This was how Betsy managed their lives. At work, her hyper-vigilance made her credible, if a bit feared. She was known for her exceedingly thorough research and attention to detail. At home, it wound everything around her as tight as a tourniquet. Betsy’s determination not to fuck up her daughter went beyond the typical limits on TV and sugar and battery-operated toys. Betsy was happiest when Remi was inside the house, under the watchful eye of Flavia, their mildly paranoid nanny. Betsy had instantly recognized Flavia’s tendencies to anticipate the worst during her first interview, before the police background check, and listed this quality in the “pro” column in the thorough notes she took on everyone who applied for the job.
All this streamed through Betsy’s head during her first cup of coffee at home, and again in the shower, as she scrubbed at her aging elbows, and later examined the soft pouches of flesh that were forming below the corners of her mouth in the foggy bathroom mirror. She wondered if her high cheekbones would save her aging face in the end.
Still in her robe, she wandered into her daughter’s room, which was pale, sunny, and spare, save for a few pops of muted color and handmade toys, in a studied imitation of the chic Scandinavian nurseries Betsy would ogle online. She shored herself up against the struggles that would play out in front of Remi’s closet, as they did most mornings. Would she want to wear a costume again, so their walk to school would be punctuated with glances that implied she was one of those kinds of parents? Was she one of the mothers who never brushed her daughter’s hair for fear of tears and let her exercise control over her own destiny by wearing a bedazzled Ramones T-shirt over a tattered yellow Snow White dress? Or would she reach for the tidy, tasteful French cotton top with the smocking detail and the Aster Mary Janes, inspiring equally loathsome judgments from passersby convinced of Betsy’s need to project good taste and order into the world through her hyper-managed child? She remembered her own delight over clothes as a child, the tidy brown paper packages, shakily addressed to Miss Elizabeth Young that would arrive from her paternal grandmother. She’d met her a handful of times before her father left, before her mother cut off all contact beyond a holiday card. Every year on her birthday, when she was very young, a package arrived that contained a perfectly pressed cotton dress. Betsy remembered being about Remi’s age when she opened the box to find a dress adorned with fabric cherries so round and red that her hands shook with excitement as she reached out to touch them. Betsy would sit quietly by while Remi chose her outfit, swallowing all of her memories and opinions and worry, trying to let go.
Remi wasn’t as forgiving in front of her mother’s closet. Betsy and Gavin were the proud parents of a kale-eating preschooler who chided her mother mercilessly about her chronic under-accessorizing.
“That’s red,” said Remi, fed and dressed in a Breton striped T-shirt and yellow leggings, topped with a shredded tulle tutu that was snug around her middle. She sat on the bathroom counter watching Betsy get ready for work as she stuffed her index finger into a lipstick cap. “Red red. What makes it red?”
Betsy knew there’d come a time when her daughter would start asking questions she’d struggle to answer. Betsy kept a picture of her and Ginny, laughing, jaws agape, dangling from a branch of the kumquat tree in Key West that was close to snapping under the stress of their weight, in a frame on her dresser. When Remi asked about the person who was in the picture, Betsy said, “An old friend,” and then changed the subject. She didn’t know what to say. She thought she’d have more time to figure it out.
“It’s called pigment. It comes from minerals, like rocks, or sometimes plants and flowers,” said Betsy, carefully curling her eyelashes, avoiding her daughter’s pale blonde head bobbing beneath her elbow. “It’s how they make paint, too.”
“But, Mommy, rocks are dirty,” Remi said, pausing a minute to scowl and imagine the process of turning rocks into makeup.
“They clean them, I think. Then they smash them to bits,” she explained, twisting her face into a grimace with hopes to raise an eyebrow or induce a giggle. Instead, she was on the other end of that long, steady stare.
“Mommy, why do you wear makeup?”
Betsy wanted to say Because I feel like death without it. Because worry has carved deep lines all over my face. Because I am the oldest forty-year-old in the world.
But instead she smiled at her daughter and said, in the studied tone of nonchalance she was trying to perfect, “Sometimes it just makes me feel pretty.” She paused. Was it working? “It’s one of the things grown-up women do to make themselves feel good.”
“Are you wearing that shirt because it makes you look pretty?” asked Remi, studying the shimmering bronzer she’d smeared on the back of her hand and the vaguely boxy, abstract floral Marni top that her mother slid over her head. Remi looked up at Betsy, looking her straight in the eyes.
“I guess so. Do you like it?” Betsy asked.