When I awoke, light was streaming through my window. Abby was sitting at my side, tracing circles on the palm of my hand. She smiled when I looked at her. I admired how the sunlight sketched an outline around her.

“I brought us a little something to eat,” she said. “How did you sleep?”

“Fine, I guess. Sleep is the only thing I do well anymore,” I tried to joke.

She handed me a cup of juice and a cranberry scone. It was good to have something from the outside world. We started eating.

“Creighton, have you decided anything on the surgery?”

“I’m still thinking about it.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

I shook my head. “I wish there were.”

We finished our food. Abby put the plates and cups on the counter and turned to me. “Do you know if there’s a knife in here?”

“A knife? What for?”

“I want to cut something.”

“Cut something—like with scissors?”

“Yes, scissors would work fine.”

“They probably have some at the nurses’ station.”

She stepped out the door. A moment later she reappeared with scissors. Abby took the scissors in her hand, cocked her head, and with her other hand pulled her hair out to the side. A small bit of hair poked out from between two fingers. She placed the scissors around the hair.

“What are you doing?” I asked abruptly.

She closed the blades and snipped off some dark hair into the palm of her hand. She reached into her pants pocket and pulled out a small plastic bag and some string. She opened the bag, dropped the hair inside, and sealed it.

“What’s the string for?”

Abby made two small holes in the bag’s upper corners with the scissors. She ran the string through the holes, then tied the ends together. She rose from her chair and moved toward me. “Lean forward.”

I bowed my head toward her. Abby placed the string around my head, letting it fall on the back of my neck. The plastic bag dangled on my chest like a necklace. I looked up at her.

She smiled. “This is for you.”

I lifted the bag off my chest and peered at it. “Thank you. What does it mean?”

“The Inisi have five stages of friendship and a sign for each stage. In the final stage, the closest friendship, you take some of your hair, place it in a bamboo shoot, and give it to the friend. I looked around for a bamboo shoot, but no luck.”

“No, I suspect the hospital is all out.” I looked at the long strands again. “So…why hair?”

“The Inisi believe that to curse someone, you have to have a strand of their hair. So for their deepest friendships, they give each other their hair. It’s their way of saying, ‘I entrust my very life to you. I trust that you will never use this to hurt me…’”