i cut my mother's hair

My mother has had the same hairdresser for thirty years, and the winter she could not get to him it fell to me, a towel around her shoulders in her kitchen, her directing every snip in the hand mirror like a site foreman. My hands shook for the first ten minutes. Her whole life she has been the one standing behind me.

I did a barely acceptable job, and she told the neighbours a professional had come to the house. We did it twice more that winter, and I have never been trusted with anything I was more afraid to drop.