Emily Fernandez
With Words Lighter Than Air
That evening, as David sat on a kitchen stool outside of Malone’s bungalow, he confessed his crime to her while she prepped him for a haircut.
“I cursed at the kids today.”
“Yikes!” Malone said as she reached down to pick up the scissors from the box and then stood up and looked him in the eyes. “I’ve done that before.”
“No, I didn’t just curse in their presences, I cursed at them.”
“Sara told me already.” Malone circled him, assessing his hair. “Did you apologize?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then say three Holy Marys and two Our Fathers and you’re absolved.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “Seriously. We make mistakes. All of us. I know that. It’s just harder when you have such little people watching you. It forces you to get better.”
“I appreciate that. I do,” he said, but his body still felt tense. That was too easy. He wanted to hug her, kiss her for making it so easy, but they were not married anymore.
As she started to separate his hair, she nudged him. “I don’t hear you saying your prayers.”
“I’m doing it in silence,” he said, and breathed in deep.
He found himself fighting back tears as thick curls of his black hair fell onto the towel covering his chest. Malone was standing close beside him, the smooth inside of her bicep stretched in front of his eyes, her chest almost touching the side of his face.
“I can’t believe you’re letting me do this to you,” Malone said as she chopped another piece of his hair. “Although, I guess it was my idea.”
“I want to look pretty for the party,” David said, impersonating Sara’s pouty voice.
“Ha!” Malone said and moved in front of him with her arms still raised. He could smell her sweet deodorant mixed with her natural odor. “I don’t think that ‘pretty’ would be the word I’d use to describe what I am doing to your hair.”
“If you can cut Frankie’s hair, you can cut mine.”
“You’re getting good at calling Francis by his new name.”
“It fits him.”
“Yeah, I think so, too. But it kinda sounds like a hot dog,” Malone said, laughing.
“He is quite the wiener.”
“Very funny.” Malone said, but she did not laugh this time. She pushed his head a little. He could feel her breath on his face. “You have to stop moving if you want me to do this right.”
David felt silenced by Malone, so he let her chop away at his long mane that he had refused to cut after he left the military. But now, he was trying let things go and not be so damn angry. She combed his hair with her fingers, sending a small thrill through his body. She tugged when she came across a knot. He heard the scissors snip, felt the feather of his hair tickle his face and bare arms, and imagined himself becoming a little more weightless, falling backward into a different time.
He hadn’t felt this buoyant since those first months after their wedding. They had tried to do things right back then – dividing the chores and doing them accordingly, going for walks together, eating homemade meals. He remembered how amazed he had been each morning, Malone by his side, naked under the covers. And then the nights he would compose music on his guitar, and she would lie on the mattress in a thin nightgown watching him, teasing him, telling him how he was minutes away from fame. He believed her then. The twins had been conceived during those months of bliss. Then, it ended so quickly, and he traded his guitar, and marriage, for a machine gun and war.
He didn’t want to think of the rest, how it all blew up. He wanted to take what he could get, and not ruin the little he had gained, being back in their lives. He closed his eyes and with each cut of the scissors, he imagined himself lifting another inch off the ground, floating in space.
“Done,” Malone finally announced. “It looks kinda choppy, but I did my best.”
She was so near to him, removing the towel and brushing his shoulders.
“Shhh,” he whispered. His eyes were still closed as he put a finger to his half-smiling lips. “I’m still praying.”
Emily Fernandez
Emily Fernandez is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Pliny and Other Problems (Bamboo Dart Press 2023) and Procession of Martyrs (Finishing Line Press 2018). She was selected to be a 2020 Moving Arts MADlab playwright, and her play Cage and Lung was professionally read online. Her poems have been published in SHIFT, Antithesis Journal, Black Fork Review, Pangyrus, The Dewdrop, Angel City Review, Tiny Seed Journal and others.https://emily-fernandez.weebly.com