Into the Fire
Philip tried to take a catnap, while his mother fiddled with her hair in the mirror. She wore her illness in her deeply lined face; the dark circles under both eyes as if from a lack of sleep; the good bone structure of her youth now more apparent than ever with the thinning of the facial tissue. She centered the wig that threatened to slip down her forehead. She pulled on a few wayward curls. “I hate this Goddamn thing! I hate it.” She continued to fiddle with the wig, not happy with what she’d accomplished.
“It looks nice on you, Mom.”
“Better on Flicka.”
“It gives you character,” he said.
She raised an eyebrow, flashed him a disbelieving look.
“Call it what it is, honey. A wig, pure and simple.” She went on to define the word as if reading from a dictionary. “Wig, re
