I sat on the edge of the mattress and pulled the small dresser drawer toward me until the old pine wood squeaked. My mother’s velvet jewelry box sat under a stack of winter scarves, its blue fabric worn down to the grey thread at the corners.
I lifted the small lid and took out the pearl earrings, holding them in my open palm. They were small, slightly yellowed by thirty years of storage, and one of the silver backs was loose.
I held them up next to my ears, wondering if they looked too old-fashioned for a fancy restaurant. I reached for the small mirror on the wall, but my hand stopped before I could lift it.
The sound of the television downstairs hummed through the floorboards, a quiet drone of afternoon news. I looked at the little pearls, remembering how my mother only wore them on Sundays or when my father took her to the county fair.
The next evening, I stood by the small mirror in the downstairs bathroom and applied the new lipstick I bought at the drugstore. It was a shade called Warm Berry, brighter than the pale pink I had worn since our wedding day.
I smoothed my hands down my apron, trying to decide if the color made my teeth look yellow. A floorboard creaked in the hall behind me.
“Is there a parade in town?” Damon asked from the bathroom doorway.
He had a mug of black coffee in his hand and was checking his watch.
“I wanted to try something different for the dinner next week,” I said, looking down at the sink.
“It makes you look like you’re heading to a high school dance,” he said, taking a sip from his mug. “At fifty, Elena, we should probably leave the paint to the girls.”
He smiled to show he was just kidding, but the coffee mug clicked hard against the tile counter when he set it down.
