Chapter 5
— The Missing Curls
Poppy came down the stairs slowly, one step at a time, holding the banister with both hands. I was standing at the foot of the stairs, and I looked up at her, and for a moment my mind refused to understand what my eyes were seeing. Her head was bare in a way that made my chest tighten, her beautiful golden-brown curls gone, cut short and uneven, so short that her small ears showed and her neck looked thin and cold. She was wearing the dress Veronica had chosen for her, a pale blue dress with a white collar, and she was holding her favorite doll against her chest, and her face was pale and still, the way a child's face goes still when she has cried so hard that there are no tears left.
"Poppy," I said, and my voice sounded strange to me, as if it belonged to someone else. "Sweetheart, what happened?"
She did not answer at first. She reached the bottom of the stairs and stood in front of me, and she looked up at me with her big brown eyes, and I saw the fear in them, and the shame, and the confusion of a child who has been told that something about her is wrong and who has believed it. I knelt down in front of her, slowly, so that my face was level with hers, and I put my hands gently on her shoulders.
"It is all right," I said. "You are safe. Daddy is here. Tell me what happened."
"Veronica cut my hair," Poppy whispered, and her voice was so small that I had to lean closer to hear it. "She said it was messy. She said nobody would love a girl with messy hair. She said she was fixing me."
The words hit me like a blow. I looked at her small head, at the short, uneven hair where her curls had been, and I felt a rage rise in me so strong that it made my hands shake. But I did not let it show on my face, because Poppy was watching me, and she needed her father to be calm, and she needed to know that she was safe. I pulled her into my arms and held her against my chest, and I felt her thin body tremble, and I felt her tears soak through my shirt, and I held her tighter.
"Listen to me," I said, and I kept my voice low and steady. "Your hair was never messy. Your curls were beautiful. They were brave curls, and your mama loved them, and I love them, and nothing Veronica did can change that. Do you understand?"
Poppy nodded against my chest, but she did not stop crying, and I held her while she cried, and I did not move, and I did not speak, because there are moments when a father has nothing to say except that he is there. Dolores came out of the kitchen and stood in the doorway, and her hand was pressed to her mouth, and her eyes were wet. Veronica stood at the top of the stairs, looking down at us, and her face was smooth and calm, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
"Beau," she said, "do not make a scene. It is only hair. It will grow back. She looks much neater now."
I looked up at her, and I did not answer. I could not answer, because if I had opened my mouth at that moment, I would have said things I could never take back. Instead, I lifted Poppy into my arms and carried her into the living room, and I sat down on the sofa with her on my lap, and I wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, and I held her until her crying slowed and her breathing steadied.
"Where are my curls?" Poppy whispered, after a long time. "Where did they go?"
"I do not know, sweetheart," I said, and it broke my heart to say it. "But they will grow back. Your curls will grow back, and they will be just as beautiful as before, and nobody will ever take them from you again. I promise you that."
She looked at me, and her eyes were red, and her small face was streaked with tears, and she said, "Will Mama still love me without my curls?"
The question stopped my breath. I took her small hands in mine, and I looked into her eyes, and I said, "Your mama loves you because you are you. Not because of your hair. Not because of anything you look like. She loves you because you are Poppy, and you are brave and bright and kind, and nothing in this world can change that."
Poppy leaned against my chest, and her eyes began to close, and I held her while the afternoon light faded outside the window. I thought about the curls on the floor upstairs, and about the little girl in my arms, and about the woman standing at the top of the stairs who had done this to her. I thought about the wedding, and the rehearsal dinner, and the life I had been planning, and I knew, with a certainty I had never felt before, that none of it was going to happen. The wedding was over. It had ended on those stairs, in the moment my daughter came down without her curls, and no amount of flowers or place cards could put it back together.