Kylie Orr

The sunshine demands its way through the leadlight pane, bouncing a kaleidoscope of beams off the mirror. The bathroom window is slightly ajar allowing the smell of freshly cut grass  from the paddocks to waft in. Our chickens are clucking their morning calls in a noisy chorus. 

Coffee aromas have snaked through our old house and seeped through cracks in the  door. The scent instantly perks me up.  

Ivy is perched on the vanity watching me apply my makeup, with the wide-eyed  fascination only a three-year-old can master. 

‘Why are there cracks in your face, Mumma?’ she asks.  

At first, I don’t know what she means. I pause before sweeping the mascara wand  across my lashes. I catch a glimpse of Ivy in the mirror. She is a divine ball of angel hair, a  delicate blend of her dad and me. Then I return to my reflection. I am a creased bundle of  hopes and dreams, of untapped potential, and a strange mix of glorious light intertwined with  moments of dark. 

I understand her question now. 

‘Those cracks are wrinkles, darling.’ I reply, with an unnatural strain in my voice. What I want to say to my curious daughter is: I don’t recognise this face, with its  crumpled appearance and strained edges. I often wonder where that pretty picture is too, the  taut façade, the vision of understanding and frivolity.  

It is not the face I thought I would have because I am not the mother I thought I  would become.  

She picks up my foundation and studies the label as though she can read. ‘How do wrinkles get on your face?’  

‘Life, darling. Life gives us all wrinkles,’ I smile.  

The answers to my altered complexion lie in the everyday tasks of running a  household, and safely caring for children. What multiplies the lines are the relentless scrutiny of my children’s psychological wellbeing, and the paving of their futures. Am I setting up confidence and building their self-worth? Or will I look back and wonder if I did  enough, or perhaps, did too much?

Then there are lines that betray the hidden anxieties of work and family and being a  woman trying to do it all yet doing none of it well. 

‘Do I have wrinkles?’ Ivy asks, with her face pressed up against the glass, her warm  breath leaving frosted spheres. She pulls away from the mirror and I tap her nose with its gorgeous sprinkle of freckles.  

‘Children don’t have wrinkles.’ I laugh lightly. 

I can hear Martin downstairs with the boys. He’s been up for hours, having long  blacks and cups of tea while reading the paper. An early riser since I met him twenty years  ago; the years before children, before this tree change, before life got busy and hard. Up with  the birds to enjoy the peace in our country setting before his commute to the city each day. He’s taking breakfast orders in the kitchen. Three different varieties of eggs are requested  and, like a saint, he agrees to cook them all.  

‘Aren’t you hungry?’ I say to Ivy, eager to leave the deep and meaningful life analysis for another day. 

‘Nope. I like watching you get ready,’ Ivy beams. ‘Are you filling the cracks with  this?’ she asks, holding out my foundation. 

If only the cracks could be puttied like a plasterer smoothing out a wall. Her beautiful inquisitiveness is everything I wanted. Her mind is her gift. My mind is  my enemy. Unrealistic expectations of a life that would ebb and flow seamlessly through  challenges and new beginnings. I naively thought I was cut out to walk the tightrope of  emotions that come with creating a meaningful life. Reality laughs in the face of those  assumptions. 

‘Mona! Coffee!’ Martin bellows from the kitchen in an operatic sing-song voice. He’s the only one who doesn’t call me Simone. He didn’t think it was a name fit for country life. Too formal. 

‘Coming!’ I call, even though my makeup is incomplete. 

Ivy props my foundation bottle on the bench. 

‘Mumma?’ she prompts, ‘Why do you paint your face?’ 

‘Good question!’ I deflect. Because I had no sleep, because I look old and worn out,  because it helps me feel human and brave.  

I’m desperate to tell her I don’t always need makeup, those incredible days when I  could give Supermum a run for her cape. Times when I’m switched-on, calm, and tender, when I’ve baked not burnt, when I’ve listened first, and responded second. 

There are days when poetic words flow from a place of confidence and my  achievements are cheered. The rare times when everything is balanced, even if precariously,  so nothing falls. 

Then there are the dark days when it all seems too much. The impatient voice that  escapes my mouth is foreign. I try to ignore those better mothers, circling my guilt glands  like sharks, as I holler ‘hurry ups’ from the car to the childcare door, and to the school gate. They think I am an imposter in their town, a fish out water trying to go by unnoticed. They  notice. 

The layer of foundation is my defence against the people who appear to do it all so  effortlessly. Yet I know if I was truthful, I know they don’t exist. The perfect people. Their  inauthentic light and joy. They are fictitious figments of a mother’s self-deprecation. This strange process of war-paint application has Ivy fixated. 

‘Can I paint my face too?’ she asks, skimming her palm over her cheek. I gaze at her porcelain skin; her wide eyes and young thoughts are hard not to love.  She has no imperfections. She’s delightful in her rawest form.  

‘You’re three years old, you don’t need makeup!’ I say. 

‘I’m a big girl!’ she declares. 

‘Of course you are. Makeup is for grownups though, my gorgeous, big girl.’ I smile  and wink at her, then lay the mascara and foundation back in the drawer.  ‘Daddy!’ she yells and holds out both arms. He pretends to steal Ivy’s nose and she  giggles hearty guffaws from the bottom of her stomach. 

‘Cold coffee is on the bench,’ Martin says as he plants a kiss on my cheek. ‘Boys  have had the last of the eggs. If Ivy wants one, you’ll have to check the coup for more. I’m  off!’ 

‘Bye Daddy!’ Ivy yells, a little too loudly. 

‘Love you,’ I say to the back of his business shirt as he disappears out the door. Martin’s kiss has left an imprint on my carefully painted face. I wet a cloth and dab  the area so I can reapply the foundation. As I wipe, the circle gets bigger and I keep moving  the cloth around and around until I have wiped my entire face clean, back to its original  state. The lines reappear—no longer disguised by an artificial veneer. 

‘What are you doing, Mumma?’ Ivy looks from the cloth to my face. 

I lean in to her. ‘Maybe we’ll leave the face paint for today.’ 

She traces a finger down one of my wrinkles.

‘I like the cracks,’ she says.  

‘Me too,’ I say. This time I mean it. 

I scoop her up and squeeze until she squeals. 

‘Will I have cracks when I’m a mumma?’ 

‘If you’re lucky.’ I kiss her cherubic cheeks. ‘Do we have time for pancakes?’ ‘Yessss!’ She scrambles out of my arms and races down the hallway alerting her  brothers to the treat on offer. Their second breakfast. 

I glance one last time at my reflection. 

A gaping wound of emotions has exposed me as a parent. Life has not always gone to  plan. I’ve experienced pure frustration and intense rage since having children, not expecting  a tiny being could push a big glowing button depleting my levels of patience. I’ve tiptoed  between sleep deprivation and despair. 

Through all the self-doubt, I know parenting has also brought exquisite love.  Watching my children, in their unfazed, inquisitive forms, accepting their simple lives,  breathing in the country air, stomping in gumboots through paddocks of cow manure,  reminds me that deep down, below the worry and the apprehension, I am ever grateful to be  sharing this road with these children of mine. 

Parenthood is not always glorious, and never glamorous. Some days my performance  is a disastrous demise. Other days the sun shines out my every pore.  

I run a finger across my smile lines, the crow’s feet. Each one has earned a position  on my face. They tell a story of my life so far. I let myself believe that although the cracks  reveal the flaws, more importantly, they let the light in. 

ABOUT KYLIE ORR

Kylie (she/her) is an author of dark and twisty contemporary fiction. Her debut novel Someone Else’s Child was longlisted in the Richell Prize and published by HarperCollins in 2022. Her second novel The Eleventh Floor hit shelves in February 2024 and was chosen as an Apple Books “Must Read” and “Book of the Week” in The Age and affiliate newspapers nationally. Through her books, Kylie delves into the complex stories of everyday people and their secret lives behind closed doors.

A prolific writer of twenty years, Kylie’s feature articles have appeared in The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, and News Ltd. Her short stories have been recognised in numerous awards including Apollo Bay Word Fest & Stuart Hadow Short Story Competition. Her Whose? series of children’s books was released with Lake Press in 2017.

She lives in Melbourne, Australia with her four children and just the one husband.

Follow Kylie’s rage and passion on Instagram or sign up to ‘If I’m Honest…’ insider news via her website kylieorr.com

Copyright Kylie Orr, October 2024. All rights reserved; this intellectual property belongs solely to Kylie Orr.