When my son came home with half a haircut, I marched him straight back to the barber. But instead of apologizing, Mr. Lewis asked one question that made my stomach drop.
My son came home from the barber with only half his hair cut.
The right side was neatly trimmed, tapered clean above his ear. The left side hung long and untouched, exactly as it had been when he left the house forty-five minutes earlier.
“Can I have two dollars for a lollipop?”
“Tyler, honey. What happened to your hair?”
He wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Mr. Lewis stopped.”
“Stopped? Why?”
He shrugged, one small shoulder rising and falling under his jacket.
“Humor your old mother.”
****
An hour earlier, I’d been drinking my second cup of coffee while Tyler laced his sneakers by the door, humming some cartoon tune.
“Mom, can I have two dollars for a lollipop?”
“Mr. Lewis, your barber, gives you those for free, sweetheart.”
“I know. But I wanna buy him one this time.”
He rolled his eyes.
That was my son, Tyler. Eight years old and already softer-hearted than most grown men I knew.
He had been going to Mr. Lewis’s barbershop three blocks away since he was four. Mr. Lewis knew Tyler liked the Cardinals, kept grape lollipops behind the counter for him, and always let him choose the music.
“You gonna walk carefully?”
“Mom. I’ve done it a hundred times.”
“Humor your old mother.”
“He tells the best stories.”
He rolled his eyes.
I watched until he disappeared around the corner, then went inside and checked the lock twice. I always checked things twice. My mother used to say I could turn worrying into a profession.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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