Page 46 of Tinley's Daddy
Tinley giggled so hard she dropped the bag. She composed herself and studied the bottles again. “No detangler but leave-in conditioner. Perfect.” She held it up and stared. “Towels?” Tinley slid to the sink and filled the spray bottle with water.
“Oh, yeah, I’ll be right back.”
When I returned with the towels, I found Tinley in the living room. She placed what she needed on the coffee table and saton the floor on a pillow. She had turned on the television to a sitcom.
“Here are the towels.”
She grabbed them and shifted on her knees.
“You sit there.” She pointed to the spot behind where she had just been sitting. I flopped back on the couch. “Put this over your lap.”
I did as she told. She sat back down between my legs and draped the other towel over her shoulders.
She slid her fingers through the middle of the back of her head. A track of brownish blond hair appeared. She pulled the rest of her hair back into a bun.
“This is a bit of a process.” She handed me the glue remover. “Saturate the track where it’s glued to my hair. Then we let it sit for a minute and then pull off the extension.”
“What if I pull out your real hair?” I shook the bottle and worked the tip along the top of the track.
“It’s okay. I have thick hair.” She patted my leg.
She separated the hair at the next section, and I did the same thing. Once all the tracks were saturated with glue remover, we went back to the first section and peeled the track out. Thankfully, it came out easily.
“Now, use the water and comb to remove the rest of the glue.” She demonstrated with the comb.
I took the water bottle and continued what she had done on the other side of her head. I sprayed it with water and then took some of the conditioner and worked it into the hair and then combed it out to untangle.
“That feels good.” She groaned and yawned. I worked on her hair until all the tracks were out and her hair was detangled. I enjoyed massaging the conditioner into her hair and enjoyed the victory of running the wide-tooth comb through her dark strands. Each track removed released Tinley from the lastphysical connection she had to the past. All her physical wounds had healed, and all her bones had been mended. Even down to the implant they put in her skin, another violation she was able to release from her body.
I knew the mental toll would be a greater feat to overcome, but we had to start somewhere.
“All done.” I wiped my hands and gathered both towels. I set my hands on her shoulders and continued.
She sat up quickly and scanned the room. I removed my hands. She turned and stared up at me.
“I fell asleep.”
“Just for a few minutes.” She ran a hand through her hair. “My head feels lighter.” She shook it back and forth.
I chuckled. She grabbed a piece and stretched it out past her shoulders. “It got long.” It bounced back. She pushed it all back and gathered it in one hand and put it in a ponytail. Small pieces were too short to fit.
“I need to wash it.” She stood and started to clean up.
“Go ahead. I got this.”
She headed toward the bedrooms but stopped and ran back and threw herself in my lap. “Thank you.” She kissed my neck. “For today and for everything.”
She hugged me and pushed off before I could respond and ran back toward the bedrooms.
I sat for a moment, stunned into silence.
CHAPTER 15
TINLEY
Iwashed and conditioned my hair, then French braided it back on both sides of my head to let it dry.
I wrapped myself in a big, fluffy towel and opened the door.
