Eileen Vorbach Collins

Word Count 544

Born with a head full of spiky light brown hair, in some early photos, in a certain light, you resemble a wide-eyed orangutan baby with that russet tuft. I couldn’t believe it when the pediatrician came to check you out. He didn’t say you were the most perfect baby he’d ever seen.
Your hair grew lighter and longer. Sometimes, I’d put it into two braids like those my mother wrestled my own hair into before school most days. I taught you to braid three strands of your doll’s hair, each strand a sister wanting to be in the middle. To keep warm. Now it’s my turn each would cry, until they were intertwined, the braid complete. For your first day of kindergarten, I learned to make a French braid. The braids got more intricate, and you learned how to make them. We braided challah, your stunning six braid loaves, always a hit.
When we visited Helen in St Thomas, a woman on the beach braided your hair into cornrows. Your scalp burned in the parts but you didn’t want to cover art with a hat. The beads clacked when you ran.
You learned grape Kool-Aid makes a good hair dye, then graduated to Manic Panic, blue and green. The cerulean faded to a stone-washed denim, the vibrant forest green to a pale seafoam.
When you shaved your head, you once let me rub the sweet soft buzz of it. I wanted to hear you purr. To know you were happy.
Native Americans find power and culture in their locks. I wish you'd kept your tangled dreadlocks, bulky strands with Elmer’s glue. I can’t believe you let her do that, they said. I ignored them, thinking there were worse things you could have been doing. You cut the dreadlocks, then shaved your head, just half though.
When it grew back, you wanted your hair to be white. You never gave a reason. That was the costliest of all, the stripping and chemicals, but you’d worked to earn the money, and it did look lovely until the roots started growing out. Too expensive to maintain, and what about the effect of all those chemicals on your young body? But it didn’t matter, did it? 
If not for that photograph your grandmother took, I wouldn’t remember what your hair looked like the day you died. You hadn’t let me take your picture much those last few years. I should have snapped a few, anyway. At the end, your hair was short and light brown. Natural.
I have a single lock, still blonde, from when you were maybe five years old. We could clone her, your brother once said.
For only $3000, I could have had a diamond made from a half cup of your hair. But who thinks of such things? Who measures hair by the cupful? Who needs a diamond?
Instead, that lock of your hair is in a zip-lock sandwich bag in a plastic bin with your glasses. Baby teeth. Report cards. The guest log from your funeral.
It’s a myth, that thing about how hair continues to grow after you’re dead. There’s no posthumous activity from those follicles. Your hair stopped growing when your heart stopped beating—your final visit to a salon of your own making. My fingers remember the braiding. This sister in the middle. That one. Now this one. Wanting to stay warm.  

Eileen writes true stories she wishes were fiction and fairy tales she wishes were true. Her essay collection, Love in the Archives: A Patchwork of True Stories about Suicide Loss is forthcoming in November with Apprentice House Press.