SYNCHRONICITY (Dream Walker) 🖋

Alison - 4

Alison spent her time at home hiding. Not wanting to see anyone, she busied herself pretending to do things around the house. She was quite diligent with the care and feeding of her animals...herself, not so much. Her mother in law stopped by unannounced and made her go with her to find her a suitable dress for the funeral, which was the next afternoon. Marge took her out to lunch and made her eat.

"You look like you've actually lost some weight already and I can tell you're not sleeping."

"I'm sleeping like a log actually."

"Alison, you have dark circles under your eyes. And your hair's a mess. When's the last time you had anything done to it?"

Alison shrugged her shoulders.

Marge nodded. "Alright, that settles it. I'm taking you to get your hair done. Get a manicure too. Your nails look like hell."

"I live on a farm, Marge. Well, sort of."

"You have to take care of yourself hon. You have to be there for your animals, right?"

Alison nodded.

Marge took Alison to her hairdresser. The woman specialized in cut and color, but she did perms and straightening as well. Alison asked her to cut her hair...short. She would donate it to Locks of Love, but she wanted to keep a lock of it for herself.

Marge closed her eyes and shook her head. "Are you sure you really want to cut it all off? You have like, three feet of hair!"

Alison nodded. "Yeah. It's heavy and it's hot. I kept it long for David." She sighed.

"I know you did," Marge replied gently. "How about you just get the ends cut, maybe layer it a bit? Don't go for such a big change just yet? You have enough on your plate. Please not make yourself have to deal with more change..."

Alison closed her eyes and sighed. "Fine."

"Still want the color," the hairdresser asked.

Alison nodded. "Yeah. I have roots," she said and chuckled.

When the hairdresser turned Alison around, she looked at her reflection in the mirror and smiled. Her hair looked great. She breathed in deeply and was thankful that her mother in law talked her out of chopping her hair to bits. Still, she asked for the cut hair that had fallen to the floor.

"What on Earth are you going to do with it," Marge asked.

"I'm going to put it with David. I've already taken hair from the dogs and his horse."

"What about the cats?"

"They're mine. He only tolerated them because I made him," she replied.

She felt Marge's hand on her shoulder and looked up into the woman's reflection. "That's kind of what I always thought. Wasn't really a cat person, was he?"

"Nope. But they kept the mice out of the house, soooo...."

Marge nodded. "Yeah. All right well, let's go find yourself some shoes. Oh, I made reservations at that Mexican restaurant you two like."

Alison nodded and smiled. "How many people are we expecting?"

"It'll just be the family. All forty-six of us. You said that you wanted to do the funeral at the house for everyone else who wanted to come, right? You still want to do it that way?"

Alison had actually forgotten. But she nodded anyway. "Yeah. I don't want any crap tomorrow," she warned.

"I've already talked to Julia."