10 November 2018

Mum keeps asking when I’m going to start writing in this diary. She says Lola—one of her favorite nurses—asks her about it every time they speak. That’s because Lola gave me the diary. She gave it to me when we were in the hospital two weeks ago to see another consultant about my heart. Lola has this theory that it’ll be good for me to write about how I’m feeling “physically and emotionally.” She’s a counselor as well as a nurse and is always talking about something she calls “mind-body connection.” She knows other sick kids who kept a diary and said it really helped them. I asked her who they were, but she just smiled and touched my cheek and said she couldn’t tell me. I was only asking because there was this boy who was on the ward with me a few months ago, he had cerebral palsy and he was always writing stuff down with his one good hand. Mum doesn’t seem convinced that it will work for me either, but anything Lola recommends Mum reckons is worth a shot, so I’ll do it for her.

I asked Zara about diaries yesterday when we were in the salon. Susie was painting Mum’s nails a bright purple color I picked out, the two of them chatting as usual. I was in the hairdressing part of the salon, watching Zara sweep the hair off the floor. Some of it was brown, some gray, and some blond. It was all swirled together like melting ice-cream flavors mixing in a bowl. It doesn’t seem right that some people have so much hair they leave great big clumps of it cut and abandoned on the floor like that. Looking at it made me touch my bald head through my beanie and try to remember what it was like to have hair, proper hair, not just fuzz.

It’s just hair, Grace. You’re just as beautiful without it.

That’s what Mum says. Sometimes Mum takes me to try on wigs and we make faces and take selfies with bright pink hair. We put the photos on Facebook and get hundreds of likes. She always knows how to cheer me up.

“What do you think people write in diaries, Zara?” I asked in the salon.

Zara stopped brushing for a moment and smiled at me like I’d just said the most adorable thing ever and said, “I don’t know, Gracey, what do you think people write in their diaries?”

I knew I should have asked Sylvia instead. Sylvia volunteers at the library and she’s like a book herself, full of useful words and experiences.

“Don’t know,” I said. “Secrets, I suppose?”

“Well, there you go.”

“But what if someone doesn’t have secrets?” I asked.

“Oh, everyone has secrets,” Zara said with a wink. She always winks at me. I don’t know why. It’s not like we share any secrets and I’ve never seen her wink at anyone else.

And then Zara had to go and answer the salon phone and I was left sitting there, surrounded by dead hair, wondering if she’s right, does everyone have secrets? I looked at Mum and Susie, who were still talking about Cara breaking up with that boy Chris, even though she dumped him months ago. The two of them are like radio presenters when they’re together, always, always talking even if no one is listening. It must be hard having secrets and talking so much, one of them could pop out so easily.