My mom shows up at my door in the middle of the afternoon, without warning.
“I’m ready for a wig,” she declares, walking past me and taking off her coat. I’ve asked him over and over again to let me know before he shows up, but he’s never done it, not even once. On the other hand, I continue to let her in.
“A wig!” I respond, cautiously delighted and a little confused. She has been bald as an egg from chemotherapy for months; I wonder what has changed. But I’m delighted with this clear directive (something we can actually do for her, for once) that I close my laptop and offer to make us lunch.
She shouts facts about wigs from my breakfast nook, while I grab a bag of Trader Joe’s gnocchi from the freezer and throw it into a frying pan. “So, there’s fake hair and there’s real hair,” he says. “Synthetic hair wigs last an average of six months. Real hair is more expensive, but lasts more than a year.”
“How much are we talking about?”
“I think a few hundred versus a thousand.” She looks at me and I look back, spatula in the air, trying to keep my face blank, to avoid the topic of “duration” and months and years. Since being diagnosed with cancer, he has undergone a full-day surgery, two hospital stays, genetic sequencing and six rounds of chemotherapy. Each milestone has led to more bad news. The five-year survival rate for leiomyosarcoma is 14 percent, I know this by heart. Everything I read says he has nine to 15 months to live. (He’ll be gone in less than a year, but we don’t know yet.) “Someone has to be in that 14 percent,” he tells me every time I suggest he start withdrawing his retirement early. So, we have lunch and make plans to visit a wig store tonight and then watch a movie.
Arriving at Wigland we crawled around for 10 minutes, waiting for the next free member of staff. We walked timidly through the rows of disembodied display heads, exchanging amused glances but afraid to touch anything. The low ceilings and bad lighting, the dead looks of the wigged mannequins: everything seems charged with meaning, and I fight the urge to flee.
When it’s our turn to be helped, Brian, the owner, is careful with us and sneaks up on us. “How much do you know about wigs?” he asks with tender curiosity. “Absolutely nothing!” I respond, overly eager. Brian doesn’t miss a beat. First of all, he tells us about synthetic wigs, which, he emphasizes, cannot be exposed to heat. You have to be careful when putting your hand in the oven or your bangs will get frizzy. I laugh nervously and then worry that it might be inappropriate in this environment. The wigs are very close to being a joke or a joke, but also, and most importantly, nothing at all.
Fortunately, my amusement only seems to cheer Brian up. He smiles and reminds us that we must also be careful with the dishwasher: the hot steam. I am amazed, my fear gives way to admiration. The things people go through, people in wigs, while people like me remain happily clueless. “Oh, yes, and barbecues should be avoided,” he adds with a twinkle in his eye. I mean we are experiencing camaraderie. Isn’t the world fun? Isn’t it humiliating to be human? Ha!
Finally, my mom sits down for the tests and now Brian really shines. She puts on the wig cap with obvious care: “Does it feel good? How is your scalp doing with the treatments? I know it can be very sensitive.”
Mom lights up under his watchful gaze. “It looks like a fishnet stocking!” he says about the wig cap, accepting the absurdity. “For sure yes”. He adjusts it. “One positive aspect of all this is that you have a great head for wigs.” Mom replies, “Really?” as flattered and incredulous as a child.
Brian wants to get an idea of what she was like before. Lately I’ve been reluctant to look at old photos, in which she looks much younger and full of life, but now I take the opportunity to check my phone. There she is: shoulder-length medium brown hair, strawberry blonde highlights framing her face. She used a curling iron almost every day for as long as I can remember. I proudly hand Brian my phone: my beautiful mother! – and shows no sadness or regret when he sees her; he simply squints at his hair and then runs off, a man on a mission.
He comes back with a bunch of wigs, referring to them as “she” and “her,” which makes me happy every time. They look alive in your hands when you take them out of their boxes: a variety of shoulder-length brunettes, grayish chestnuts, and various salt-and-pepper gradients. To me they look like my mother, like a long-lost body part. Maybe her hair was here in Wigland the whole time?
The first one he presents to us is a brown bob with bangs. It looks not quite good and much better than it did a second ago. They give it back to me briefly. I laugh happily and take lots of photos. The next one is too gray, grayer than her. My mom laughs horrified and says he looks like her mother. She looks exactly like Grandma, who died just a few years ago at age 95, an age that, barring a miracle, my mother will never reach. She doesn’t want to look like her mom, but I want her to. I want it to be gray, that it has softened, that time has passed, that we are no longer in this moment. I want her to grow old, to live. I want to have a mom who has reached the phase of life where her hair is almost completely white.
Brian has another one, but he’s worried we won’t like it. “She’s a little messy,” he tells us. “Am a little messy,” Mom laughs. It’s shoulder-length with deep bangs, and the shade is similar to what Mom’s once was: an elegant mix of gray and dirty blonde. Pretty perfect, we agree. The one, probably.
At Brian’s urging, we went to the window to see it in natural light. I take a photo of the two of them, smiling. We’re actually smiling. I feel immense relief. We seem so normal. Maybe she’s right, maybe her doctor and I have written her off prematurely, given up too soon. Why can’t I live in the hopeful place my mother lives? Where a 14 percent chance of being alive in five years seems significant and worth a try? Where making a mistake isn’t the worst thing that can happen to you?
We take more photos. Mom can never resist taking photos with me now, which I take as a bad sign. As we both know, there are few left. Brian sits her in the chair and explains all the adjustments we can make to the wig. Thinning it here and there, shortening the back. You don’t need a hairdresser, Brian says, smiling. He can do it himself, if we trust him.
“We trust you!” —I blurt out, without consulting my mom. Of course we trust him, or so do I. I know Brian wants more for my mother than she wants for herself. He’ll make it better, this wig that we already love is $220. You will be able to return it to us in a few days, he says. I want to be like him, to see people at their most vulnerable and know that I can improve their lives, not interpersonally, but with my very specific skill.
I back the car up, do a three-point turn, heading toward the movie theater. When I switch from reversing to driving, I am jubilant. “I didn’t think we’d buy one today!” —I say, looking at Mom, who is now placing the wool hat back on her bald head. “Me neither!” she answers. It feels like we’re two teenagers who just got our ears pierced, or something equally healthy and forgiving. I wonder what else we can do, how else we can pursue this feeling before it is no longer available to us.
Meaghan O’Connell is a freelance writer and editor and author of the 2018 memoir. And now we have it all: about motherhood before it was ready. You can find her work in New York Magazine, Romper, The New York Times, and her newsletter. What the living do.
PS: The Dead Dad Club and nine life lessons I learned after my cancer diagnosis.
(Top photo by Jerusha/Unsplash).
