Once her barn loft was cozy, Milly smuggled in supplies: crayons, a protractor, pencils, a measuring tape, and a ruler. But it was a curious kind of education she gave herself there.
Milly stood straight beside a wooden beam, marking above her head with a pencil. She turned, tracing fingertips over growth lines of the past. She twirled the tape measure around her waist and hips once more, doing math in her head, then jotting the result on the wall. Her ratio approached the ideal.
Upon a pane of broken glass, with a crayon, she traced the face of a beautiful magazine model. Milly marked the sizes, angles, and distances of the woman’s features precisely: eyes, eyebrows, nose, chin, jaw, and lips. Months ago, she’d marked the mirror that way — of herself.
Milly held the pane of glass in front of her mirror. She compared the marks of her own face to those of the model. She gave herself time, looking at every line, then slid the pane of glass onto a dusty stack of other models she’d drawn before.
But that day was different.
She returned to the mirror, gazing only upon herself. Milly’s lip quivered. One tear ran down her cheek. More came. Tears became sobs. She placed the mirror on the loft floor and dropped to her knees, then curled into a whimpering ball. When she finally rose, tears turned into faint laughter. The laughs grew louder, raucous, and triumphant — almost maniacal. She recovered with deep breaths.
It’s hard to comprehend a moment at once so glorious and so tragic, so unique, so utterly alone. With nothing but the distorted lens of the past and her ingenuity, Milly must have decided — all by herself — that she was beautiful. She’d just proved the point: beauty is painful. But it was hers.
“This is mine.” Milly touched her face in the mirror. She put her finger to the corner of her eye and applied gentle pressure. The tears stopped.
There weren’t many days left at the Homestead before she escaped that life. Merciful would have been the ability to wipe her tears or simply the chance to have cried with her, because Milly hasn't cried since.
Really enjoying this. Chapter after Chapter. It's intimate, intriguing and almost like I'm prying into a private story. A memoir or diary even. Great job. - Jim