They Laughed at My Mother’s Bald Head — So I Did the Only Thing a Child Could Do, and the Whole Street Went Silent

A Child’s Plan, Drawn in Crayon

That night I couldn’t sleep. I kept hearing “treatment,” trying to understand how something that heals can also hurt. I went to the bathroom, looked in the mirror, then down at Dad’s old clippers under the sink. I didn’t know the word for solidarity. I only knew the stares had made Mom smaller, and I wanted to make her feel whole again.