Watching Grandma smile at her reflection felt like seeing a light switch turn back on after years in the dark. But before she could fully enjoy it, someone walked into the room and tried to make us both ashamed of that moment.
The afternoon light spilled across Grandma Aria’s bedroom carpet in soft yellow squares. I sat on the floor with my brushes lined up on a folded towel like tiny soldiers. My phone was paused mid-sentence on a YouTube tutorial, with some beauty guru frozen with one eyebrow half-done.
Downstairs, Melissa’s voice climbed through the vents, loud and sharp, as she argued with somebody about a coupon that had apparently ruined her entire week.
I tried to tune her out.
Grandma Aria sat on the edge of the bed in her robe, twisting a tissue between her fingers.
“It’s not silly.”
“I’m 70 years old.”
“And?”
She laughed a little awkwardly.
***
I’d been living with her since I was small. Grandma moved in after my mom left, and she basically raised me while Dad worked double shifts. She was the reason I knew what love sounded like when it hummed in a kitchen.
My grandma was also the reason I picked up a makeup brush in the first place. About two years ago, I noticed she had one lipstick in her drawer, dried out, probably from the ’90s.
In her older pictures, she used to wear yellow dresses that she loved and did her makeup. Then Grandpa Paul died 40 years ago, and she just stopped.
Stopped wearing color. Stopped dating. Stopped doing everything that wasn’t for somebody else.
Grandma didn’t stop living; she just stopped living for herself.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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