A Beautiful Home

            It was a ritual. Every night she sat down in front of her mirror and carefully ran the brush through her hair. She used to love the way the bristles would gently snag in the silky blonde strands, and she loved the sharp pain in her scalp that occurred whenever she tugged at a particularly unruly knot. Lucy loved it less now. She slowly wound a clump of hair around her finger as her reflection watched her suspiciously. Those blonde strands had become brittle and lifeless, whole portions having suddenly fallen into gray. This ritual that had once been so comforting now only served as a reminder of the inevitable.

            She watched as her daughter passed by her door. Marie walked quickly, then passed again a little more slowly. She was nervous. Lucy watched, but wasn’t about to stop her. She began to rap her fingers impatiently on her dresser. Her daughter heard this noise and looked over. Her gaze met her mother’s and she stopped pacing.

            “Hey,” she said, and when her mother didn’t respond she continued, “can we talk for a minute?”
            “Sure sweetie,” Lucy said, and turned around in her seat. She saw Marie wince at the endearing word and felt an odd mix of satisfaction and despair. “What do you need?”

            “It’s nothing,” her daughter replied, but tucked a lock of her dark brown hair behind her right ear and looked away, “I was just wondering if I could have the car tonight.”

            Lucy gazed at Marie and didn’t saying anything.

            Her daughter looked too much like her father. She had his straight nose, his big, green eyes, his silky brown hair. She had so much. In a few years, she could have everything she wanted. Lucy could feel her irritation at this thought begin to build and twist in the back of her mind.

            Despite the fact that she seemed to be growing more uncomfortable with every second, Marie seemed determined to get what she wanted. This, at least, was somewhat to her credit. Lucy could respect a woman who was persistent, even if it was her daughter.

            “What do you need the car for?” Lucy finally asked.

            “Everyone’s meeting at Mark’s house, but I haven’t been able to get a ride. I thought it might be nice if I was able to drive myself, for once.” Marie added these last two words onto the end of her sentence with some degree of hesitation.

            Lucy stared at her daughter and blinked. She slowly turned back to face the mirror and rested her elbow on the dresser. Leaning against her hand, she stared at her reflection once again.

~

            It hadn’t always been this way. Lucy often acted as though she hadn’t willingly offered herself into motherhood. The truth was, she was the one who suggested she and George start a family. She had looked into his eyes, smiled slowly and asked if he was ready. Lucy had gotten the big white dress and the dauntingly beautiful house, and she figured this was the next step.

            She knew something was wrong the day her daughter was born.

            Everything else was as it had been described to her. Her water broke at the most unexpected, anticipated moment, when she and her husband were out at her cousin’s twenty-eighth birthday party. She looked down and was about to say, “I think my water just broke,” like she knew all pregnant women were supposed to. Then Lucy looked up and saw her husband was already in the process of gathering their things to leave. Her moment had passed.

            The contractions and the pushing were almost unbearably painful, but she got through them. There was the strained bickering between her mother and her mother-in-law that they pretended didn’t bother her. She was supposed to ask for ice chips, right? It was the longest day of her life, and yet it passed in such a strange blur.

            And then suddenly everything was over. Her daughter was born. She fell back onto the hospital bed and gasped for breath. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and she found herself briefly wondering how her hair looked. No, that wasn’t right. That wasn’t what she was supposed to be thinking about. What was everyone expecting her to do now? She glanced up. The nurses were bent over her baby, probably cleaning her up. What was taking so long?

            Finally, the tallest nurse picked Marie up and turned toward Lucy. Everyone in the room immediately looked at the new mother in sweet anticipation. Lucy watched as the nurse moved toward her.

            As Marie was settled in Lucy’s arms, Lucy studied her tiny face. Her eyes and nose were scrunched up in what must have been a reaction to the shock of being born. Her lips were a small round reproduction of George’s. Her breathing was quick, but even. Lucy observed these features and waited. She knew something was supposed to happen. She knew there was supposed to be this great wash of feelings that came over her and wrapped her up in love. Lucy waited, but nothing happened. She felt her heart start beating faster in panic. What was wrong? She knew everyone was still watching her. Her silence had gone on too long.

            Lucy swallowed and forced her most perfect anchorwoman smile. She looked up into her husband’s eyes and tried her best to convincingly say the words she knew were required at this moment, “Oh my God, I can’t believe how much I love her.” Her stomach twisted.

            At first, Lucy tried her best to find that missing connection. She figured that it would only take time for that sweeping love to set in. As the months passed, however, she found herself caring for her daughter in the most robotic way. Every time she fed her, every time she changed her, Lucy did it out of her duty as a fellow human being, not because she was feeling particularly maternal. These months stretched into years.

            Then something else started to happen. Marie was eight years old. She had asked Lucy for a snack and Lucy was returning from the kitchen with a bowl of chopped fruit in her hand, the picture of the dutiful mother. She found herself stopped in the doorway.

            Marie was sitting on the floor of her room, her back leaned against the side of her bed. She had her own desk, but for some reason Lucy could never get her daughter off the ground. Marie was working on her homework, her papers resting against her legs, her face the picture of concentration. The beautiful window that Lucy so admired let the light stream in and cover Marie. Her daughter’s long, wavy brown hair fell artfully across her shoulders. The rays of sun glanced off her smooth, clear skin, and her arm moved gracefully as she went to grab something out of her backpack. Those scrunched up features had evolved into something only depicted in a Renaissance painting. Marie glanced up and saw her mother standing there. Eight years together, and they still didn’t really know each other. Even though it was born out of polite intentions, Lucy was dazzled by Marie’s quick smile.

            She didn’t know what to say. Her head swam with the jealousy of her daughter’s growing beauty, and this made her uncomfortable. Lucy set the bowl of fruit on the dresser by the door, and turned to leave.

~

Lucy didn’t know why she thought of this now. She glanced up at her daughter’s reflection, all determination and thinly veiled frustration and saw little in it that matched her own. She sighed and turned back around. She had let the girl suffer enough.

            She stood up from where she sat at her dresser and crossed the room to where her purse hung on the closet door. Groping inside, she pulled out her keys and deftly tossed them to her daughter, who caught them with an expression that was a mixture of surprise and a small amount of fear.

            “Really?” Marie asked, after staring down at the unlikely gift in her right hand.

            “Really.”
            “I can take the car?” Marie asked. Her brow furrowed in distrust. Lucy thought about snatching her keys back, but found herself stifling the temptation.

            “Yes, but don’t push it,” she said instead. “And if you’re not back by curfew this will be the last time you take the car somewhere.”

            Lucy watched as her daughter did her best to hurry out of the room without making it seem obvious. She herself crossed to her bed and fell onto it. Closing her eyes, she felt the dread creeping back in. She could take a nap and sleep as long as she wanted. She had nowhere to go. Not for the first time, Lucy found herself begging God for something that would make her feel human again. That would provide an escape from the disconnect. Then she drifted off into unconsciousness.

~

She always forgot about how bright the lights seemed when you were sitting behind the anchor’s desk. They even felt bright from where she stood looking up at them. Lucy shielded her eyes with her left hand, her right firmly gripped around her latte. She felt that familiar buzz of nerves and excitement grow in the pit of her stomach. It had taken years to get this far, but those years had been so worth it now that she was going to be news anchor on a real network. It was early, but then it had always been early. And she would have woken up at any hour if it meant holding onto this job.

            Lucy took a sip of her drink and watched with pleasure as everyone around her worked to get ready for the broadcast in a few hours. The interns were moving at a clip, their panicked awareness of how much work was to be done growing with every passing minute. Her assistant hadn’t seen her yet. Lucy had slipped in through the side entrance in order to observe the comforting routine of it all before everyone started watching her. She knew she should head to hair and makeup, that Marcos would be freaking out over her absence, but she took a few more seconds for herself. She loved this feeling. Everything was happening, and she was a part of it. She felt important. She was the medium through which the news would be delivered. They could find someone else, but they had chosen her. She took a final sip of her coffee as she heard her assistant’s voice call her name from across the set. Lucy turned and gave the woman her most dazzling smile.

            “Here I am,” she said, surrendering her control of her morning into Rita’s capable hands.

            “Thank God! We’ve been waiting for you to come in! Marcos is having a fit! Off to hair and makeup with you, go!” Rita said, and she scurried along at Lucy’s side and rattled off the list of things they needed to accomplish before they went live. Lucy listened calmly, enjoying the sudden rush of adrenaline she got whenever they were close to taping.

            She walked confidently up to the chair that sat opposite a brightly lit mirror and perched in it. Marcos was immediately at her side. He pulled her hair back out of her face and began working on her makeup.

            “Where have you been?” Marcos asked, frantic, but not unkind. “You know how long this can take.”

            Lucy looked at him. “Sorry Marcos,” she said softly, and he smiled.

            “Well, lucky for us you’re young enough that there isn’t much work to do,” he said as he began priming her face. They both knew he was trying to transition to gossip. Friendship was much easier when you stayed superficial. “Did you hear about what happened over at channel five?”

            Lucy had heard, but she let Marcos tell her about the humiliating makeup gaff anyway. A fellow anchorwoman was getting older and her team was trying to hide the fact. What had seemed okay in the makeup chair ended up ridiculous under the lights at the news desk. This woman had gone a full twenty minutes speaking to America looking like an aging prostitute before the program had a break. Of course, it was all the fault of the team that helped her get ready, but no one would remember that.

            Lucy could laugh at the problems of this woman she hardly knew because they weren’t something she would have to face for quite some time. As of now, the world was wide open to her, waiting for her to take whatever she wanted from it.

She closed her eyes and let the feeling overpower her.

~

            When Lucy opened her eyes, she was back in her bedroom, older and alone. Lucy had to bite her lip to stop herself from immediately bursting into tears of longing. She sat up in her bed to steady herself and quickly arranged any flyaway hair back into its place. She took a deep breath and her emotions started to level out again. Feeling lightheaded, Lucy got up and walked towards the kitchen for a glass of water.

            The house was big, far too big, and her ex-husband had told her that back when they bought it together. She remembered the conversation vividly. They had stood by the beautiful French windows that looked out at the backyard and he had sighed. George Parker, very prone to sighing his feelings into reality. Lucy had looked up at him and understood his concerns, but didn’t care to consider them.

            She did what she did best. Lucy walked around him, making a show of how happy she was, how absolutely ignorant that he shouldn’t feel the same way. She heard herself talking endlessly about how much she loved the hardwood floors, the oak tree out front, the space the rooms gave her to think. Her precious monologue was so inane that Lucy almost rolled her eyes at the words coming out of her mouth. Why was she doing this? That was something she wouldn’t be able to make a grandiose speech about. She was ashamed that she wanted to feel like she belonged in this house. She wanted to be the matriarch of a big family, to be the kind of woman who could walk down the halls of this house and say with certainty that it was hers. She hadn’t fallen madly in love with every corner it, as she was steadfastly claiming, but it was a means to an end.

            They bought the house. Lucy was excited to get her way, but the expense of it all made her queasy. She had never had love for spending money, and she detested the feeling of losing it. George grew up in a wealthy family and never had a clue about her discomfort. It was something so easily replaceable to him, something that there was always more of.

            Now she hated this big house. It was a reminder of all the things she had planned to happen that had fallen through. All these rooms that were supposed to be filled by her loving offspring were occupied by one daughter she didn’t know. Her bed where she was supposed to sleep next to her husband was cold and lonely now, and the room that contained it made her feel jumpy and hostile. And instead of being the passage through which a confident woman faced her life, this hall contained an aging woman who had lost her purpose.

            The cold marble was shocking beneath her feet as she reached the kitchen. The sensation ran through her body and she briefly returned to it. The memory of ambition filled her as her shaky hand moved to open the cupboard. Why had she so willingly sacrificed her dreams for this life? Why had she not thought more of it when George suggested she quit her job, become a stay-at-home mother? She knew that nothing he said could have convinced her to make a decision she hadn’t already mentally prepared for. Her fingers wrapped around a glass, and she lifted it down to the counter, but didn’t let it go.

            Her whole life should have been different. That moment when she had walked out of the studio, unknowingly out of any studio for the last time, her hands carrying a box of her things? She had laughed. Lucy had felt the breeze run through her hair, warm on her perfect skin, and she had laughed at her good fortune. She was walking towards the life she had always wanted, so of course this was the right decision. Her life was destined to be easy and happy from here on out, she was sure of it. And if it wasn’t? She could always go back. Nothing could stop Lucy Parker from getting something she truly wanted. She would always be desirable.

            Lucy felt her face turn red with the humiliation these thoughts now brought with them. After working in the business for years she had never learned how much she was valued for her youth and beauty. How naïve, how ignorant, how stupid – she felt the glass pop in her hand before she realized how hard she was gripping it.

            Instinctively moving her hand to the sink, Lucy watched as the shards of glass fell through her fingers and hit the immaculately clean metal. She saw the blood before she felt the sting of the two tiny cuts that appeared on the palm of her hand. It was no use being angry now, but she had never been able to help it. Lucy worked to clean up the mess. Pulling the trash can to her side, she started picking up the shards between two fingers, gently enough so that they wouldn’t pierce her skin. She had always been good at cleaning up messes.

            Maybe that was the problem. The end of her marriage with George hadn’t been sufficiently messy for her to feel like action was required on her part to prevent it. At the time it felt so inevitable, like it was a part of the life she had involved herself in, and she had to go along with it. Even now she knew she probably could have held onto him if that was what she had truly wanted.

~

            Five years ago, she was sitting outside. Having taken her sandals off for a moment, Lucy dipped her legs into the pool. The water distorted them and the light played in strange lines across her skin. Things had been quiet for a long time, but George had come to collect his belongings today, and the constant motion occurring inside her home disturbed her. She had been watching him sort through his things when she started to feel ill, so she let herself outside. As she moved through the house, she could hear Marie crying down the hall. She didn’t stop, she didn’t even hesitate. She knew once she got outside, the cool air would help steady her. It did. So here she was.

            Lucy knew that if she ran inside the house right now and asked George to stay, he would. Even after everything she had done, he would. But she didn’t want that. She knew their relationship could never be the same after they had come to this level of resentment. She found him boring and unambitious. His favorite thing was to accuse her of being manipulative, of needing to have control over every aspect of his and their daughter’s lives. Lucy took a moment she didn’t need to reflect on this: she already knew it was true, but wanted there to be some other motivation behind her actions.

~

            “What time is the reservation?” she had called to her husband, who was only in the next room. She couldn’t help raising her voice, it was the first time they would be out in months. Lucy pulled a comb through her already perfect updo. She ran her finger across the edge of the elaborate eyeliner she had spent so much time drawing, making sure that it hadn’t smudged. This night was going to go well.

            “It’s for eight,” George replied, his voice sounding weightier than usual. This made Lucy pause.

            She sat there for a second and examined her appearance carefully before saying, “Well, we should probably leave in ten minutes so that they’re not waiting for us at the restaurant. I can’t stress how important punctuality is for things like this.”

            Lucy thought she heard George mutter, “Can’t you, though?” in the other room, but she chose to ignore it. She walked to their closet where her husband was getting dressed.

             His back was to her. She studied him, and thought about what he had been like when they met. Tall, good muscles, interesting features. Smart, but not arrogant. Confident from years of growing up with everything he needed. As he had gotten older, Lucy developed the feeling that aging would not be kind to George. Already he had started to resemble a stooped, middle-aged man that she didn’t recognize. But then he turned around and his brilliant green eyes met hers, and she found him. She hesitated a second and spoke, “Remember, you need to bring up your plans for expansion early in the meal so that they’ll have been thinking about it by the end. But don’t do it in an obvious way, you don’t want to look like you’re trying to impress them.”

            She stepped forward with the intention of fixing his tie, but finding it already perfect, Lucy looked for other aspects of his appearance that she could change. “And remember, Tom likes it when you compliment his management skills. But seriously, be subtle. Nobody likes a suck up.”

            George sighed and she looked up into his face. “What?” she asked, as if she didn’t already know what he would say.

            “I don’t need your advice,” George said, his tone so affected that Lucy almost wanted to laugh. “I’ve been to a hundred of these types of dinners. I know how to talk to my boss.”

            Lucy looked back down at his suit jacket and pulled an infinitesimal hair off of it. “I’m just trying to help,” she said quietly.

            He put his hand under her chin and tilted her face back up. “I know, but I’ve got this,” he said. “Just make sure you look beautiful, but not too distracting, and your job will be done.” He lightly kissed her on the forehead and left the closet.

            Lucy pulled her robe off and looked at her body in the full-length mirror. Just look beautiful. Right. Don’t get involved.

            But she needed to. This feeling of total helplessness had crept into her life and she would do anything to get rid of it.

~

             The trickling notes of a bird’s song floated up out of the trees, and Lucy hated them. She shouldn’t ever have come here, things were far too easy. So much of her life had ended when the struggle did. She needed challenge, and she needed work, and she had willfully given those things away. Why?

            And something in the back of her mind uncurled itself and said, “Security,” and then, more quietly it hissed, “Fear.” Lucy felt the familiar pressure of anxiety start to build on the back of her neck. She reached forward to dip her hand in the warm water and distract herself from it.

            She remembered when she had sat at the kitchen table and watched as her own mother hurried around preparing dinner. Lucy had been working on her homework when, feeling a wave of panic come off her mother, she looked up. Nothing was obviously different, but this woman that she admired so much was clearly afraid. Her normally steady hands shook as she went to grab the lid off a pot, and Lucy heard the faint clatter it made as her mother set it on the counter. In a few hours she would discover that her father had lost his job again, in a few months she would know the humiliation of being forced out of a home that they could no longer afford to live in. But for now, she studied her mother, whose right hand kept moving to tuck an invisible strand of hair behind her ear. A nervous habit.

Lucy suddenly wanted more than anything to get up and walk out of the house, to walk to the end of the street and turn the corner, to get on a bus and take it to another town. She knew these things were possible at the same time she knew she had nowhere else to go. She would be giving up this uncertain life for another that was even more so. Trapped.

~

Lucy stopped cleaning up the glass. She looked blindly out the window and considered. Turning suddenly, she walked out of her kitchen and headed back towards her bedroom. Her steps quickened until she was practically running. Then she was running. She ran past all of the stupid things she had collected over the years, foolishly adorning the walls so that everyone would know how much she had achieved. Surely, she had thought, people would walk down the halls of her elaborate home and gasp at the photos of when she had been younger and more beautiful, at the tiny plaques of appreciation from work that she had nailed to the walls after she quit.

She stopped when she reached the door to her bedroom. Absorbing the emptiness, Lucy let the despair she had kept away for so long overtake her. She crossed the room in a few strides.

She grabbed the pair of scissors that lay on her desk. Sitting at the seat in front of her dresser, Lucy pulled a large clump of hair out in front of her face and looked at it. It was everything in her life, so important and so pointless. She cut it away with the smallest movement of her wrist.