HEW

I was up and running before the scissors were even in my mother’s hand.

She had kissed daddy out the broken screen door of our mobile home, stood waving until his car backed down the driveway, and then marched over to her desk while I sat trembling at our grubby kitchen table.

The look in her glowing green eyes told me to stay put, but I could not comply once I saw those upraised blades. “Please, momma, please!” I cried as I dove for the bedroom I shared with my baby sister.

“No!” My mother caught me by twisting her free hand into the hair my father had moments ago stroked and called pretty.

I could not remember him ever complimenting or even smiling at me before then but knew he admired my hair because it was just like momma’s, chestnut-brown, thick, and to my hips. My waves too ended in curls. But not for long.

“This is for your own good, Leira!” In seconds, momma was on top of me, sitting on my side with my forearms pinned under her shin. “I won’t let him, never,” she vowed.

Squirming and whining, I begged her to leave me be. “Please let daddy like me, momma,” I whispered. My fingers worried the bracelet daddy had given me as if it were a rosary.

“You don’t know what you’re asking for!” My mother all but ripped a hunk of hair from my head before shearing it close to the scalp anyway. That seemed to scare her, and she chose a smaller section to cut off at the shoulder. But she could not decide what she wanted and so alternated section sizes and lengths, even angles. Some pieces of my hair got chopped in a downward diagonal while others were straight across or snipped in rising slant.

I swear it was not because I moved; I held perfectly still, eyes shut tight, while my mother worked. My body turned only to her prodding.

The one time I managed to free a hand to try and drag myself away from momma, she caught it and brought my palm to her lips for a kiss.

Then her face contorted into an expression that was half-smirk, half-scowl. “Daddy Dearest says this came from his mom, but I know better. I know, Leira.” With that, she bit my bracelet and wrenched her head to the side, sending beads scattering across the stained shag carpet beneath us.

The sight brought tears to my eyes even more than did the wet-dog scent against which I was being crushed. My hand flopped to the floor.

Momma shrugged.

“There!” She smiled sometime later. “There! Oh, that’s much better!” She laughed as she ruffled my hacked hair. “You’re such a good girl, Leira-baby. But we’ll tell daddy you were naughty, okay? I was taking care of Stephanie while you got into the scissors. Oopsies. Silly girl.” One of her fingers tapped my nose as she finally got off me.

Curling into a ball once freed from her weight, knees coming up to my chest and bruised arms crossing over them, I dully watched as momma collected my hair from the floor and then dumped it in the trash.

Some strands had become one with the disgusting carpet; I felt one with it as well.

Still, momma smiled. “Go get washed up, Leira-baby. Everything will be okay now. You’ll see.”

Only, everything my father liked about me, that proved he liked me, lay in tatters on the ground or in the garbage.

Joy was never mine to keep. Neither was he.

Ashlee Bellows is a currently earning a creative writing certificate from Full Sail University, where she earns top marks. She has a deep love of writing and has ever since kindergarten when instructed to make her use of her teacher’s college-ruled paper worth their while. Her reader subscriptions number in the 20,000s across various websites, including one where she earned multiple “All Time Best” awards and a place among its top 100 novelists. Of chief importance in her literary endeavors is connecting with audiences, stirring their emotions—particularly, empathy—and galvanizing them on behalf of those in need. This commitment is reflected in her personal life, in which she sponsors six extremely impoverished children all around the world with whom she regularly exchanges letters, covers their basic needs, and has even visited in-person to ensure and boost their well-being.