Monday.
Mum's birthday is close now. And her hair, I noticed on Saturday, had gone quietly flat. Last perm was April.
She is a woman who has always cared how she looks. Buying clothes is still her favourite reason to leave the house. Once upon a time she'd have had her hair done several times a year without anyone suggesting it.
Mai swapped shifts with me. Didn't even ask why.
At Mum and Dad's by nine. Dad stayed home with the radio and a pot already on the stove. Mum sat at the kitchen table in her good cardigan, handbag on her knees, as if I might change my mind.
First, the morning routine. The Optimum Omega fish oil, the Probio PCC probiotic, then the little white dish with the pills from the memory clinic. A glass of water. She took them one by one, set the glass down, and looked up at me.
Satisfied?
Very, I said. Let's go.
DNK is right on the main strip of the Korean street in Eastwood. Street level, glass front, no stairs. A mercy, with Mum's knees.
The same hairdresser as April was at the door. Neither of them speaks the other's language. They've never needed to. She took Mum's elbow, bowed her head a little, and Mum bowed hers back, the way she does to anyone who is kind to her.
Then three hours, more or less.
Cut first. Then colour, a soft dark brown. Then the perm, rod by rod, each curl wound with real patience. Not one question asked. She knew what to do. She'd known since the first visit — how much off the length, which brown, how tight the curl, how Mum likes the fringe to fall.
Somewhere in the middle, she brought coffee in a proper cup, on a saucer. Set it down by Mum's hand and smiled.
Mum held it with both hands. Looked at herself in the mirror. Sat up a little straighter.
I sat on the couch by the window with my phone and didn't look at it.
Funny what I noticed. For weeks I've been watching Mum in a different way. The pill count against the fridge calendar. The marker. The note on the rice cooker. Watching, always, for what might be slipping.
Here, nobody needed to be told anything.
Nobody asked her to explain what she wanted, or what she'd had last time. Somebody simply kept it for her — in the hands, in the habit of the thing — and gave it back, curl by curl.
She wasn't a patient in that chair. She was a regular.
I'd been so busy keeping watch. Hadn't thought that some of the remembering could be done for her by someone else, quietly, without anyone making a fuss.
When it was finished, the hairdresser spun the chair round. Soft curls, close to the head, the brown warm under the lights.
Mum put her hand up and touched the side. Then she smiled — all the way up to her eyes.
Lunch was Korean, of course. Soft tofu stew, still rolling in its stone pot, and a bowl of rice. Mum's teeth aren't what they were, so I kept it to things that give way easily. A few spoonfuls of stew. A little rice, pressed soft with the back of the spoon. A piece of steamed egg. She ate slowly and didn't finish, and I didn't push.
Then the shop next door for bingsu.
Mum has always loved shaved ice. Summer, winter, rain, anything. A mountain of fine snow with fresh mango, mango sauce, a scoop of ice cream on top. She sat in front of it with her spoon the way other people sit in front of a view.
And ate far more of that than she'd eaten of lunch. Spoon after spoon, mango first, her eyes half closed.
I got the last two spoonfuls. Quietly considered it a fair price.
In the car, I said, Mum, your birthday's coming up. Next week.
She turned from the window. Is it?
She hasn't kept track of her own birthday for a while now. It always arrives as news.
Then she thought about it, and her hand went up to her new curls.
Then what do I wear?
The pale green blouse, I said. Maybe. We'll see.
She nodded, satisfied, and turned back to the window.
Home to a quiet house, a lamp under my daughter's door, and a question still waiting from Saturday night.
Hadn't asked it yet.