The worst part of chemo is losing my hair.

“I want to shave it off,” I say to James as he sits me in the salon chair and wraps me in a shampoo cape. I blink hard.

The night before, I listened to the thud, thud, thud of the rain on the roof, and rubbed the tender crown of my head. And in the morning when I showered, strands curled up in the shampoo suds and loose hairs swirled in the water and disappeared down the drain.

At James’ station, he pulls out a brown towel, silver shears, a paddle brush, a barber comb, and a balding clipper.

He could have just started shaving. But he cradles my scalp in his hands. He washes, then conditions my hair. He clips the ends with the metallic snip, snip of the shears, cupping my chin with his free hand. Fine wisps of brown and gray tangle together on the linoleum floor.

Then he stops. His gray-blue eyes meet mine in the mirror.

“What about a mohawk?” James asks, raising his eyebrows suggestively.

“Seriously?”

“You can always shave it off.”

I feel the buzz of the clipper tickle my neck. It angles up and around, shaving off the hair until all I have left is a small mop down the center of my head.

“You could wear it under a hat or a scarf,” James suggests. “No one would know the difference.”

He applies a thick shellack of gel on either side of that mop, and the mohawk stands straight up.

And then, because I can’t stop laughing at me in a mohawk, I forget to cry when he shaves it off.

Elizabeth Sharpe lives in Seattle where she is a writer and editor. She holds a master’s degree in English Literature and a certificate in Advanced Fiction Writing. Her stories have appeared in To Japan With Love, To Nepal With Love, A Cup of Comfort for a Better World, Seattle Weekly, and Wanderlust. You can find her on Twitter @ebsharpe or online at http://www.elizabethsharpe.com