My mother shows up at my front door, unannounced, in the middle of the afternoon.
“I’m ready for the wig,” she announces, walking right past me and taking off her coat. I have repeatedly asked him to warn me before coming forward, but he never did, not even once. Still, I keep letting him in.
“Fake hair!” I replied, cautiously pleased and a little confused. She’s as bald as an egg from months of chemo; I wonder what has changed. But I’m so thrilled by this clear direction — something we can actually do for him, for once — that I close my laptop and offer to make lunch for us.
She calls wig facts from my breakfast corner, as I grab a bag of Trader Joe’s gnocchi from the freezer and pour it into a pan. “So, there’s fake hair and real hair,” she says. “A fake hair wig lasts an average of six months. Real hair is more expensive, but it lasts more than a year.”
“How much are we talking?”
“I think a thousand versus a few hundred.” She looks at me and I look back, turning in the air, trying to keep my face blank – to sidestep the topic of “permanent” and months and years. Since being diagnosed with cancer, she’s had all-day surgeries, two hospital stays, genetic sequencing, and six rounds of chemo. Each milestone leads to more bad news. The five-year survival rate for leiomyosarcoma is 14 percent, I know it by heart. Everything I read says he has nine to 15 months to live. (She’ll be gone in less than a year, but we don’t know that yet.) “Somebody’s got to be in that 14 percent,” she tells me, whenever I suggest she start withdrawing her retirement early. So, we have lunch and plan to check out a wig store and then watch a movie this evening.
Reaching Vigeland, we crawled around for 10 minutes, waiting for the next free worker. We walk down the rows of blushing disembodied performance heads, looking at each other amused but afraid to touch anything. The low ceilings and poor lighting, the staring gazes of the wigged mannequins – it all seems laden with meaning, and I fight the urge to flee.
When it was our turn to get help, the owner, Brian, was attentive to us, with a detached approach. “How much do you know about wigs?” he asks with gentle curiosity. “absolutely nothing!” I answer, very eagerly. Brian never misses a single opportunity. First, he tells us about synthetic wigs, which, he insists, cannot be exposed to heat. You have to be careful getting into the oven, otherwise the bangs will fall apart. I laugh nervously, then worry that it might be inappropriate in this setting. The wigs are very close to a joke or joke, but importantly, not quite so.
Fortunately, my amusement only seems to encourage Brian. He smiles and reminds us to take care of the dishwasher too – hot steam. I am amazed, my fear turning into admiration. The things that people – people in wigs – go through, while people like me undoubtedly remain ignorant. “Oh, yes, and you want to stay away from the barbecue,” he says, a twinkle in his eyes. I want to say that we are experiencing harmony. Isn’t the world strange? Isn’t it humiliating to be human? Ha!
Eventually, my mom got fit, and now Brian is really shining. He puts the wig cap on with such obvious care: “Does it feel OK? How’s your scalp going with the treatment? I know it might be extra sensitive.”
Mother glows with his attentive gaze. “It looks like fishnet stockings!” she says, acknowledging the absurdity of the wig cap. “it sure does.” He accommodates him. “The one positive in all this is that you have a great mind for wigs.” The mother replies: “Really?” Flattering and unbelieving like a child.
Brian wants to know what she looked like before. Lately I’ve resisted looking at old photos where she looks so much younger and livelier, but now I take advantage of the opportunity to scroll back through my phone. There she is: medium-brown hair down to her shoulders, reddish-blond highlights on her face. As far as I remember, she used a curling iron almost every day. I proudly pass my phone to Brian – my beautiful mother! – And when he looks at her he sees no sorrow or regret; Just glances at her hair and then runs away, a man on a mission.
He returns with a stack of wigs, and calls them “his” and “she”, which makes me smile every time. When he takes them out of their boxes they seem alive in his hands – an array of shoulder-length brunettes, brown aubons, and various gradients of salt and pepper. She looks like my mother to me – like a long-lost part of a body. Like maybe her hair was here in Vigeland the whole time?
First of all he presents before us a chestnut bob with bangs. She looks not perfect and far more perfect than she did a second ago. She is briefly given back to me. I laugh out loud, and take lots of pictures. The next one is much greyer – even greyer. My mother laughs horrified and says she looks just like her mother. She looks exactly like Gramm, who died a few years ago at age 95, an age that, barring a miracle, my mother will never see. She doesn’t want to look like her mom, but I want her to. I want it to fade, to soften, for time to pass, for us to no longer be in this moment. I want her to live and grow old. I want a mother who has reached that stage of life where her hair is almost completely grey.
Brian has another one, but he’s worried we won’t like it. “She’s a bit of a mess,” he tells us. “I am A bit of a mess,” mom laughs. She’s shoulder length with a swept bang, and the shade is the same as mom once had: a luscious mix of brown and dirty blonde hair. Awesome, we agree. One, maybe.
At Brian’s insistence, we go to the window to see it in natural light. I take a photo of both of us smiling. We are really smiling. I feel very relieved. We look very normal. Maybe he’s right, maybe his doctors and I dismissed him prematurely, too early. Why can’t I live in that hopeful place where my mother lives? Where does a 14 percent chance of survival at five years seem significant, worth pursuing? Where being wrong isn’t the worst thing that can happen to you?
We take more pictures. Mom never refuses to take pictures with me anymore, which I take as a bad sign. As we both know there are a lot of people left. Brian sits her in the chair and walks her through all the changes we can make to the wig. Thinning it out here and there, making it shorter in the back. Brian smiles and says, no need for a hairdresser. He can do it himself if we trust Him.
“We trust you!” I say it without even asking my mother. Of course we trust him, or I do. I know Brian wants more for my mother than he wants for himself. That would make it better We already love this wig, it costs $220. He says, he can bring her back to us in a few days. I want to be like them, to see people at their most vulnerable and know that I can make their lives better – not reciprocally, but with my own specific skills.
Back at the car, I make a three-point turn, which directs us toward the movie theater. By the time I start driving in reverse, I’m happy. “I didn’t think we’d actually buy one today!” I say looking at mom, now fitting her woolen hat back onto her bald head. “Neither do I!” She answers. It feels like we’re two teenagers who just got our ears pierced, or something equally wholesome and indulgent. I wonder what else we can do – how we can pursue this feeling before it is no longer available to us.
meaghan o’connell Freelance writer and editor and author of the 2018 memoir And now we have it all: On motherhood, before I’m ready. You can find her work in New York Magazine, Romper, The New York Times, and their newsletter. what do living people do.
P.S. The Dead Dad Club, and nine life lessons I learned after a cancer diagnosis.
(Top photo by Paloma Vicente/Stocksy.)
