Every morning, I’d stand in front of it and brush my hair before breakfast. And every morning, Grandma Lena would come stand behind me and watch.
“You’re pulling too hard,” she’d say. “Gentle, Nicky. Your hair didn’t do anything to you.”
Ezoic
Then she’d take the brush out of my hand and do it herself. Long, slow strokes. A hundred of them. She counted out loud. I’d stand there watching her face in the wavy glass behind mine, and I’d feel like the safest person in the whole world.
When my mother died, the year I turned fifteen, I spent the whole summer at Grandma Lena’s. I barely spoke. I barely ate.
But every morning, I stood in front of that mirror. And every morning, she brushed my hair.
Ezoic
She never told me it would be okay. She never told me it was God’s plan. She just brushed my hair and counted to a hundred and let me cry when I needed to.
