It was supposed to be our secret. My hairdresser claimed to possess a special elixir that could subtly, naturally, almost undetectably “blend away” gray hair, which, at 45, I had a touch of.

Sitting before a mirror in her chair, uncertain whether to start the masquerade, I examined my head in a way I shied away from when I was alone at home, without support. I looked at myself from angles I wasn’t used to, discovering that the gray was more extensive than I’d been willing to admit.

Instead of threading its way between the darker hairs, it had consumed whole sectors of my head, especially on the sides and in the back. It was advancing the way frost does, or like mold.

“I suggest we leave some in,” my hairdresser said. “Just enough to make you look distinguished.” I nodded, but the word did not sit well with me. It sounded exactly like what it was: another way of saying “old.”