Willa smiled as she worked. “He doesn’t mean that, because he knows well that I cut mine the year before he met me, and he would never ever imply that I committed some grave social error in doing so.”

Lukas’s reflection frowned. “That was different. You cut yours so you could sell it and buy material to make your brother a coat. That was a selfless reason, not one made from frustration. Or fashion—not that Margot ever thinks of something as trivial as fashion.”

Snip. Snip. Willa cut hair in the same way she played the violin—with precise, well-planned movements. The tension in Margot’s shoulders eased. She would be even and symmetrical again in no time.

“You know how rebellious I am, luv. Keep saying how unbecoming it is, and I’m going to cut my own.”

Lukas’s reflection intercepted little Zurie’s hand, which made the baby giggle. His scowl only darkened. “Absolutely not. I forbid it.”

Margot’s gaze went to Willa in the mirror. Her sister-in-law only grinned at the command. “And why not? Will you not love me anymore if I have short hair?”

“That is not it, as well you know. But if you cut yours, then it would not be but a day before suddenly I was thinking that short hair was the loveliest style ever to come into fashion, and it is embarrassing to constantly be changing my opinions based on whatever you do. Spare a man his pride, mon amour. Take pity.”

Willa laughed. Lukas kissed the baby fist he held captive. Zurie squealed in delight.

Margot rolled her eyes. But with amusement. “It is only hair.” How many times would she have to say that? It was part of the reason why she’d not resorted to scissors since she was ten. “It will grow back, if I decide I want it to.”

“And in the meantime, you’ll look chic and on the cutting edge of fashion.” Willa laughed even as she said it, obviously anticipating the scowl Margot now directed at her reflection. “There, Lukas, I gave her a reason to grow it back out. See what a good wife I am?”

A buzz sounded from the hallway, and Lukas spun out of the door. “That will be your sisters, I imagine. I will let them in.”

“I don’t know why I did it.” Margot said the words quietly, almost changing her mind about saying them at all. But that was the truth that had settled as she walked here. She wasn’t usually so impulsive, especially not about something a stranger said. It didn’t matter. It could have no effect on her life what some random woman in a hospital thought of her. But she had let it—she had made it affect her by reacting as she had done.