Red Lips (from Things That Helped)

‘My son often watches me put on makeup in the morning, sitting on the floor while I peer at myself in the mirror. It’s a short procedure, but one that keeps him engrossed, because there is a chance I might reach down and swipe him on the nose with my powder brush. Sometimes he grabs a comb as I brush my hair and passes it clumsily through his short locks. “Bruss bruss bruss,” he says, satisfied.

In the mirror my face dissolves, swimming back into view as a series of parts: eyes, nose, chin. I dab concealer carefully onto blemishes and pat it dry, sweeping powder over the top in large, loose circles. I pencil in the bit of my eyebrow touched by a scar, balance out my brows for fullness. Then three quick swipes of lipstick—so swift and mechanical that my hand might be autonomous—and my mouth emerges in vivid focus.

In the bathroom cabinet, my lipsticks occupy the highest shelf. Owen is delighted with the transfer of color to material surface; paint onto paper, Texta onto wall. The few times he has found a tube, housing the tomato-orange of Mummy’s smile, he has tilted his head, uncapped the tube, and dragged rich, incongruous color across his rosebud mouth in exact mimicry of my gestures. I keep my lipsticks up high because they are expensive, and because of the eeriness of seeing my own expression played out on my small child’s face.’

Read ‘Red Lips’, published in LitHib as ‘On Blood, Birth, and the Talismanic Power of Red Lipstick’, here.