“I know what it needs,” Julia said excitedly, then hurried to the bedroom and came right back out, clutching a pearl necklace.
She stood before the large mirror, adding final touches to her hair as she hummed a bolero.
Mila crouched on the floor, unseen, peeling a tangerine as she watched in awe. To her, Mom looked like a movie star.
A nationally known painter had been hired to do a portrait of her. She had never been wealthy but, after a couple of her husband’s commercial deals came through, she suddenly saw herself as Madame Bovary.
“She doesn’t even know I’m here,” Mila whispered. “She forgot all about me.”
She ran to the kitchen for another tangerine, then headed upstairs to sit cross-legged on the floor and watch The Flintstones.
The painting, in an ornate golden frame, hung proudly in the living room, until they could no longer keep the house.
Not long after, Mila saw it again, propped against a wall in some nondescript back room, surrounded by everything else they owned.
They’d been thrown out, bougie frame and all.
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