not understand.
It is not whether it is pretty. It is pretty.
It is that the child is struggling with it.
The plait catches on the back of her chair. In PE she holds it in one hand. I watched her in the dining hall gather it into her fist just to be able to lean over her plate.
She is nine. I am a mother. I look at that and I think: why?
At the Christmas concert we were all in the corridor waiting for them to open the hall.
He was over by the window, plaiting, the same as always. He finished and she ran off down the corridor to the girls who were already in costume.
And one of the mothers said it. Not under her breath. Out loud.
“Somebody should have taken that child to a proper hairdresser years ago.”
He did not even look up
from putting the pins away. “Thanks. We manage.”
