Chapter 4
Mateo came out of his chair so fast his blanket slid to the floor and he did not stop to pick it up. "Can I make a dinosaur?"
I looked at him with the seriousness the question deserved. "If the dinosaur has reasonable medical supervision," I said.
The kids laughed. All four of them, this time. Even Ava, briefly, before she caught herself and looked back down at the craft table.
Emily stepped out into the hallway. I heard her on her radio, her voice low and careful, the voice of someone navigating institutional protocol with one eye on the clock. She came back ten minutes later with a man named Luis, who was a volunteer barber who came to the floor twice a month and who looked at me and at the children and at the situation I had created for him and said simply, "Are you sure?"
I considered it. "Not even a little," I said.
May you like
Luis set up. He was a careful man, precise, and he explained to the kids what each implement did before he used it, which I respected. Mateo had a vision for the dinosaur that required several clarifying conversations about scale and available canvas. Jalen wanted a lightning bolt on one side, clean and simple, and he specified the angle with the focused certainty of a kid who had been thinking about this for longer than the last ten minutes. Sophie wanted a heart. Ava sat at the edge of the craft table and watched all of it without committing to anything yet.
The clippers touched the first section of my beard and a small dark-gray patch drifted down to the towel Luis had draped across my shoulders. Mateo made a sound of pure satisfaction. Jalen leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. Sophie clapped once, quickly, and then pressed both hands over her mouth.
