Page 57 of Forever, Maybe
All the questions were yes or no. Easy. Answerable.
Nell, watching from the side, felt a pang. She’d spent the last two days trying open-ended questions. Trying to coax connection, spark memory. That’s where she’d gone wrong. Stephanie wasn’t coaxing. She was meeting her mum where she was, and it was working.
The make-over was completed minutes later. Cate looked transformed. Cream blusher added much-needed warmth to her cheeks, soft cream-brown eyeshadow emphasised the turquoise-blue of her eyes, and liner thickened her brows, cancelling out decades of over-plucking. The lipstick, a soft pink gloss, made her lips much fuller.
“Mum, you look amazing!” Nell proclaimed.
“So old,” she murmured, while Nell and Stephanie assured her that she wasn’t.
Stephanie handed Cate a mirror. Her mother peered at her reflection, squinting. There was something in her expression—an uncertain flicker, as though she didn’t quite recognise the face staring back. But then she smiled, slow at first, gaining momentum until she looked, just for a moment, like Nell’s mum again.
She patted Nell’s hand. “You’re a good girl, Nell. A very good girl. And he’s good too. Him.” Nell watched as she rummaged through the dusty shelves of her memory, searching for a name. “Him,” she said again. “Your husband. Not like that boy. That dreadful young man—taking advantage. What a bad, bad boy!”
Oh, shit. Shit,shit.
Stephanie’s brow furrowed, her eyes locking with Nell’s in confusion. Nell jumped in, fast, cutting her mother off.
“My turn for a makeover, Mum! Want to see what Stephanie does to me?”
Cate’s head turned, her face lighting up. “Oh, yes!”
Nell met her mother’s gaze with a smile, managing—through a subtle shrug, a flicker of her mouth and eyes—to silently reassure Stephanie:whatever that was, it was nonsense. A scrambled memory. Nothing to do with me.
It was just one more thing on the long list of behaviours common in dementia—blurring past and present, skipping names, making it hard to follow what they were trying to say.
Stephanie shrugged back and reached into her tote bag, pulling out the brushes and palettes she needed. Once a journalist, she still had a nose for a story, but she also knew when not to chase it.
“Nell!” Stephanie said brightly, clapping her hands. “We’re about to use the magic of make-up to turn your already lovely face into something spectacular. Are you ready?”
“Do your damnedest.”
They let Cate stay put in the armchair, dragging over Nell’s stool so she could perch and be subjected to the mysteriously magical workings of Stephanie’s make-up box.
Ten minutes later, Nell opened her eyes. Blinked. The reflection staring back was hers—and not. Stephanie truly was a miracle worker. She’d used the same warm rose-gold eyeshadow Nell always did, but added a shimmer on top that somehow disguised the hooded effect that had crept in lately. Some sorcery—a pencil, mascara?—had thickened her brows and made her eyes pop.
A sweep of highlighter gave her cheeks a soft, youthful glow. The lipstick—a sheer plum—pulled off a neat hattrick: plumper lips, whiter teeth and a face that somehow looked more in proportion.
The chime of the doorbell made all three of them jump. Nell glanced out the bedroom window, which offered a view of the front door, and wrinkled her nose.
“Oh, crap. It’s Trish. Who’s running hell in her absence?”
Stephanie smirked. “Dissing your ma-in-law is a total cliché.”
Nell stepped back from the window, half-convinced Trish would tilt her head, spot her and know she’d been slagging her off.
“Yup, so sue me. I amthatcliché.” She sighed theatrically. “I’d better go face her. Mum, are you coming?”
Her mother glanced around, eyes flicking this way and that, paralysed by the sheer effort of making a decision. Stephanie crouched beside her, one hand braced on the armrest, knees sticking out, her tiny stiletto heels sinking into the carpet like she was staging a one-woman act of domestic heroism.
“Ach, we’ll be down in a minute,” she said with a shrug. “You go deal with the Wicked Witch of the West. And make sure there’s a ginormous—and I mean, it, lake-like—glass of wine waiting for me.”
She pressed her hand to her mouth, careful not to do it too closely in case she ruined the lipstick and blew her a kiss. Cate turned to look at her at the same time as she left the room, smiling, her dear old Mum, still there and not there, and…
Ach. Life. Always too ready to throw obstacles in your way.
If she hadn’t already, Stephanie had just secured her spot in Nell’s imagined afterlife—a personal heaven reserved for brilliant friends, kind husbands, beloved relatives (with the notable exception of Trish), and pets, because really, what kind of paradise didn’t include actual creature comforts?
Stephanie—who had always been there for her, who had always taken her side. Like that time she let Nell crash with her for ten days, the two of them sharing a cramped one-bedroom studio, negotiating space and sanity without a single complaint.
