As the final prayers were intoned at Amanda’s grave site in the dry grassland cemetery, Paul gazed at his fellow mourners: their son Noah, a college student; Amanda’s two sisters, who co-owned the local gas station; and the six pallbearers, who were fiftyish farmers like himself, except they were all divorced or bachelors, because the farming life was tough on modern marriages. He stared at the pile of freshly turned soil: thick, damp, brown-black loam, a richness that could grow anything, given proper rain and sun. How promising that mound looked. Not a blade of grass lay on it. He was seized by the sudden urge to shave his head until not a strand of hair lay on it.

Narrowing his eyes against the midday sun, he watched as Noah and Amanda’s sisters threw handfuls of dirt on the casket. When it was Paul’s turn, he shook his head no.

After the reception, the pallbearers dragged him off to the local tavern, but Paul’s heart was not in drinking, and he left early. That night, he slept more soundly than he had in weeks and awoke with a hazy recollection of the funeral but an even stronger urge to divest himself of his hair. So he went online to order the deluxe barber set for express delivery, noting the autofill on Amanda’s computer as it flashed: Barbados, Barber, Barbie. The woman was scarcely dead, yet she mystified him still.

Perhaps he ought to have consulted a professional, a barber who shaved heads every day. But Paul was a hands-on kind of guy. He dreaded the closeness of the hands of a stranger. He dreaded the sight of tresses of hair falling limply away, like Amanda’s final haircut. So he searched, “How to shave my head?” and saw it was a three-stage process: short clipping, buzz-cut, then close shave. And he would need several mirrors.

Ever since high school, he’d worn his hair long. Long enough that he needed a baseball cap to hold it down on windy days. For formal occasions, he borrowed a basic hair tie, like he’d done for the funeral. He hadn’t intended long hair as a political statement; Amanda had apparently liked that length and trimmed it to her satisfaction.

While testing the mirrors, he half-listened to Amanda’s autoplay YouTube, a Polish cooking channel, appreciating the woman’s encouraging voice. She was making perogies. Paul identified with someone who was seriously misunderstood, her words landing on deaf ears and only her actions being understandable.

By feel Paul could snip off eighty percent of his hair to a one-inch length. But it was fiendishly difficult to work with mirrors. There was some lesson on self-reflection, he supposed, but he didn’t want to think about it too deeply.

When he got to the second part of the head shaving, he wondered if he shouldn’t abandon this barbaric act. Especially when he plugged in the electric trimmer and it made a sharp whining noise. But the encouraging voice in the background, talking about how to cut out thin circles of dough, pushed him onward.

Paul had escaped buzz cuts as a kid, although Noah had not been so lucky, when there was a headlice outbreak at elementary school. Paul frowned, dredging up the memory; it must have been Amanda who’d done the buzz-cut.

The only time his head was shaved was at a friend’s stag party. But he had company: the best man and the groom. The three of them received drunken partial shaves and the head table at the wedding reception looked like the losers in a sheep-shearing contest. The bride had cried over the wedding party photos, not in a good way. It was the first time he’d made a woman cry who was not his mother. His hair had grown back unevenly, but a comfortable ball-cap covers a multitude of sins.

His scalp itched a lot as it grew back, but people assumed he had turned philosophical and that his head-scratching was due to deep cogitation.

This time around, with maturity and no alcohol, Paul used the free-standing mirrors, good lighting, deluxe Wahl trimmer, triple-blade razor and watched several videos in advance. The guys at the stag party had none of those things so he was miles ahead.

As the pile of clippings grew, Paul thought about Amanda, whose oldest sister had shaved her head two weeks into chemo. They’d gone to the hay meadow in the back forty with a chair and a cordless trimmer so no sweeping was needed.

“Just think of all the critters that’ll line their nests with your hair,” Amanda’s sister had said in the same kind of pleasant voice the Polish lady was using as she stuffed her perogies on YouTube.

Paul considered Sampson, whose locks had been shorn by Delilah, and thus had lost his strength. An object lesson to young Jewish bodybuilders. Paul considered Absalom, too, who had not shorn his locks and whose hair became entangled in a tree, leading to his death during battle. The Bible sent mixed messages about men’s long hair.

Paul readied the triple-blade razor to take the buzz cut to the very closest shave. And he accidentally sliced the sensitive skin around his ear. He yelped, tears springing to his eyes, while saying Biblical words but not in a reverential way.

Jamming a pack of frozen peas to his ear, Paul stomped angrily about. Why had he done this crazy head-shave, anyway? Maybe he should have called on Noah for help. His kid had gone through a tough-guy phase. So he likely knew all about head-shaving. They had barely spoken at the funeral and Noah was staying at his aunts’ place, working as a pump jockey over the summer instead of giving his old man a hand on the farm, like true farmers’ sons were supposed to do.

Paul always knew Noah preferred Amanda over him. When Noah was a little gaffer, he liked to climb on Mummy’s lap and play with Mummy’s beads. And Mummy’s scarves and Mummy’s hair. Her pockets were full of fun crafty things for his little hands to poke or paint or puddle with. Noah always took Amanda’s side in any family argument. In Amanda’s final years, Noah accused his father of not doing enough to prevent Amanda from developing cancer. Things like improper storage of pesticides and herbicides.

But if he were to call up Noah now and ask him to properly bandage an ear wound? Noah might think his dad was one card short of a full deck.

With Amanda gone, Paul can live as he likes. He swaps the locations of the sofa and the chair. He moves the clock.

Heck, might as well go whole hog. Paul decides to go skydiving. The autofill shows: Skydeck. Sky Dome. Sky Dance. Ghosts of Amanda’s longings.

He tries to book a trip on a company called Your Next Big Adventure. First, however, he must get a doctor’s certificate to prove he is skydive-worthy. The family doctor who referred Amanda to an oncologist, and who keeps an eye on him for everything from cholesterol to colonoscopies, does not blink an eye. He orders a cardio stress test for Paul, who passes with flying colors, so to speak.

Bald as an (injured) egg now, Paul goes through with the skydive, along with a hardy band of five other intrepid souls. During training, they tell him to watch out for ear popping, and possible nausea during spinning. They forget to remind him the doorway is small, and he bumps his head. At last minute, he decides to wear a diaper just in case and hopes his pants don’t look odd. No one told him how silent the descent would be. He thinks of the Polish cook and wonders if she has ever thought about skydiving. He thinks of her next special and wonders what she will be cooking. He passes lots of perogy-shaped clouds as he hurtles through the blue blue sky.

Everything goes well, and he will always cherish that moment of sheer, unadulterated terror, if only because it gives him a free pass to turn down every other item on the Masochist’s Bucket List.

Paul downsizes from the bungalow in town to a bunkhouse on the farm. On a virtual bulletin board, he advertises with the slogan, “Moving abroad—must sell everything!” and finds this is a mistake because the things he needs most—bed, eating utensils, Panini maker—sell immediately, but his vinyl collection and Amanda’s beautician supplies, and her standing hair dryer do not sell at all. He realizes he has completely mispriced everything he owns. Somewhere there is a lesson in that.

His scalp itches as the hair starts to grow back, just like old times after the infamous stag party. He decides to call up the friend whose wedding photos he ruined, planning to apologize to the bride. They had moved to the west coast and were tough to track down. And when he does get through, they mistake him for an insurance salesman and block his number. Somewhere there is another lesson in that.

Paul’s friends wonder if Amanda’s death hasn’t pushed him over the edge. First the hair, then selling his house. One of them is deputized to call and talk sense into Paul, maybe suggest a duck-hunting party when the season opens. Paul jokes his way through the call and says, “Yeah, I might be up for duck hunting, once the crop is off. Assuming there is a crop.”

His friend concludes, “Well, at least you have Noah. I sure wish I could pass along my family name.” Paul thinks, all that struggle and there’s only one heir to show for it? No wonder the monarchy is full of insanity.

“Thanks for calling,” Paul says just before the end of the call. “Everything’s A-okay.” But everything is not A-okay. It is not even B- or C-okay. Afterwards he is glad he didn’t tell anyone except his doctor about the skydiving.

Paul feels like he has become unmoored. He’s been a prairie boy all his life, yet now his state of mind is more of a seaside thing. A boat floating without being tethered. What does he know about boats, for heaven’s sake? Noah keeps leaving messages to call him back. It strikes Paul that Noah may have become unmoored. He thinks about calling Noah, but what would they say? What would they do? Two boats unmoored, together like two bumper boats at the fair.

Paul goes for a drive to the cemetery. It is August and the place is bone dry, all yellow and brown. He checks the mound of soil. It has settled and weeds are sprouting all over it. He kneels beside the mound and starts pulling out weeds but then stops. It’s better to keep the soil in place with any kind of ground cover these days as it moves into a parched, windy fall.

Noah’s second-hand Kia pulls up. And Paul, blinking, stumbles to his feet, embarrassed to be showing his sentimental side.

“Hey, Dad,” Noah says, perplexity writ large on his face.

“Hey,” Paul says. He tries to think of a pragmatic reason to be there. “Wonder if I should run a tank of water over here.”

“It would spruce up this old boneyard,” Noah says.

Paul feels the tickle of sweat on his hat band. He absentmindedly lifts his hat to wipe his head. And remembers too late what it’s covering up.

“Damn,” Noah says. “The rumor’s true.” He walks slowly in a circle around his dad. His gaze is one of dawning admiration.

“I did the best I could," Paul grumbles. "Damn innernet makes everything seem like a piece of cake.”

Noah says, “She would be touched.” His voice drops to a whisper. “Very touched.”

Paul shrugs.

A sharp intake of breath signals that Noah has seen Paul’s ear wound. Its healing was interrupted by a close encounter with the truck's sun flap that tore open the wound again. “Come on, Dad, we’re going to the station.”

They drive back to the Conoco station, where the aunties have a well-stocked first-aid kit.

Paul closes his eyes as Noah ministers to him. He smells the rubbing alcohol and feels its double coolness as it evaporates from his skin, then the burn as it touches the edge of his ear wound.

Noah’s hands feel firm, capable, and relaxing as he dresses Paul’s wound. “I’m taping a dome over this, Dad, so it won’t catch on things while it’s trying to heal.” While he works, they chat about how to winterize the bunkhouse.

Okay, he goofed up on the hair, the house, the sky diving. But the kid is setting things right. Somewhere, Paul decided, there was a lesson in that.

The End