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Travis had always had the worst bedhead. It was a problem. He didn't even know how it did what it did-- sticking up every which way like a peacock flaring its feathers for a mate. Even when he was real little, like little little. His mama had taken a photo of it, baby him half awake with his hair looking like spikes.
He could tame it with a brush, usually it was the first thing he did in the morning (or, really, the afternoon, since he’d not been on a night time sleep cycle in a long time) so that by the time he left the house or got on with his day it was artfully messy, but not impressively so.
That day, a week after Atchison was nuked and a week after he went home with Naomi from the hospital and never left, he’d been absolutely starving when he woke up. Now, Naomi had her little stash of snacks tucked in under the bed, but she’d still been asleep and he didn’t want to wake her rifling around for food.
Instead, he got up and shuffled out to the kitchen with the intent of getting a hefty bowl of dry cereal to eat before he brushed his teeth, because his blood sugar was all messed up and the world was tilting on its axis enough to make him nauseated. Or maybe that was the hunger.
He really needed to get better at eating before he went to bed, his body was not a fan.
Sarah, unlike her mom and Travis, was not a night owl. She had school at seven in the morning on the weekdays, and she was always tucked into bed nice and early. Sometimes, on the weekends, she stayed up with them a few extra hours, but she always crashed long before they did, meaning she woke up before they did.
Naomi had quietly confessed to him that she hated how her daughter spent a lot of her time during school breaks and weekends alone in their apartment. Travis understood.
So, Sarah had been up already, sitting in the living room having turned Bluey on the TV all by herself. The moment she saw Travis coming out of the hallway like a zombie she’d gasped, “What’s wrong with your hair?!” she exclaimed.
He blinked at her, then brought a hand up to feel what she was talking about since he had no mirror. It was hard to get a grasp on the full shape of it all, but he could take a guess, “Good morning to you, too,” he said lightly, continuing on to the kitchen.
Sarah watched him all the way, and when he joined her on the couch with his cereal she started talking, “How’s it do that?”
He shrugged, “Dunno. My dad always thought it was crazy, defying gravity and stuff.”
“How come I’ve never seen it do that? You’re always up after me, I should’ve seen it!”
“I brush it, tames it pretty easily. Except sometimes it’s all knotted and stuff, and it just will not lay down,” he lamented. Days like that he wore a hat, because it was always one or two clumps of hair sticking straight up like a sign saying please, make fun of me! in bright neon lights.
Sarah made a noise, her face screwing up, “I hate when mama has to brush my hair. You do that every morning?”
“Yeah, but, well,” he gestured vaguely upward, chewing through the bite of cereal he’d taken like he expected her to suddenly stop asking questions, “My hairs not like yours, it doesn’t knot as much.”
She stared at him, like he was a puzzle, and then, “Can I fix it?”
And he made possibly the biggest mistake of his life by saying: “Sure, kid. Go crazy.” Before he slid down to the floor in front of the couch, giving her full access to his trainwreck of hair.
The next thirty minutes of his life were spent with her making comments– “Why’s it so dry!? It’s like hay!” and “Is the dark part of your hair dirt?” which she’d already asked him before, so he didn’t know why she was asking it again, or “Why’s your hair so yellow?”
And, worse than that, was her grubby little fingers tugging and pulling at his hair, unaware of the amount of force she was applying and how it might be hurting him. He didn’t say anything, knew she was just a kid who didn’t know what she was doing, but man did it hurt sometimes.
That was how Naomi found them. And she had laughed at him, the cruelty!
(He didn’t comment on how scared she looked when she swung around the corner, or the relief that made her shoulders slump and her body go lax against the wall when she saw him in the living room. Didn’t apologize for leaving her in bed, knowing how they both got when they woke up alone.)
Naomi joined them on the couch, sat with her legs curled to the side, teaching Sarah with gentle words how to carefully finger brush someone’s hair, and how to make Travis’ monstrosity lay down mostly flat without a brush.
In the end, he still had to take his old worn out brush to it to get the final bits and pieces down, but Sarah had had a good time. He figured that was all that mattered.
(“All done!” Sarah yelled, yanking her hand through one last time and catching on a knot that Travis knew she’d already pulled apart three times and just kept coming back. The pains of having hair damaged by bleach like he did.
“Gentle, honey,” Naomi reminded, softly. In that way she always was unless she was really struggling, because she was a great mom.
Travis ran his own hand through bleach fried locks, and felt the difference, “Wow, Ms. Williams, you’re such a great hairstylist,” he’d praised dramatically, leaning his head back so he could look up at her and see that sweet, giggling face, “I’ll be leaving the best review on your website when I leave here, absolutely, no doubt about it.”
Sarah had stood up on the couch, ignoring her mothers protesting and the hands that held her in place, and taken a bow.)