The Perfect Woman

You hate the picture. 

If you were being honest, it was one of your most gaudy purchases, another one of those chingaderas that your mother would often complain about you buying. But, you know that Theo was excited about it, so you got it anyway. 

—— 

You vividly remember the first time you walked into his parents’ house, seeing the portrait of his mother over a nice fireplace. The woman in the picture looked to be in her twenties, hair pinned up and wearing a beautiful baby blue chiffon dress that matched her eyes. Her lips had been painted in a light pink, almost completely innocent, but the expression on her face was stern and focused. It almost ruined the picture but given how his mother was, you’d come to terms with it in a matter of seconds. 

Theo had told you that the women in his family posed for portraits of themselves, many of them posing after they had gotten married and sometimes when the couple was still engaged. He also told you that his mother had gotten her portrait done the day before she married, and from the looks of it, nothing much had really changed apart from the fact that she was now fifty six instead of twenty three. Theo had managed to convince you, more like planted the idea, that if the two of you were to get married that you could also get your portrait done. It seemed a simple enough task, and so you went to his mother to ask where you could go to get one done. Her hair, though less blonde and more gray, and her eyes having become clearer with age, she still had noticeable if faint traces of her youth still in her features. You had approached her in the

kitchen, and when you did ask, she simply glanced at the portrait, then at you. Her mouth tilted downwards like a dying lily, her eyes suddenly sharp and bitter, and merely said that it would be cheaper for you to get a photographer. 

You recall that she had made the same face at your wedding. You’d just finished saying your vows, and when you looked over at the guests, she looked as if she had smelled something funny. You weren’t quite sure. Displeasure, or something along that line of disgust. You’d mentioned it to your husband at the reception, and he glanced over at his mother in worry. Like some secret he didn’t want out about her. “She’ll have to deal with it,” He tells you, and you get the inkling that you were right. 

—— 

The portrait that hangs in your living room has some noticeable differences to his mother’s. 

For one, the portrait has your face, and two, in the portrait, you’re wearing a beautiful strapless black dress, a more provocative take on the family tradition as Theo loved to tease you. Your black hair is down, dark obsidian waves cascading over your shoulders. You remembered sitting on that chair for hours, and with every passing hour you’d feel the back of the dress stick to your skin from sweating in the heat and your hair getting frizzier and frizzier from the humidity as the painter’s AC had been broken for the week and the only comfort they had was a barely functional fan. 

You stare at the portrait, taking in all its features that were supposed to be yours, and your stomach churns a bit at seeing her. You wonder why the painter had decided to paint your skin

pale white. It wasn’t like you were olive skinned like most members of your family were, but you weren’t exactly as hauntingly white as Theo or any of the other members of his family. Theo had cared more about the portrait than you did. You didn’t feel the need to argue, only stare at the painting with some slight dismay at being painted incorrectly. Your husband, however, called the painter and you could hear them speaking from where you sat on your porch, an intermingling of Spanish and English resonating within the house that came from your husband’s throat. He exited the house, placing a hand on yours, like he’s going to propose again, but his face is sadder this time around. You hear him tell you that the painter refuses to redo the portrait. With a low tone of voice, in Spanish that he’d learned quite well over the past three years, he repeats the words that you’d heard from the painter when he’d been painting you, but now you understand them, “Te vez mas bonita asi.” It doesn’t surprise you like it should. 

—— 

So there the portrait stays, a white woman in a provocative black dress, the intruder, who looks less and less like you every time you vacuum the floor. You feel like there’s three people in this house instead of just you and your husband. Theo works all day, building houses for other people, and yet you stay in this house he made on your own, watching that thing look at you while you work on paperwork for the office. 

You’re frightened by the way it smiles. You’d wanted to be warm and welcoming, trying to be different to the way that Theo’s mother’s portrait had looked. Now however, the smile mocks you. Some woman here in your house, looking at you while you worked, while you talked

on the phone, while you watched movies cuddled under Theo’s arm, looking over your shoulder to see if it was still watching. It was. Always. 

The furniture is placed so oddly in your house. Your recliners and sofa all face away from the portrait, you had argued that the flatscreen should be but your husband loves his traditions. And so, in the middle of the living room lay the portrait of the intruder. You jokingly referred to her as such to your husband who had found it funny, but all of your furniture faced the flatscreen which was on the right wall. 

Her presence starts to bother you even more when your in-laws come over. They make the effort to move the two seat sofa that you and your husband used to have cute date nights that used to end with clothes coming off, to face the portrait. Then they sit, side by side, in silence. Your mother-in-law holds a glass of wine, sipping on it, leaving red lipstick marks that you will have to clean later. They sit and watch that thing in the living room, like visitors in an art museum. You watch the portrait, this inanimate object in your room, this white being do something that you have never been able to do, you see your mother-in-law smile and laugh softly as she watches it, watches her. 

Something acidic rises in your throat, resentment of some kind you had never allowed yourself to feel before. You didn’t want to stand out, to be different. But you feel like an intruder in your own home. And it’s her fault. 

——

It gets worse when your family comes over, which is arguably a lot more frequent than when your in-laws visit. A nightmarish blessing that you don’t really say no to, especially when your family loves Theo. 

When they do visit, the house is filled with noise. Like a salute, your tios wolf-whistle at the sight of the portrait. Some don’t know that it’s you, and others are too drunk to really care. Your father does differently. He takes off his hat, crossing himself as if it was la Virgencita, to show respect. Your mother had told him that it was a portrait of Maria Felix to save you the embarrassment of having to explain your husband’s family’s customs. 

Some tias usher their children away from their living room, making their messes in your bedroom and guest bedrooms like the babies they still are. You can hear them jumping on the beds by the sound of the echoing springs straining under the use, screeching and yelling while your tias quietly surround you and try to grab your attention with, “Y el nieto pa cuando?” Looking around for any lifeline to escape the interrogations of when you are going to have children, you find Theo outside. You’re half tempted to call out to him, but he’s drinking with your uncles and your father, all of them patting him on the back. He’s scrunching up his face, shaking his head, and laughing, denying another shot of tequila that you’re very sure he will take out of peer pressure. He told you once that he loves the warmth of your family, and you don’t blame him. He wasn’t raised in the constant heat of it. 

With a miracle, you managed to sneak away, lightly pushing your tias and their wandering eyes. They’re all looking at you for anything to immediately criticize. You sneak away to the living room. In a way, you feel a small sense of relief at the sight of her smiling at you and the silence, and you feel exhausted.

At least, you had thought that it was just the two of you, as there is one person who is standing in front of the portrait. The figure of your mother that just watches the picture, dark brown eyes glazing over it, and you just barely process that it’s her. 

You take after your mother, you have her patience and her eyes. Theo mentioned to you one Christmas that when you laugh, you have her smile. He also told you that you have your father’s nose, so you don’t know how true that observation is. 

“—” 

It's your name and you almost don’t recognize it without it being mispronounced in English. 

“Sí?” 

You watch as she takes a breath, eyes wandering from the portrait back to your face, like she’s piecing together a puzzle you yourself haven’t been able to solve. Looking at that entity before you, the white woman that looked nothing like her daughter. 

You almost wish she would only look at you, especially as her pupils dilate at the sight of the beautiful traitor. 

Speak. You almost mutter. Speak to me. 

She does turn to you, tongue silent, but eyes seeing through you. She wants to speak, she always does. Like many mothers, she opens her mouth, and the words die before they can leave. As usual, you brace yourself for her snarky remarks, some poke at gaining some weight, the three pounds you’d tried to ignore on the scale on the bathroom floor. Maybe she wants to start a fight, with everyone out of earshot, the two of you alone the way you were in the beginning.

But you see her eyes relax. And you’re scared. 

With a sigh, the words she’d wanted to say abandoned, you see something close to disappointment or exasperation, you’re not sure which. You’ve never seen her in any way that isn’t your mother. Seeing her as just a woman, as someone else, frightens you. 

“Te gusta?” You ask and you don’t even realize that you’ve sat down on one of the chairs. It’s a tense silence, only broken by the laughter of the men outside, oblivious to the conversation, but putting in perspective how absurd the question sounds. From where you sit, looking up at her, she slowly fits how you remember her. Standing in the kitchen, tense and alert, while you looked up from the TV, your favorite cartoons playing. 

Your body shakes as you expect an answer, like you’re excited and scared by the answer. “No.” 

It’s sharp, almost argumentative. Like she’s scolding you, because that’s all she really ever knew how to do. English is too foreign and cold to sympathize with, and Spanish too hard to correlate into some form of fondness you might be able to comprehend. 

“Esta muy blanca,” You’re caught off guard by how against it she is, “Mejor tíralo a la basura.” 

The statement sounds reasonable, but you let out a laugh. Like she’d told some joke. For whatever reason, you don’t like that idea. You don’t know why. But you don’t hate her in that you’d ruin her, that you’d claw out her omnipresent dark eyes, spill hot coffee on her glossy porcelain white skin, or maybe set it on fire and kill any memory of her. You’ve thought about it, but you won’t like it.

Your mother looks at you concerned, and you realize what a sight you must look like to her. You shake your head, and she sighs. It’s not a fight she seems willing to battle in, so she looks back at the painting. At her pristine face not yet ruined by your inner thoughts. 

—— 

When your family does leave, and as Theo holds you close in his arms, loving you, you look at the portrait. You look at her, looking for something, but you don’t know what it is. I don’t know what it is either. 

—— 

When you’re not working, and have nothing else to do in the house other than clean or cook, you avoid the gaze of the beautiful being in your living room. 

But the anger you felt before grows softer, as if cooled by something that had been left unspoken by you and your mother. Maybe it was the defiant ‘no’ that remained trapped in your throat and instead rattled the bars of its cage that you call a trachea and emerged as laughter. 

Either way, whatever the answer, you swear she watches you even closer than before. The cold mocking smile is now a threat, like she overheard your conversation. The eternal eavesdropper. It stirs a wave of nausea and you feel it from the base of your skull down to your stomach.

All at once, you rush from the living room to the bathroom, out of sight but your retching and gasps of breath betray you. Theo comes in through the main door right on time, yelling your name as you are nowhere to be seen. 

When he does find you, you are on the floor, almost embracing the toilet seat, now filled with the breakfast that you had had that morning. 

—— 

When you tell your mother that you and Theo are expecting, you tell her from the safety of your room. 

Away from prying eyes, you feel a shiver going down your spine, excitement and fear as if you are being watched. All you can hear is the timbre in which you speak, but you catch a glimpse of something white moving in the corner of your eye. Fast, too fast to be anything other than a trick. 

“Crees que va ser hijo o hija?” almost goes unheard as you slowly creep out of your room, carefully stepping on the quiet planks of the floor. Peering over the doorframe, you spot that decorative splash of oil, still attached to the wall. Her hair remained glossy, beautiful as always, the way you wanted to be. Face still pale and porcelain, like you’d expected her to somehow, in some way burn the way you did in the sun and turn at least some shade of brown. I blink. 

You stilled. That had never happened before.

“Ama,” Your voice trembles, like you’ve been caught, “Creo que tenías razón.” Your soft confession almost whispers into the phone as your mother asks you if you’ve picked out any baby names. 

I am looking at you, and you are terrified. 

You don’t pay attention to how your thumb has hung up on your mother. Racing with fumbling clumsy feet, you reach your hands out towards my frame like it’s my throat and you squeeze. Squeeze so hard that wood cracks beneath your fingertips, threatening to splinter to protect itself. 

Your breath is heavy, rabid in all anger that rushes to your face and frightens you with how much damage you could do. 

Because how dare she have it all. 

How dare she look so beautiful. 

How dare she smile. 

Your mother’s attention. 

Your in-laws being able to relax and drink in her presence, which you will never be able to do because your roots extend beyond a dotted line at the bottom of a map. So perfect, sexy, beautiful, eye-catching, and she’s not even real. 

You almost scream. 

But you swallow it in, like aspirin with no water traveling down your throat, scorching. It burns, aches, and you breathe just a little funny as you hold it in your hands. Unhooking it from

the wall, you hold it up as if it were a newborn, delicate and innocent, and smile. Because your whole life, you’ve smiled and taken everything that has been tossed your way. With ease, you tuck her under your arm, and with a calmness that cools your boiling blood, you exit your house and enter the rattling metal coffin that is your car. Black as death and as hot as the last circle of Hell, you place the painting in the passenger’s seat, like she either belongs there or she’s a dog, being driven to be euthanized. 

You don’t speak, the car ride silent, as you drive past loud streets, but not a single word is spoken aloud. Who would you even talk to? Me? The guest of honor? 

When we finally get far enough, you pull over the car on the side of the road. The tension in your shoulders releases. Glancing over, you look at the rows and columns of large, gangly trees. One that you could almost get lost in. You drag the portrait, in all her beautiful ugliness, pristine and provocative, and your hands linger over the cracked frame. 

Your hands fit perfectly in the marks you’ve made, a permanent bruise, and you’re half tempted to squeeze her frame of a neck again but she’s far more delicate this time around. The frame has dug a trail behind you in the dirt, like a body you’ve brought to bury. That is what you were after? Wasn’t it? You planned to bury me here, leave me to rot amidst the animals. The prey that couldn’t make it out, and the predators that starved in infancy. Left behind by mothers that were only out for themselves. 

Kneeling down, hands pressed together as if in prayer, the exchange between the two of us is almost too silent. You almost feel disappointed that you don’t smoke, or else you’d be able to light a cigarette while you burn every remnant of me. Finally, you reach down, hold a clump of dry dirt in your hands and toss it behind you. You dig, and dig, your fingernails go black as you drag them. Forward, hold, throw. Forward, hold, throw. Repeat. Repeat until the hole you

made is as big as the portrait itself. It weighs heavier now, as you push it down, something resisting your human force. 

But from the way her smile looks, you can see that instead of that mocking smile, it has the audacity to look scared. 

You relish the fear in those dark eyes that belonged to you. 

You are leaving me and I am terrified. 

And like you, I cannot scream. 

But you muster the strength that I do not have, to walk away. 

—— 

Here’s what you will recall when you’re dying: You have a daughter, beautiful, healthy, and the reddest and loudest little baby you have ever seen. When you give her your grandmother’s name, which you had agreed on with Theo, his mother gives a soft scoff at it, immediately butchering it with no want to be corrected. 

At five months, the baby’s skin is the same olive tone as the rest of your family, to your mother-in-law’s dismay. To appease her, your parents tell her about some cases in which some family members you have never met had darker skin as children but whitened as they grew older. The answer doesn’t do much to bond grandmother to granddaughter, but you can see that Theo isn’t as upset about the situation as you are. You’d wanted her to at least love some part of you, even if not you but your daughter.

Theo adores your little girl. He would hold her close at any given moment of the day, and hold her as the two of you danced to music that you’d usually put on in order to clean. If he was soft around you, you imagine that your daughter turned him to mush. 

He told you once that she had your eyes, and when he said that, you were careful how long you stared at her face. You didn’t want to see her eyes staring back at you. But occasionally, while your daughter eats her food and wails until her favorite cartoons are put on, he covers his face with his hands. When he opens them, he lets out a high pitched “Donde ‘ta bebe? Aqui ‘ta”, which results in little giggles from your little girl. Giggles that sound better than the silence you lived under before. 

Now and then, the stiffness in your neck gets more noticeable after a long day of doing office work at home. Theo rubs the knots away but it’s almost as if it’s permanently stuck in one position. On the days where it gets really bad, you feel almost like you can’t get out of bed, and Theo has to take the day off work to spend the day with your daughter: putting her in the most atrocious outfits that he claims she picked out, and makes you food so you don’t have to get up. 

—— 

You had just put a half empty plastic plate of grapes and peanut butter covered apple slices on the counter when you hear the door open. Your daughter is still too small to open the door herself, not that she hasn’t tried. You once opened the door to her bedroom to find her on the top of the drawers. Last place you’d left her was in the living room, in front of the TV, watching her cartoons.

So you walk to the living room, waiting for a mischievous little face looking back at you. You don’t expect anything dangerous. With a tired but amused voice, you call out her name. Upon receiving no answer, you imagine all sorts of childish mishaps that she might be doing, from putting magnets in the DVD Player, or scribbling on the walls with crayons. 

When you get to the living room, and your daughter is on the sofa, covering her eyes, while the cartoons are playing right in front of her. Some cat and mouse show that you’d watched at her age too. At the sight, you think that Theo must have gotten off of work early, though you swear he would’ve called if he had done so. 

And yet, behind her spot on the sofa, in plain sight, in a spot where she would never be able to reach, is her. 

You see the scarred dents in the frame before your eyes meet. In the same spot, as if untouched, as if she hasn’t been missing for months, as if she was never abandoned, sits the portrait. 

She’s unnervingly clean, not a trace of dirt or any marks apart from the one you had inflicted on her. And her smile, the haunting traces of false skin and muscle that chased you even in your dreams. She meets your gaze and from the white of her eyes, it almost looks like she’s narrowing her eyes at you. 

Where before it had been an acknowledgement of your existence, you see how I’ve singled you out. You, the traitor, you the one who abandoned me. 

With trembling hands, the thrill and adrenaline of the sight forcing you to take shaky breaths as the air escapes the cavern of your mouth, you pick up your daughter and break into a full run to your room, your safe haven. Out of my sight, out of mind.

You cover her little hands with your own, and you place her on the bed you share with Theo. “No mires, okay?” You speak softly to her as you kiss her forehead. She nods, barely able to process what you say. 

You take out your phone and call Theo, hoping he’ll answer. By the third ring, he picks up, confused that you reached out first. You tell him he needs to come home, to not ask any questions or take any detours and just come straight home. When you hang up, your heart is racing, you pace back and forth. Your daughter is still trapped in the dark you placed her in. 

For hours, you hold your daughter tightly against your chest. You memorize her little hands, her little body rolls that Theo would often remark as genetics passed down by his family, you claimed they came from your side of the family. How your mama would find ways to feed your daughter more, still seeing her as too thin for a baby her age. You gingerly touch her hair, all curls and tangles. You hadn’t been able to convince her to have her hair brushed that morning. You will always remember these details of her, just shy of a year. 

When Theo comes home, he holds you both close, more angered by the sight of the portrait than he is scared. He is quick to blame his parents, calling them and the house fills with yelling. When he accuses them of sneaking into the house and scaring you, it is the first time that you hear your father-in-law raise his voice to defend his wife. Theo threatens to cut them off, upset, angry and resentful. He states he will never allow them to see their granddaughter again, and then he hangs up the phone. 

As he picks up your daughter, he forces a smile and says “peek-a-boo”, signaling to your daughter that she can look now. She giggles and removes her hands, and you keep thinking about how she’ll turn out like you, and what a tragedy that seems.

He doesn’t know, something whispers, He will cut them off for you. But what have you done to deserve it? Other than wearing the ring he bestowed upon you, reject his name and take him from them? You shake your head, and push the thoughts away. You watch as your husband and daughter laugh together and the entire thing looks so beautiful. 

—— 

That night, after Theo’s fight with his parents, and after your daughter’s finally been put to sleep in her crib, you hold him close, and breathe him in. 

There’s something in the way you touch him, his smell almost a sweet but pungent scent. His skin feels warm and you feel a bit drowsy. He’d just gotten out of a hot shower so it’s a mixture of him and the events of the day that stirs you. 

“—?” He asks for you despite you clinging on to you like he’s leaving, or maybe you are. In the blink of an eye, he’s the same guy you met four years ago, the guy who laughed when you told him that you didn’t slow dance. “It’s easy”, he’d said, “But we can take our time.” 

You lean close, and you softly kiss him. Gentle and yearning for the moment to last. Your hand travels to his chest and you can feel his pulse quicken. His hand skirts around your thigh, but then he grazes your cheek, brushing some hair out of your face and tucking it behind your ear. 

He cradles the back of your head and leans forward, leaving your lips tingling as you take what you can want from him. Feverish, you straddle him and he places his hands on your waist as you move with him and kiss him. Balling a fistful of hair, you breathe his breath, taste his tongue, and take him as he is. He touches you, as if you are still you.

The darkness of the room is almost blinding but you can see him. He’s glistening, part sweat and part enjoyment from the way the moon peers in through the crack in the window. The two of you are two wicks lit together. A conjoined beautiful creation that only the moon, stars, darkness and I will witness being one. Hot breath against your ear’s cartilage as he shivers, and as you tremble with how sensitive your skin feels against the cold wind swept across your back compared to the warmth of his body. No words are spoken between you, the soft “te amo” mouthed onto your skin that you believe. 

Hands touch hands, and you feel the roughness of your hands against his own and it’s a friction that contradicts the way he rests his forehead against yours and you watch him through the mist of the barely clearing darkness. He kisses your temple and you lean against his touch, wanting to know what it would like to live an entire lifetime feeling him and knowing him. You drink in his devotion that comes in waves, rising and crashing again and again through what you already know is love, but until now has only really solidified. When he does stop, if only momentarily, you only hear what sounds like shaky laughter and you laugh too. It feels good, the way it all does, and the two of you laugh as he kisses you softly, nothing like chaste wedding kisses but a passionate affair as if you’ve both become lovers all over again. 

—— 

You wake from your spot on your bed, naked and trembling from the after effects of nightly activities and the chill of the cold and crisp air.

In your mind, you know what comes with the dark. Like a child, feeling the shivers alerting you of the knowledge that you are being watched, you look up from the safety of your pillow. 

You see the dark figure in the doorway, and at first you believe it to be your daughter standing there. 

On instinct, you move to get up, until you see that the head of the figure is bigger than that of a toddler. 

When the moonlight passes through a cloud in the distance, it luminates the doorway, and slowly, inch by inch, you see your reflection, at least, it almost is. 

It’s you, in many aspects. Her black hair, reflecting the moon’s shine, all perfect. Her body clothed in the dress that’s stuck in the back of your closet. After your daughter was born, you couldn’t fit back into it as much as you tried. 

The most daunting aspect was my face, which you recognize as yours. Same dark eyes that did not blink, only seeing my pupils and the white of my eyes, which you’d shied away from before. 

Uncanny pearl white smile, almost in the shape of a snarl, like a dog smiling at an intruder. The dark may have cloaked most of your sight, but when it clouds your view as the moon returns to its hiding spot, you become more aware of your hearing. 

You could hear my footsteps, skittering across your wooden floorboards, and any attempt to scream died in your throat as I clasped my hand over your mouth. This way, you wouldn’t be able to awaken Theo from his deep slumber. 

You taste something bitter in your mouth, my sweat from the moisture of your hot breath against the skin of my hand.

Softly, I caress your cheek, wiping tears that have escaped your eyes like runaway prisoners, and press a kiss to your eyelids. I don’t speak, you never gave me a voice, but you gave me a wonderful smile. 

But what I do have, is something sharp and metallic in my hand. Careful not to touch Theo, I climb into the bed with you, the bed dipping a little from our weight combined. I feel you shake and your eyes widen as you catch the glint of the knife before you feel the cold blade’s point press against your sternum. As if I were tracing a delicate line, I press the blade down, to which I feel you jolt in what I assume is pain. Pain, like when you’d squeezed my frame tight enough to bruise. 

The blade rips down your chest and I curve it when I reach the bottom of your ribs, cutting deeper so as to avoid grazing your ribcage. You don’t bleed much, not enough to pool, at least until I repeat cutting you open on the other side of your rib. An entrance for me to use. 

You shiver and my hand feels warm from your tears kissing it. I tilt my head and don’t stop smiling, not even when I wipe my newly blooded hand down onto your face. I make sure you look as pretty as a picture as I smear it onto your forehead, into your eyelids, and on your cheeks. You look as pretty as I do, even as you’re dying. 

Why you don’t scream out allures me, like you know it’s helpless, but it’s beautiful to see. 

As if you were a fish for me to dine on while alive, I gently open up your skin, even as you let out an uncomfortable groan. But I won’t eat you, instead, my hand on your mouth travels down to your throat, and in a moment of petty revenge, I squeeze hard. Your first reaction is to gag, to choke for air, but I can see your eyes, struggling to look at me as I take my time holding you still.

When I do let go, you cough, rough and incapable of moving to help yourself. You wonder if your daughter walks in, how will you explain this? How will you explain this to Theo, so close and yet so far in the world of his dreams? 

You can from what little light does enter the room, my white skin, delicate and free of any telling marks of age or even of life, other than light purplish marks on my neck. Now we match. 

Slowly, I yawn, and open up your carcass, the meat inside still warm enough for me to rest my head in you. As I close the flaps of your skin around my face, I close my eyes. Hearing you breathe deep and sigh, the torture over as you swallow me inside you. An old life ending while bringing new life to the world. 

And when daylight comes, your eyes are closed. 

But mine, yours, ours, are wide open.