I knew Mark was a widower when I met him. And honestly, I was relieved. Of course I wasn’t happy that somebody died. But at my age (37), most of the men I met on Match.com were divorcees whose wives had left them for good reason. Affairs. Gambling. Really, really poor hygiene.
So Mark was a standout. Nothing had gone wrong in his marriage; his wife had just, sadly, gotten cancer and passed away. After a few dates, I knew he was “the one.” From his twinkling blue eyes to his infectious smile, from the way he asked about my day to the way he held me on cold nights, he was wonderful.
Of course nobody’s perfect though, and that’s where the wig comes in.
He brought it out three months after we’d gotten married. “Would you be open to wearing this sometimes?” he asked with a sheepish grin.
I couldn’t help but laugh. It was so stereotypical: bleach-blonde hair, coiffed in a blowout sort of hairstyle, with long curtain bangs that curled at the bottom. I began to giggle. “Um. I guess? You’re into that, huh?”
I wasn’t blonde. Far from it—my hair was nearly black, from my Hispanic ancestry on my dad’s side. But it didn’t bother me. If I were younger I’d be up all night, wondering if he secretly hated how I looked. But now I was old enough to know people have fantasies. Hell, maybe I’d ask him to apply a temporary tattoo to his bicep, next time.
“You want me to wear it tonight?” I asked in a sultry voice.
“Maybe.”
“Mm. Sounds fun.” I reached out to touch the wig—
He took a sudden step back. So that it was just out of my reach. “Sorry,” he said hastily. “This is just, a really expensive wig. The oil on your hands… over time, it’ll damage it.”
That annoyed me. Here I was, being super open to whatever fantasy he was going to throw at me, and he was mad that I’d damage it. But whatever. “Sorry. Won’t touch it.”
“So tonight then?” he asked, with a big stupid grin on his face.
“Tonight.”
***
He waited in the bedroom while I put the wig on.
I’d only worn a wig once before. When I was a teenager, dressing up as Morticia Addams. It was one of those cheap, plasticky ones from Party City.
But this one… Mark wasn’t kidding, it must’ve been expensive. The blonde hair, besides being perfectly coiffed, had a natural sheen that was neither too shiny nor too dull. Even though it was a cheap bleach-blonde color, there was beautiful variation in the strands. Bright flaxen highlights on top of gold and taupe.
The only part that seemed “cheap” was the cap, or scalp, or whatever you call the thing that the hair attaches to. It was stiff and rough under my fingers, and an ugly mottled tan color. I wasn’t sure how exactly I was supposed to get it attached to my head. Maybe bobby pins?
“You almost ready?” Mark called from the bedroom.
“Yeah! Just a minute.”
I brought the wig up to my face, careful to touch the hair as little as possible. As soon as I did, I wrinkled my nose. It smelled overly flowery. Like someone had doused it in perfume. Where had Mark been storing this thing?
After several minutes and twenty bobby pins, I got it on.
I hope this doesn’t take long.
Damn, I know that’s a horrible thing to think before having sex. But I didn’t like the way it felt on my head. It felt oddly heavy, pulling at my scalp every time I moved. And it was weird having hair brushing my shoulders that wasn’t mine.
“Okay,” I called out. “I’m ready.”
***
We made love, and it was incredible. The kind of earth-shattering experience that makes you feel like you left your body, maybe this entire world, for a moment.
It bothered me a little, actually. Why wasn’t our sex this good when I wasn’t wearing the wig? Maybe he really was into blondes? I found myself researching Schwarzenkopf bleach on my coffee break. Even though I wasn’t the type to change myself for a guy.
On Saturday afternoon he asked me to wear it again. I obliged, less enthusiastically this time.
And then he asked me something else.
I’d just finished dressing, reaching up to take the wig off. And he said behind me:
“Don’t take it off.”
I whipped around, my eyes narrowed. “What?”
“Sorry, I meant…” He paused, as if carefully wording what he was going to say next. “What if you didn’t take the wig off right away? What if you wore it for a little longer? You know, cooking dinner, hanging out…”
Okay. This was too far.
“I’m not going to keep it on.”
“Why not?”
I scowled at him. “For one, it smells. And it’s uncomfortable. I don’t like it.”
I could see the look of disappointment on his face. I’ll be honest, it hurt. What was wrong with my own hair? If he was so obsessed with blondes, why did he marry me? There were thousands of blonde women out there. Why not marry one of them, and forget the wig altogether?
“Can you just keep it on a little longer? You look so beautiful.” He smiled at me. “It really just… becomes you.”
I was really annoyed at this point. Like, seriously annoyed. But I was old enough to know that bargaining was a much more effective way to make both of us happy.
“I’ll wear it if you make dinner. But as soon as we’re done eating, I’m taking it off.”
“Sure!” He grinned at me.
That stupid, big grin that I was really starting to hate.
***
Over the coming weeks, the “wig situation” escalated.
Almost every weekend Mark brought it out of the closet. Holding it in his hands tenderly, carefully, as if it were a delicate little kitten. “Want to wear the wig?” he’d always ask.
As if it were my idea.
I didn’t want to wear it. But when I did, I noticed Mark did extra things for me. Cooking dinner. Doing the dishes. Buying me gifts. Slowly I began to just accept it. If wearing the thing got me out of chores, what did I have to lose? And besides, it wasn’t such a big deal. I didn’t wear spanx, or push-up bras, or lots of makeup.
Was a wig really worse than those?
I will say, though… it was weird how Mark seemed against the idea of me bleaching my hair. I figured that would be a better, more permanent solution, but he was 100% against it. He threw out every reason in the book: It’s so expensive. And it takes so much upkeep. You’d have to do the roots every few weeks.
And besides—the wig just becomes you.
I hated how he said that. The wig becomes you. Like the wig was becoming an appendage, a part of myself.
In the end, I don’t know how I let it go on for as long as it did. I guess I just told myself it was a stupid fantasy that he’d get over sooner or later.
Boy, was I wrong.
***
I’d never seen a photo of Mark’s first wife with hair.
The few photos on her memorialized Facebook page were after she’d started chemotherapy. She was either wearing a hat or a bandanna—never a wig, despite Mark’s apparent obsession with them.
But one night I got curious about her. Curious if he pushed this weird stuff on her before the cancer. Did he make her dye her hair? Wear a wig? Or was she naturally blonde?
After an hour of poking around, I got my answer.
There was a wedding album in the attic, tucked away with some of Miranda’s belongings and stuff from their life together.
Mark was out with some friends—he wouldn’t be home for a few hours—but I still got a swoop of nervousness in my stomach as I pulled it onto my lap. Our Wedding Album, it read in gold scrolling letters across the faux white leather cover.
And there—on the very first page—was my answer.
Miranda had the same hair as the wig.
I mean exactly the same. The same color—varied shades of gold. The same hairstyle—blown out with curtain bangs. It was identical.
Is she wearing the wig?
Or…
I didn’t want to consider the second possibility.
Maybe, that was her natural hair. And he’d gotten an expensive, custom-made wig to look exactly like it. And he was making me wear it, so I’d look like her.
So he could pretend I am her.
The album fell out of my lap.
This can’t be happening. He’d seemed so normal. Especially about his wife. Grieving but past it, the wound an old scar that had healed over. It’d been seven years since she died.
Apparently, I’d been dead wrong.
I picked the album back up and flipped through it for a little while. I studied her face, her scalp, looking for a seam. But the photos had that professional, airbrushed quality to them. If there had been any evidence it was a wig, the photographer cleaned it up in Photoshop.
I finally closed the album, went downstairs, and waited for Mark to get home.
***
I’ve never been one for subtlety.
By the time he got home I’d been stewing in my own thoughts for three hours. I’d brought the wig down and put it in the middle of the kitchen table. The blonde hair shone in the dim light, hanging limply of the faceless plastic stand.
Then I heard the jingle of keys—the click of a lock. His footsteps as he came towards the kitchen…
“You made me wear that wig so you can pretend I’m Miranda. Right?”
He froze in the doorway.
Yeah, that’s right. I got you, you son-of-a-bitch. I slammed the album onto the kitchen table and pointed at the first picture. “Miranda’s hair looks exactly like that wig.”
His face went white. He opened his mouth and closed it a few times, as if trying to find the words. “You don’t understand,” he finally choked.
“Oh, I think I understand perfectly well. You’re playing some sort of sick game, where you’re trying to turn me into your dead wife.”
He swallowed. Glanced behind him, as if afraid someone was crouching there, listening to us. Then he turned back to me, his voice lowered. “I only made a wig out of her hair because—”
“Wait.” My stomach dropped as I parsed what he was saying. “Did you just say, a wig out of her hair?”
“I—”
“It’s her fucking hair?!”
He sheepishly nodded.
I stared at the thing, my stomach roiling. Golden strands hung limply off the wig holder, draping onto the table. A dead woman’s hair. Of course. I should’ve known. It looked so beautiful, so real.
And that hair… had been on me.
Bobby pinned to my head. Brushing against my shoulders. My bare shoulders. Fuck, I even pulled one from my nether regions the last time we had sex.
I felt sick.
“I’m leaving,” I said quietly, shooting up from the table. I ran up the stairs and grabbed my overnight bag. Wildly grabbed clothes off the hanger, stuffed them inside. Grabbed my laptop, chargers—
His heavy footsteps thumped up the stairs.
And then he appeared in the doorway. A hulking shape dimly outlined by the kitchen light spilling upstairs.
“Leave me alone,” I snapped, shoving my clothes in as fast as I could go.
Surprisingly, he didn’t reply. No apologies, no pleading with me to stay. I ignored him and continued packing. Reached over and grabbed my Airpods from the bedside table, throwing them in. Then my phone—
Strong arms grabbed me from behind.
I screamed.
But it was no use. He was so strong. And then I felt it—something touching my head.
He was pressing the thick, stiff cap of the wig onto my head as he held me still. I heard his voice whispering something in a strange rhythm in my ear.
Then everything went black.
***
My hair is blonde.
I’m standing in the bathroom, admiring myself. There is a bloody seam at my scalp, but other than that, I look okay.
Mark comes up behind me and wraps his arms around my waist. “I love you so much,” he says, kissing me tenderly on the cheek.
I forgive him for what he did. I understand everything now. Last night, I got up in the middle of the night and wrote it all out. Everything that happened before today. I had to get it out of my system. It was like a nightmare that kept replaying in my head, even though the bloody seam is evidence that it really did happen.
But now it’s over.
Now, I’m who I was truly meant to become.
I comb a hand through my blonde hair. Then I turn to him and smile. “I love you, Mark,” I say.
“I love you too, Miranda.”
A little jab of something in my heart. Sadness? Should I feel sad that he’s calling me her name? But I don’t feel sad. Not really. I’m happy now.
I wrap my arms around him tighter—then pull him into a kiss.