There were maybe thirty children in that room. Boys and girls. Some with hair chopped to the shoulders like Letty’s, uneven and jagged where a child’s hand had done it at home. Some cut much shorter. And a few — a few boys, and one girl — with their heads shaved completely bald.
And in the center of them, sitting in a chair, was a small girl in a wig. My daughter’s wig. The blond wig made from Letty’s hair.
Millie.
She was crying. But not the way she’d cried in the bathroom the day the boys laughed. She was crying the way you cry when you suddenly discover you are not alone in the world.
The principal, beside me, finally found his voice, and it was thick with emotion.
“Yesterday your daughter gave Millie that wig,” he said. “In front of the whole class. She told Millie that her own father had lost his hair too, that she knew it wasn’t fair, and that Millie shouldn’t have to feel alone.
