My Best Friend’s Mother Paints Her Nails

Yvonne Higgins Leach

Uninvited, I interrupt her rare moment of quiet. Her long narrow body dents the lounge chair cushion under the porch canopy. Hard to believe I am alone with her. No other children darting around or another meal to make.

A lovely creamy red, her toes dry in the wash of lucid summer air.

I have known her all my life, and my adoration grows as I become my preteen body. I know nothing of where she came from. Refined, she slides the file into her leather manicure set. With shoulder blades like tiny bird bones above her blouse, she blows softly her deep-red fingernails. Swells with the scent of her perfume waft my way. Instead of sending me home, she drenches me in the generosity of conversation, pulls my hands close, and asks me to pick a color.