7:20 p.m., Thursday, October 26
Frannie was trying to French-plait her hair. It wasn’t so bad, living alone. It felt fat and full. Plus, she felt sometimes like she was a more interesting person when she lived alone. She was a cross-stitcher, a woman who liked to take a walk around the streets right before bed, a lipstick-lover.
She propped the phone up on the windowsill, paused on the first video. She liked to do her hair there. She could stand the phone up against the glass and use the pane as a mirror. This is how she did the hair tutorials, even though she was thirty-four and alone and should probably be depressed.
She was just reaching up to loop a complicated bit of hair that didn’t seem to belong anywhere into the main plait, when her eye was caught by a woman at the window opposite. Ah. Wasn’t that nice? Her neighbor, Becky. Cradling her sister’s baby. Becky was looking after her a lot at the moment.
They were always exchanging things: the car seat Becky had given to Martha, the pair of shoes Becky had borrowed for a night out. “See you Thursday,” Martha would say, “and bring the chutney.” Things like that. Family stuff. She missed that. Her sister, Olive, now lived in Cornwall with her new husband. It had all happened very quickly.
Frannie looked across again at the image in the window. It gave a new meaning to the word tender. One hand around the baby’s head, protectively. The other around its bottom. Comforting. Her body bent toward the baby. The room softly lit, amber, behind them.
She couldn’t help but wonder as she stared at the mother and baby framed in the window, like a Madonna and child.
Despite herself, Frannie couldn’t help watching them for a long moment. Aunt and niece.