‘I like being here.’
Etta picked up Immy’s make-up bag and unzipped it, peering inside.
‘Is this your make-up?’ Etta asked, reverentially as if it was the most exciting thing about her day.
‘Yes, it is.’
Immy wasn’t really a big make-up person, she loved her freckles splattered across her cheeks and nose and she had been blessed with a relatively clear complexion so she didn’t feel like she had anything to cover up. If she went out somewhere nice she might do her eyes but, apart from a bit of face cream, she didn’t really use make-up on a daily basis.
‘Can I put some on?’
‘Why don’t I put some on for you,’ Immy said.
Etta nodded eagerly.
Immy pulled out her tub of face cream and started rubbing it in gently on Etta’s face.
‘If you decide you love each other will you live here all the time?’ Etta asked.
‘Yes.’ Immy wondered where this was going.
‘Where will you sleep?’
‘In here with your daddy. What colour eyeshadow would you like?’ Immy tried to divert Etta’s attention by offering out a large colour palette. She tended to use browns or golds but she had bought a huge palette of multiple colours last year so she could use them for her Halloween make-up.
‘Blue,’ Etta said decisively. ‘And pink and purple and green.’
‘OK, we’ll do a little bit of everything. I normally just do my eyelid,’ Immy gestured to that part of her eye. ‘But if you want I can do all the way up to your eyebrow.’
‘Yes please.’
‘OK, close your eyes.’
Etta did as she was asked and Immy started off with a little bit of green.
‘Why?’ Etta asked.
‘Why do I want you to close your eyes? Because it’s easier to see the whole of the eyelid and cover it all if the eyes are closed. I have to close one eye but keep one eye open when I do mine.’
‘No. Why will you sleep with Daddy?’
‘Oh, because I like to cuddle with him,’ Immy said, wishing Xander was here to help with age-appropriate answers to questions like this.
‘I like to cuddle with him too but he says I’m a big girl now so I have to sleep in my own room. You’re a big girl too, so why would you sleep in Daddy’s room?’
‘Because that’s what you do when two people love each other. Or trying to find out if they love each other. We… cuddle a lot. Like your mummy and daddy used to do, they shared a room.’
Immy cringed because that was probably a bad example.
‘Mummy and Daddy used to sleep in different bedrooms,’ Etta said as Immy blended the green into the blue eyeshadow. ‘I don’t think they loved each other.’
Immy definitely didn’t want to comment on that. But it was clear Etta had no basis for comparison when it came to a normal loving relationship.
‘When two people love each other, they share a bed.’
‘Me and Daddy love each other, but we don’t share a bed.’
‘You’re right, but that’s a different kind of love, you love each other because you’re family. Me and your daddy love each other because we want to spend forever with each other.’
