Page 35 of A Season in the Snow
Reaching forward, Alice picked up the lipstick with two fingers. The cap was scratched from that time she’d run over it with the hoover last year. The label was faded from having rubbed against the inside of her handbag every day since she’d first bought it. The sliver of a crack from where the lid met the base was lined with the soil that had permeated everything during the crush. Why had she clung on to this like it was important? What strange things people did when they didn’t know what to do.
She couldn’t help herself. She placed it in her left hand and closed her fingers around the lipstick, waiting with a sick fascination to see if the nightmare images would return, eclipsing her view of her current reality. But they didn’t.
Instead, Bear got up from his spot on the floor and wandered over to see what she was looking at that wasn’t him. He grabbed a pair of bundled socks in his mouth, but dropped them soon enough to snuffle his nose against her closed fist until she agreed to open it.
‘This lipstick was my favourite lipstick in the world for a long time,’ she told him, letting him sniff it with curiosity. ‘I used to wear it every day. And I had it with me the day we lost your mum. Your other mum.’
Bear sat down to listen, so she continued. ‘They said I was still holding this when I was looking for her. Clutching hold of it, like it was important – temporary paralysis or something. Isn’t that silly? It’s a lipstick. It’s just a lipstick.’ Alice took a big breath. ‘Why did I hold onto this, and not her?’
Stretching his neck forward, Bear picked up the lipstick from her hand using his teeth, and dropped it onto the carpet, watching it roll. He pushed it with his nose and it rolled off under her dresser. Bear looked pleased with himself for removing the memory.
Alice fished the lipstick back out, though. It was either coming with them or going in the bin, there was no other option now. She put it back inside a sock, and put the sock into her suitcase, even though she might never wear the shade again. She was leaving today, and her baggage was coming along with her.
She took a final look at the four walls of her bedroom, memories floating inside her head. ‘I hope I’m going to miss this place someday.’
