Page 10 of Tear Me Apart

“Really? Word choice, child.”

Mindy giggles and a small weight lifts off Juliet’s chest.

“I hate to say it, but who the hell cares what your mom thinks? If you’re going to lose it anyway, let’s have some fun. I could cut it for you now.”

She moves the thick hair to and fro, arranging, and Mindy looks alive with the idea of doing something naughty.

“Oh, my God. I’ve always wanted short hair. It’s just too damn cold on the mountain. Go find some scissors before she comes back.”

“You’re serious?”

“Aren’t you?”

A dare. Juliet finds a pair of scissors at the nurses’ station but realizes there is no way she’ll be able to get them through Mindy’s thick hair. It is so unlike her own fuzzy blond, even Lauren’s sleekly perfect highlights. No, not highlights.Balayage. Even how she colors her hair must be unique and special.

A nurse sees Juliet rummaging, approaches with a raised brow. “Excuse me. Can I help you?”

Juliet jerks away from the desk. “I’m sorry. I’m looking for scissors. My niece—”

“Oh. You want these,” the nurse says, reaching into her desk drawer. Out comes a pair of professional offset hair shears.

“I can’t believe you have them,” Juliet says, then it hits her. “Oh, wow, of course you do. Sorry about this. I just found out. I haven’t quite wrapped my head around it.”

“You’re...?”

“Mindy’s aunt. Juliet.”

“Ah. I’m Hazel. Nice to meet you. Mindy’s a doll. She’ll look adorable with short hair. Do you have a ponytail holder? It’s a lot easier to cut if you put it in a pony on top of her head first.”

At the direction, a wellspring of sorrow bubbles inside her. How many little girls’ hair has Hazel cut off for them? Juliet shuts her heart against it. Later, she can be upset later. She has to be strong and cool for Mindy now.

“Bring them back when you’re done,” Hazel calls after her. “They’re expensive.”

Mindy has raised the head of her bed. She is still in an awkward position because of her leg, and Juliet feels badly when she sees her niece wincing at the movement.

“Hurts?”

“Yes, sometimes the pain breaks through the meds. I don’t know if it’s the cancer, or the surgery. I feel weird. I’ve felt weird for a while, but I figured it was just overtraining.”

“The drugs aren’t helping your weirdness, kiddo. You’re on some pretty hefty painkillers.” She brandishes the shears. “I mean you’re under the influence and can’t make a rational decision.”

Mindy laughs. “I’m plenty rational. Cut it.”

“As you wish.” Juliet gathers her niece’s hair into a ponytail on top of her head, then brutally slices through the hair. She tosses the pony on the table, and Mindy shakes her head. The hair falls around her ears. She looks like a pixie.

“Holy cow. You look different.”

“Cut the rest. I want the bangs longer on the right side, okay? So they sweep over my eye. Gotta say, Aunt J. Grandma K was right, you have the touch. How did you end up a scientist instead of a hairdresser?”

“Your grandma insisted I learn a skill. I wanted to go to Space Camp because I was harboring ideas of going into astrophysics. I wanted to work at NASA, to be an astronaut. Your grandma thought my plans were ridiculous, and gave me a choice—slinging pizza for the summer, or beauty school. She said, ‘Learn a skill, Juliet. Space Camp might be fun, but you need a contingency plan if things go south.’”

Juliet gets to work, shaping and shearing, for once mentally thanking her mother, gone five years now, for forcing her into the summer beautician program when she was seventeen.

“I was so furious at the time. I mean, I understand why she made me do it, but I didn’t speak to her for weeks. I ended up studying genetics instead of astrophysics, and I applied to the astronaut program at NASA to be a payload specialist. Made it to the final round before I got cut, too. I had a bunch of job offers, though, and I took the position with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation forensics lab.”

“Was she proud of you? I mean, the CBI lab is a big deal.”

Juliet laughed. “She said how nice it was that I’d have a steady paycheck, but to always keep my beautician license up to date because you never knew when I’d need a fallback position.”