Page 38 of The Number of Love
Margot yanked her elbow out of the woman’s grasp. With one hand she pulled the pins from her hair, and with the other she reached for a pair of scissors sitting on a wheeled cart outside one of the ward doors. The scientific journal smacked onto the floor.
“What in the world are you—?”
“Well, if I’msoimpressionable...” She held out the long, dark coil of hair and, with a singlesnip, cut it off.
Still that wave crashed and roared and bubbled, making her breath come too fast. She slammed both shears and hair onto the cart and bent to snatch up the journal. “There. Now you know you may as well judge me as you do anyone else who doesn’t conform to your narrow-minded views.”
The woman made a sound that was half gasp, half squeak of protest.
Margot marched into Lieutenant Elton’s ward, still fuming. For a few steps. Then the steam dissipated. The pressure in her chest eased. Her eyes burned. She stopped, eyes fastened on a seam in the tile floor, and tried to regulate the ragged edges of her breath.
In—two, three, four.Out—two, three, four. Eight beats. Six seconds. One cycle. Two. Three.
Trace the seams. Measure the tiles. Twelve inches by twelve inches. Twenty-six tiles from one wall to the other. Three hundred twelve inches. Eight yards and two feet.
Hair tickled her neck in a way it hadn’t done since she was six—the first time she’d taken a pair of scissors to her hair, to eliminate the need for the ridiculous ribbons Maman had insisted on tying in it. That day, she’d learned what happened when she crossed one of Sophie De Wilde’s invisible lines, and she hadn’t been able to sit at her desk chair without pain for hours.
But Maman wasn’t here to see. To judge. To punish. Or to decide that it wasn’t deserving of punishment.
She had never drawn the lines in the same place twice. The second time Margot had cut her own hair, at age ten, it had simply been because it was annoying her, not in rebellion. Maman hadn’t punished her that time, and it wasn’t because she’d left it longer—below her shoulders, no ends tickling her neck. It had been because it hadn’t been meant to hurt anyone.
“It is the heart that matters,”Maman had said as she evened out the edges that second time.“The motivation.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. The matronwasa narrow-minded hag. But Margot’s actions wouldn’t actually hurt her. They were merely a statement. So did it deserve punishment?
“Margot! What did youdo?”
Apparently Dot thought it did. Or deserved outrage, anyway.
Margot opened her eyes to find that she’d apparently made it to Lieutenant Elton’s bed, more or less. Her friend had stood up, eyes as round as zeros, fingers reaching out to touch the blunt edges of Margot’s hair.
Margot swallowed. “Made a statement to the matron about the opinion in which I held her judgments, I believe.” Riding that wave of whatever-it-had-been. The one that left her empty when it ebbed.
For the first time in their acquaintance, Dot looked baffled by her. “Why? Why would you . . . Everyone will say you’re...”
“The better question is,” Drake Elton put in from his place propped against pillows, “what did the matron say to instigate the reaction? We all know she’s a judgmental nag.”
Her insides went a bit softer. Margot offered him a smile for taking her side, despite the fact that he had no real reason to. Then she looked back to Dot. “I don’t care what anyone says.” She meant only to blink, but her eyes stayed shut for a long moment. Squeezed. “She just made me so...”
“Angry?” Now Dot’s voice was soft. The kind of soft that meant she was trying to be understanding, and perhaps probe a bit. Maman had always excelled at that particular tone.
Margot forced her eyes back open. “Of course not. That wouldn’t be logical.”
“No.” Dot drew the word into three syllables. “It would be emotional. You’ve had a trying week.”
Trying. The English word came from the French. To examine, to separate the good from the bad. Is that what losing her mother was supposed to do? Cull and test and examine her? Or bits of her? Or perhaps just tryher, as a whole, and sit in judgment?
No. There could be no purpose to it. None. Not from God.
But someone else could have had a purpose. A black one. Hitting directly at Room 40, perhaps. Or at Margot.
Margot sucked in a breath and angled away. “Do you mind if I leave? I don’t mean to abandon you, but I know well I didn’t cut it in a straight line, and—”
“Oh, it’s straight.” Dot’s lips twitched. “Just ... diagonal.”
Thatwas enough to make her twitchy, and she squirmed her shoulders in protest. “Short I don’t mind. Crooked won’t do.”
Her friend laughed. “No. It won’t do at all. Do you need my help?”
