Kitty loved listening to her mother play “Autumn Leaves” on the piano. Rose sang the lyrics quietly while she played, often so softly that only she could understand the words.
“The autumn leaves/drift by my window/the autumn leaves/of red and gold. . . .”
Kitty was twenty-nine now, her mother was fifty-eight. In less than a year, Rose would die from a heart attack. Kitty would be thirty with an eight-year-old son to raise by herself. Roy’s father had died when their boy was four, after which Rose had come to live with her daughter and grandson. Listening to her mother at the piano in the living room, Kitty felt the same as she had as a child, the age Roy was now, before Rose married her second husband, whom Kitty had never really gotten to know.
Kitty herself had remarried, a marriage that lasted only six months before being annulled. She was beginning to believe that marriage was not a good idea, at least not for her or her mother. Who among her friends was truly satisfied in her marriage?
Kitty sat at her dressing table and examined her face in the mirror. I should have a mask made, she thought, so that not only will people I know be unable to recognize me but I’ll see them differently. Only Roy and Rose—maybe not even my mother—will know who I am. I can change my name, move to Los Angeles.
Kitty stared at herself for a long time, imagining what she could look like and wondering if disguising herself would really make a difference in her behavior, in her ability to make better decisions.
It was time to pick up Roy at his school. Kitty took a closer look at her face. She was still pretty but something that used to be there was missing. Her face was changing by itself. She wouldn’t need a mask.
