LEVATIQUE began with my mother. I watched the fine lines settle around her eyes and the softening along her jaw, and felt something I didn't expect, I'm horrified of her growing older without anyone helping her care for herself the way she'd always cared for everyone else. She kept a drawer of half-used serums, six hundred dollars of beautiful glass bottles that each promised a lift and never quite delivered one. I'd catch her in the mirror sometimes, gently pulling the skin at her jaw back with her thumbs, just to see what it might look like.
Everything available was either cold and clinical or impossibly expensive.