She wasn’t sure why, but it caused a memory to bloom to life inside her head…
Momma sat at her vanity in a short, shiny robe that Mia desperately wanted to touch. But she didn’t dare. The last time she’d tried, her mother had slapped her hand away,hard, saying, “Keep your sticky fingers off me! You’ll ruin it!”
Instead, Mia moved out of reach of the robe’s temptation and crawled onto her parents’ big bed. Lying on her belly, she propped her chin in her hand and watched her mother use a fluffy-looking ball on her nose.
“What’s that, Momma?” She knew her mother liked to talk about the things she did while sitting at her special makeup desk.
“It’s powder,” her mother said. “It keeps my nose from being shiny.”
“Your nose isn’t shiny,” Mia offered obediently. “Your nose is beautiful.”
Momma smiled at her in the mirror and Mia felt a little flutter in her stomach. She’d done well. She’d said the right thing.
So often shedidn’tsay the right thing, and then Momma would yank her up by the wrist and throw her out of the room before slamming the door in her face.
Feeling a little more confident, she ventured, “Will you do lipstick next?”
“Mmm.” Her mother nodded. “Which color should I choose?”
“Pink!” Mia crowed immediately, knowing her mother’s favorite color was pink.
“Perfect choice.” Momma pulled a tube of lipstick from the row of lipsticks lined up atop the vanity.
When her mother swiped the color over her lips and then smacked them together, Mia knew just what to say. “Now your lips are beautiful too.”
Momma’s eyebrows pinched together, and Mia felt an answering pinch in her chest. “Nowthey’re beautiful? They weren’t beautiful before?” Her mother’s voice had taken on a tone that Mia knew all too well. The pinch in her chest became more of a twisting sensation. Like someone had grabbed her heart and was trying to wring it out like a wet washcloth.
She swallowed, not knowing what to say to make things right.
“You’re always beautiful, Momma,” she tried, and then felt like she could breathe again, like her heart could beat again, when her mother’s brow cleared.
She stayed quiet while Momma clipped on earrings and messed with one particular lock of shiny, auburn hair that didn’t seem to want to stay in place. When it finally did, and her mother dipped her chin in satisfaction, Mia asked her, “Where are you going tonight?”
“To a fundraiser with your father.” Momma leaned into the mirror and brushed a lip gloss wand over her lips until they were slick.
“A fun-raiser?” Mia perked up. She liked fun. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to raise it, but she’d sure like to try. “Can I come?”
“It’s not for children,” Momma said, and Mia’s bare feet, which had been kicking in the air behind her, fell onto the mattress in dejection. Her motherneverwent anyplace that was for children. “But your nanny is taking you and your brother to see a movie,” Momma added. “You’ll like that.”
Mia sighed. She liked her new nanny. The brown-haired woman was nice and she was teaching Mia some French words. But Mia had liked heroldnanny better. Heroldnanny had had silvery-blond hair like Rapunzel. Heroldnanny had baked cookies and sometimes she’d let Mia lick the batter bowl.
But Mia had learned not to become too attached to any of the people who worked in the Ennis household. The housekeepers and nannies never lasted long. Inevitably, Momma would get mad at them for something and, by the next morning, their bags would be packed and Mia would never see them again.
Mia’s eyes drifted over to the emerald-green dress hanging from a hanger over the top of her mother’s closet door. It had a filmy skirt that reminded Mia of fairy wings and a sequined bodice that looked like a mermaid tail.
She couldn’t wait until she was big enough to wear a dress like that.
Of course, she’d never be as beautiful as her mother. No one was ever as beautiful as her mother.
“What’s that, Momma?” she asked when her mother twisted off the white cap on an orange bottle, shook out something round, and placed it on her tongue.
Her mother’s gaze was sharp as she stared at Mia in the mirror. But then Momma smiled and said in a sugary sweet voice, “That’s Momma’s candy.”
“It’sherfault what happened to you and your little brother,” Romeo snarled as Mia finished with the reverie.
“No.” She shook her head. “Iknewthe pills weren’t candy. Not really.”
A line formed between Romeo’s eyebrows. “Why did you eat them then? Why did you give them to your brother?”
