And my mother said, “That’s right.”

And kept combing.

She did not correct her.

She has never corrected her.

Doreen said they don’t really talk, and now I understood why: there is nothing to say, because the woman in the chair has no idea who is doing her hair, and my mother comes anyway, and has come anyway for thirty-one years, and will come until one of them dies.

I must have moved, because Lorraine’s eyes came up and found me in the doorway and her whole face opened.