of my eye as it dropped to the kitchen floor.

“You have such pretty hair,” he mused, still snipping away. “It’s a shame most of it will be gone.”
“It’ll grow back,” I reminded him, catching a lock in my fingers as it fell toward my toes. It was a pretty color, I agreed silently. A red so dark that it looked black until the light reflected off it. Still, I thought with an inward shrug, I wouldn’t miss it.
“Of course it will,” Levi agreed quickly. He made one final circuit around my chair with a snip here and there before laying the scissors on the counter and pronouncing the job done. “Why don’t you come into the bathroom and see what you think?”

The curls that had bobbed down past my shoulders were gone. On the right side of my head – the side I had started with – there had been nothing Levi could do except even-out the hair I had cropped close to my head. On the top he had layered it so that it started out short at my right temple and then gradually increased in length over the top of my head and down to just below my left ear.

It was edgy.
Unique.
But it didn’t matter because I still didn’t recognize the man in the mirror.