It's four p.m. on a Thursday and The Daughter is on a stool with her long blond hair wet and combed.  The astringent bite of Listerine halos her head.

The mother is at The Daughter's back, her own long hair tight in a rubber band.  The Mother wears plastic gloves and on her head is a pair of high powered magnifying goggles.  The goggles come from a mini-railroad hobby shop.  They are used to build tiny models.   But The Mother has a different use for her hobby shop magnification goggles. 

On the table, in front of The Daughter, a bowl of hot water on a white kitchen towel.  And a comb.  It's called the Terminator or the Exterminator or maybe it's the Destroyer.  The Mother cannot remember what the thing is called, she just knows know it's a tight little metal number that rakes upward and will disengage scalp if she isn't careful.

The Mother takes a deep breath and takes up a small patch of hair.  She begins in the front and combs all the way through.  The tight comb catches at the last three inches and has to be disengaged.

"Ow," The Daughter says.

"Sorry, sorry," The Mother says.

"It's okay," The Daughter says.  "Do you see anything?"

"I haven't combed through one time," The Mother says.  "Just hold on."

The Mother gets the tight comb through the strands, does the whole thing again and then disengages what is caught on the comb into the water with her latex covered finger tips.

"Do you see anything?" The Daughter asks.

"Not yet," The Mother says.  Her goggles are not snapped down.  They will be, soon, but for the first twenty or so passes through the long, wet hair, they are up while The Mother goes through inch by meticulous inch.

~

The Daughter is ten and has a Best Friend who is also ten.  The Best Friend, to The Mother, is The Difficult One.  ADHD, ADD, ADRQ, RDXY.  A soup of letters are attached by The Parents to explain The Difficult One's temperament.

The Difficult One can't eat sugar, gluten, high fructose anything and has a penchant for drinking from the creme dispenser when The Mother takes The Daughter and The Difficult One to a coffee shop for a non-sugar, non-high fructose syrup, gluten-free muffin.

The Difficult One can't walk very far without dragging and whining and insisting that everyone, anyone, The Daughter and even The Mother, carry her things.

In any store, The Difficult One begs, over and over again for whatever catches her eye.

"Please, please, please, I'll pay you back.  I promise.  Please, please, I want this, I have to have this, I'll pay you back, I promise."

The Daughter has adapted a strategy to cope with The Difficult One.  She promises, as much as The Difficult One begs, to get whatever the child wants only it will be for a birthday or Christmas.

"Please, please," The Difficult One whines.
"I'll get it for your birthday," The Daughter promises.
"Please, please," The Difficult One whines.
"I'll get it for your birthday," The Daughter promises.
"Please, please," The Difficult One whines.
"I'll get it for your birthday," The Daughter promises.
"Promise," The Difficult One finally says.
"I promise," The Daughter says.

And that is how The Mother and The Daughter can get The Difficult One out of the store.

The Mother is the one who must come back, at the birthday of The Difficult One and fulfill the promise of The Daughter.  The Daughter made a promise but has no money.  She is a child.

The Mother is the one who has to pay.


 ~

"Do you see anything?" The Daughter asks.

"Hold on," The Mother says.

The Mother is about a third of the way through The Daughter's hair and drops the comb on the towel next to the bowl, snaps the goggles down and takes a look at the floating strands of hair.  The water is milky.  It gets that way thanks to an enzyme solution she purchased from a woman who runs a company called Nit Picky.  Nit Picky will comb The Mother out for $125.00, anyone extra is $95.00.  Add in The Brother, The Ex, The Lover and well, yes, it adds up.

This is why The Mother combs out The Daughter herself.  The Mother has become so skilled at lice infestations now, she could go into business herself.

"So far you are clean," The Mother says.

"Sigh," The Daughter says.  She knows they will be together, combing for two hours.  Maybe more.  The Mother will go through all the hair, inch by inch, strand by strand, three full times.

The Mother lifts the goggles and begins on a new patch of hair.


~

The Mother had never had lice in her house.  Her attitude was this:  "I will never get it. We are immune."  She even believed the myth about lice being a dirty disease that only certain kinds of children brought home.  Not her children.  Not her home.

Since The Difficult One, The Daughter has been infected twice.

At first, the mother of The Difficult One was apologetic to the point of being somewhat similar to The Difficult One in a store:  "I'm so, so, so sorry, so sorry, so so so very sorry, really, I couldn't be more sorry, I am really, truly, so, so, so sorry."

By the second infestation, the mother of The Difficult One became quiet.  Yes, it was her but there were fewer, "sorry's."  This time, the third time, there is flat out denial.

"Nope, not my child," the mother of The Difficult One insisted.  "Tough luck."

But it was impossible it came from anywhere else.   The Daughter has no other friends.  Why?  The Difficult One won't allow it.  The Daughter is her only friend.  All the other children scatter away.  The Daughter feels bad for The Difficult One.  "No one else will play with her mommy," she says.  "If I don't play with her, just her, she cries and begs and wears me down.  I have to be her friend.  She doesn't have anyone else.  She says she'll die if we aren't friends, extra special, always together, just the two of us friends."

~


"Do you see anything?" The Daughter asks again.

"Hold on," The Mother says.

Another third of the hair is combed through and sure enough, look at the size of that thing.  The Mother doesn't need to snap the goggles down to see a full sized, 21 to 28 day old lice.  

The Mother starts to shake.  Her hands, her stomach, her legs.  She is like a cat about to pounce pray that's been stalked.  She quivers with excitement.

"I told you it was her," The Mother says.  "I knew it."

The Mother is worked up.  She set the trap.  After the third infestation, she got The Daughter 150% lice free and then sent her for a sleep over with The Difficult One.  The plan was simple and elegant.  The Daughter would come back home A.  Infected again or B. Clean.   If it was A, The Mother would know what to do.  If it was B., well, The Mother would be stuck with The Difficult One as The Best Friend in The Daughter's life for another exhausting season. How else could it be?  After all, The Difficult One had an alphabet soup of problems and no other friends.  It was a relationship built on guilt. 

For the next hour, The Mother pulls out three and then four mature lice.  They are big enough to spot without using the special goggles and The Mother is flooded with relief.  Now, now, at last, she can  bring it all to an end.  The Mother can set some boundaries for The Daughter, for her family and for herself.   They'll have a solid reason to keep The Difficult One at arms length. 

The Daughter is released of her confinement.  Her hair is treated with a nasty olive oil shampoo and The Mother gets on the phone to the mother of The Difficult One.  She lays down the evidence.  It couldn't have come from anywhere else.  So there you have it.

The response is denial.  "She didn't get it here.  Absolutely not." 

This goes on and on, around and around and tempers flair.  The Mother fumes about the nerve of the mother of The Difficult One.  How can you deny something that is so obvious?  But the mother of The Difficult One is now insulted.  Harsh words go back and forth. 

"How dare you!" The mother of The Difficult One calls The Mother a, "fucking psycho bitch."

The Mother gets on the phone to the Ex who is also fed up with The Difficult One.  The whining, the endless checking of labels before taking a bite of anything at his house, the insistence on assistance during long walks.  He's a good enough sounding board for a cat fight over lice. 

"Can you believe those people?  Can you believe the nerve?  Total denial and she called me...," The Mother carries on. 

"Typical," is the final conclusion.  "What did you expect?"

But wait, says The Ex.  "Hold on."

He admits that The Daughter, while over at his house the day before, actually did play with another child, a younger child, one who lives across the street and if he's not mistaken there was an outbreak of lice a month ago.

The Mother's heart sinks into her shoes.  "Are you sure?" she asks.

"Hold on," The Ex says.  "Let me call over there and have them check their kids."

The Daughter sits nearby.  She's been part of the whole ordeal of adults come undone, acting more like children than children.  She is wrapped in a pink fuzzy robe while her head soaks in olive oil muck.  Over that she wears a plastic hair protector that makes her look like a waitress in a 50's diner.  She just waits and watches all of this unfold.

And sure enough.  It takes a couple more hours to confirm but the child who lives next door to The Ex is loaded with mature lice.

~

When The Mother makes a mistake, she has a rule.  Cop to it.  Don't make excuses.  Don't deny.  Just say you're sorry and take responsibility.  Which is what she does.  She makes the difficult call to the mother of The Difficult One.

"You were falsely accused.  I am sorry."   

There is no response to the apology.

The Mother goes one step further than the apology and admits a deeper truth.  "My Daughter needs space to make other friends..."

Again, no response.  A miracle of silence.  She's been shunned!

~


The Daughter stands in the shower as the nasty olive oil shampoo drains away.  The Mother rubs conditioner into The Daughter's hair.

"So it wasn't her after all," she says.

"Nope, I was wrong," I say.

The Daughter considers this reality.  The Mother can be wrong.

"You can still be friends," The Mother says.  "That's fine.  Just take some space, you can make other friends."

The Daughter thinks about this too.  She thinks about everything because that is the way she is.  She is a watcher and she is an adapter.  She tries hard to just get along.  

"It will be nice to take a little break," The Daughter admits.

The Mother stands back and looks into The Daughter's face.  It's right there.  Relief.  The Daughter has had a burden lifted from her shoulders. 

"Really?" The Mother asks.
"Really," The Daughter says.  "It's a lot of work."

The Mother wraps The Daughter up in towels, top to bottom and around the hair.  The Mother holds The Daughter tight.  They have crossed over to a new place.  They are different.  In a strange way, they have both been set free by a case of lice.