The clippers vibrate in my mom’s hand as she turns them on, filling our dining room with buzzing. The house smells like pad thai and rice porridge my mom made for my uncle’s last day here. It’s the kind of smell that sticks to your clothes even after you leave. I had moved our dining table and chairs out of the way about ten minutes ago, all except for one chair, which my uncle is sitting in with my mom standing next to him. A towel is draped over his shoulders, and he has his feet planted on the floor as if he’s bracing himself.

 

The TV is faint in the background, a Thai soap opera that has way too many sound effects.

 

“Are you ready?” my mom asks.

 

There’s silence, then a nod. “Yeah,” my uncle says, his voice shaking a little.

 

They both speak to each other in Thai, but I know enough that I’m able to keep up with what they're saying.

 

The loud sound of clippers buzzing through hair fills the room, drowning out everything else going on. It echoes through the hallway door nearby to the stairs that lead to the basement where I’m sitting. I try to stay out of the way but remain close enough to see what’s going on. His hair falls in uneven clumps onto the towel, dark against the yellowish fabric. I never realized how dark his hair was until now, or how much is already gone.

 

My uncle stares at himself in the mirror I had propped up against the wall. He looks thinner than I remember him, cheekbones a little sharper, his eyes more sunken. He notices me watching him from the corner of the mirror and smiles sadly. I don’t know how to react, and I look down instead.

 

He looks back at my mom. “Not too short,” he says lightly.

 

She laughs a little. “You always say that.”

 

The clippers hum steadily as she moves them across his head. I’m used to the buzzing now; it’s constant, like I’m going to have my haircut next. It would almost be comforting if I didn’t know the gravity of the situation.

 

“I like this sound,” he remarks after a little while.

 

My mom looks at him in the mirror, checking her work before answering his question. “The clippers?”

 

“Yes,” he says. “It’s a clean sound, feels professional.”

 

She brushes some hair off the clippers before she continues cutting. “You notice strange things.”

 

He shrugs. “Maybe.”

 

Hair keeps falling. There aren’t as many clumps now. I watch it all slide off the towel and onto the floor, thinking to myself that this’ll be a pain to sweep up later.

 

“Do you remember, when I first came to America, what I wanted to do?” he asks casually, as if he’s making small talk.

 

She doesn’t answer.

 

“Barber school,” he says, a faint smile on his face.

 

She pauses for a while before saying, “You already had work. You were helping at the restaurant.”

 

“Yeah, that’s true,” he responds. “With my wife. Long hours. Always busy.”

 

“You know, there were a couple of days when my employees let me cut their hair,” he continued. “It was pretty fun, I thought. Talking like we are now, making people look better. I still wanted to learn.”

 

My mom turns the clippers off for a moment, brushes some hair off the towel, then hugs my uncle for a while before letting go. The silence is loud. I preferred the buzzing. “It was a good dream, but I thought it wasn’t realistic at the time,” she admits, looking down at the floor. “I didn’t want you to struggle. The restaurant was making good money, and I just wanted you to be okay.”

 

“I’m not trying to make you feel bad,” my uncle says, looking into the mirror with that same halfhearted smile. “I just wish I had gotten to it sooner.”

 

I stare down at the floor, at the pile of hair that’s collected around the chair.

 

“I always thought I had more time,” he adds.

 

My mom starts the clippers back up again. The buzzing returns, steady and constant, yet it doesn’t feel the same as it did before. The conversation gets more serious, and I get told to head to my room. But for better or worse, I still hear bits and pieces.

 

“I’m heading back to Thailand for more treatments. They are probably going to take my leg. The majority of the cancer is in there, and it might clear up if I get rid of it,” he chuckles. “Plus, it’s cheaper.”

 

My mom says nothing. All I hear is faint sniffling. The buzzing stops not long after, and I get called back down to help clean up. As I walk in, hair covers the floor, the room is quiet, my uncle is checking out his shaven head in the mirror, and my mom stands by the window, looking into our backyard as I sweep the hair away.

 

It’s a year and a half later, early morning. The house doesn’t smell like the pad thai it did before, and our Christmas tree lights up the dim house, even though Christmas has been over for a couple of days now. My mom is standing in the same spot with suitcases next to her, near the window that looks into the backyard. She has the clippers in her hand just like before, just looking at them. She looks to me, sitting on the stairs again, waiting to see what she called me down for. “I’ll only be gone for a month, so you make sure to help around the house, okay?”

 

I nod. My dad is waiting outside to bring her to the airport. She’s heading back to Thailand. My uncle is in hospice, and she wants to see him.

 

Her phone flashes from the table nearby. We both glance at it before she turns it off, then sits down. “Your uncle called me last week.”

 

I wait.

 

“He said he’s tired,” she continued. “Tired of the treatments. Tired of fighting.” Her voice doesn’t shake, but her hands do. “He said he just wants peace.”

 

From what I’ve heard, he lost over a hundred pounds last year, almost half of that coming from his leg being cut off. I look in the mirror again, where my uncle looked at me before, then I look down. The memory comes back to me, but I don’t think it ever left.

 

“Whenever I think about that day when we cut his hair,” she says, looking at me, “I think about the things he never got to do.”

 

I don’t know what to say. My mouth feels dry. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to talk about this, but I look up and nod.

 

“You don’t get that time back,” she adds. “I wish I had pushed him toward his dream. Don’t you remember what it was?”

 

“Cutting hair,” I say. “I remember.”

 

My mom puts the clippers in her suitcase before standing up and walking to me. “I don’t want you to have regrets like he did. I want you to be happy,” she tells me. “Do whatever makes you happy, while you can.”

 

I nod again, as her words settle into me. I sit on the stairs, watching her pack up her final things before heading out the door, suitcases dragging behind. 

 

Life kept moving forward: the rev of the car engine as my mom and dad pulled out of the driveway, the hum of the heater keeping our house warm. But time paused in that room just enough for that moment to say what it needed to say.