Cupid's Confederates by Jeanne Grant

gentle lions, big and bold and soft. Not green.
    Elizabeth’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. “You didn’t like it? I felt so sure you’d be thrilled—”
    Bett moved forward helplessly. “I am,” she assured her mother, and forced a smile as she hugged her. “I am…I was just…overwhelmed for a moment. And angry with you.”
    “Angry with me?”
    “For taking on something like this with your arthritis. Dammit, look at you, Mom.”
    “Don’t swear.” But unconsciously, Elizabeth had been trying to rotate a swollen wrist. She stopped the instant Bett mentioned her arthritis. “It’s nothing.”
    “It isn’t nothing. Mom…” Bett stared in despair at the half-painted room. The bright mint green caught the morning light. Some greens did well in sunlight. This one turned putrid. What was she going to do about her mother? In the meantime, she had an orchard to spray that afternoon; Zach had taken on enough jobs in the past two weeks. And she really had to tackle that bookkeeping; the workers had to be paid tomorrow.
    “You don’t like the color.” Elizabeth’s lip was quivering.
    Bett whirled. “Of course I do.”
    “You don’t.”
    “I do.”
    “I was so sure you would love it.”
    “Mom. I do!” Elizabeth was rubbing her sore wrist again, a waif at fifty-four in her orange bandanna and pedal pushers. “Mom, I really do,” Bett said softly. “And I’m grateful for the thought, really I am. You’re a very special, generous lady and I love you for it. But you’re not going to paint this room; it’s just too much for you.”
    “Well, you don’t have time.” Elizabeth tugged down her blouse. “I admit it was a little more of a job than I had originally anticipated, but I’ll manage, Brittany. I’ll just take it slower—”
    “What I’m counting on you to manage is Zach’s lunch,” Bett intervened swiftly. She tried out an impish smile. “I was looking for an excuse to play hooky this afternoon anyway.”
    “You always have so much to do…”
    “Not this afternoon, I don’t,” Bett lied blithely.
    Her mother allowed herself to be gradually bullied downstairs. Then Bett returned alone to the nursery and stared at the green walls for a few moments in silence.
    It wasn’t that she didn’t know exactly why her mother continually upset her—and why she kept letting it happen. Mother and daughter were coming from two different generations, and worse, two different systems of values. Because Bett didn’t live her mother’s lifestyle, Elizabeth seemed to feel she was being criticized for her own choices. You must see that what I’ve done all my life is important, she continually told Bett ever so unconsciously. A feminine woman, by the standards of Elizabeth’s generation, kept a clean house, prepared for babies and didn’t ride tractors.
    Two weeks of subtle criticism, though, had depressed Bett. Not because she was unhappy with her own choice of lifestyle, however. It just wasn’t a simple thing, two women’s different definitions of “woman.” She couldn’t conceivably argue with her mother when Elizabeth was going through a rough period. And her mother really couldn’t see that Bett had anything more important to do than paint a room in ultimate preparation for a baby.
    Bett picked up the paintbrush, stared at the strange green color dripping from it, and sighed.
    ***
     
    Zach strode through the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest. At the sound of his footsteps, Bett glanced down from her perch on the ladder, regarding her husband’s flinty blue eyes with a sick fluttering in her stomach. Surely he realized Elizabeth was responsible for the painting? He knew his wife well enough to realize mint green was not among her favorite colors. So why did he look angry?
    “Hi there,” she tried brightly.
    Zach said nothing. He often walked into this empty room at the end of the hall, for no reason, really. This odd feeling would hit him sometimes, and he’d find