The smell of fresh latex paint always made me think of clean starts, but the fourteen-dollar can of vintage pink I bought at the hardware store on Elm Street had a thick skin on top that refused to dissolve. I worked the wooden stir stick against the bottom of the metal can, feeling the heavy resistance of the pigment.
Carol took the stick from my hand without asking. She was wearing grey fleece sweatpants and an old flannel shirt of Alan’s, her grey-streaked hair pulled back in a quick knot.
“You have to get right into the corners of the can, Rachel, or the color streaks on the drywall,” she said. Her voice had that firm, motherly weight that always made me feel like I was auditioning for my own life.
I rubbed my collarbone, my fingers tracing the skin just above the neckline of my maternity shirt. The nursery was small, just a spare bedroom at the back of our Oak Creek ranch house, but the afternoon sun hit the bare floorboards in a warm, clean block.
Carol stopped stirring. The wooden stick dripped thick, bubblegum-pink drops back into the can, but her eyes were fixed on my swollen stomach. Her face went entirely still, the corners of her mouth tightening into a thin line.
“Is something wrong with the color?” I asked.
She did not look up at my face. She stared at my middle as if she could see through the cotton fabric, her knuckles turning white on the paint-smeared wood.
“We should have used blue,” Carol said.
“But we know she is a girl, Carol,” I said, trying to keep my voice light. “We decided on the pink last month.”
She set the paint stir stick across the top of the open can, leaving a wet smear on the metal rim where a series of faded blue numbers were scribbled in pencil. She smoothed her shirt front with both hands, her palms pressing flat against the flannel.
“Blue is cleaner,” she said, her voice dropping into a lower register. “It shows the dust less. Let us get the first coat on the baseboards before Darren gets home.”
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