A Shadow to Call Her Own
by JACQUELINE MENDEZ
Esmeralda woke from her nightmare, her heart racing strongly like the currents of the Rio Grande. Was it really a dream? No, it really happened. She writhed in pain as she struggled to get up. The blows she suffered the night before were beginning to take effect: black and blue marks on her arms, fingers painted on her neck, a puffy blue bruise on her breast, and a soft tender abdomen. He hurt his little girl; he beat her in a rage with fists of fury and hands of steel. Tears swelled up in her eyes like little droplets of dew trickling down the petals of a flower. All this was meaningless, she thought.
“I don’t care if you’re seventeen, NO BOYFRIENDS!” he boomed, and that was the end of that, like being written on the stone tablet of a commandment that needed to be followed, or else!
She wanted to question his authority—wanted to know why? But she knew better than to go against the man who ruled with an iron fist. No one questioned Daddy—ever! That was the rule by which Esmeralda lived by and she never, ever challenged it—until that night…
His mistress new better, too. He slapped her around on many occasions. Esmeralda remembered once when Mistress left the iron sitting on top of Daddy’s favorite guayabera. It burned right through, and she knew she was going to get it. She got it that night, really bad. Not even a stack of three pillows was enough to mask the sound of skin smacking, followed by sharp cries for help.
Daddy was God, ruler over his own dominion. “Yo aqui mando!” (I’m the one that rules here) he would say in his big man way, waving his big man hand in the air as if threatening to strike.
Even Esmeralda’s grandmother counseled, “Esmeralda, it is our way of life. You cannot change us. That’s just the way things are. El hombre manda! The man rules, she would say. You need your father; do not dishonor him.”
She did not want to dishonor him, but Michael was special; he was different. Everything was done in secret. He stood tall and strong like a Spanish conquistador. His hair was the color of sand. He had milky white skin and gentle eyes like peaceful green meadows. And when he smiled, Esmeralda felt like she was on a carnival ride—the type that took her breath away and brought her stomach to her throat. He made her feel wanted, needed, valued. There was a genuine humbleness about him. He promised to love her, and only her. What a stark contrast he was to the way Daddy believed, always talking about the pelo del Diablo (the Devil’s hair). Daddy’s philosophy was that “every man carried with him un pelo del diablo on his head that would cause him to stray and seek another. It was a cross that every woman had to live with, a punishment that they had to endure for being the daughters of Eve.” That belief haunted her spirit and she swore that she would do everything in her power to keep that from happening to her, going to the end of the world to please her man. She’d show Daddy how wrong he was about his whole “pelo del Diablo” theory. If her Mother were around she’d tell him where he could stick that hair. Although Esmeralda was only seven when she left them, the memory of her mother’s spirit lived strongly within her. Mother didn’t put up with his crap, but I’m sure she grew tired of his torture. Just like Esmeralda had grown weary of living in fear. And now, she was thankful to God that she had found someone that would protect her from him.
When she met Michael, nothing else mattered; he was worth the risk. “He needs me,” she thought. “He loves me… he will take care of me? My tower, my strength, my protector.”
Michael stirred up a passion inside her that she didn’t know existed, or had learned to suppress. She remembered the night they first kissed. They met at her high school dance. Esmeralda danced the night away in her pulled up ponytail, black poodle skirt and white sneakers. The theme of the dance was “Living in the Fifties,” and they both looked like they were cast in “Grease.” He looked dashing in his tight black jeans and a white cotton shirt. The night came to an end, before she knew and she needed to rush home, like Cinderella at the ball. He walked her to her car, and they talked awhile under the dark starry sky. Michael drew closer. He grabbed her waist and touched her quivering lips with his. Her first reaction was to draw back, but she could not. She was aroused by his touch. It was the greatest feeling in the world. It was like eating a juicy sweet tangerine, while standing barefoot on the sand in the middle of a cool ocean breeze. It just took her away. She ran her fingers through the back of his neck, feeling the warmth of his skin, sending her stomach into a pit of flurries. He looked into her dark eyes and caressed her caramel colored arms, telling her how beautiful she was. No one had ever told her that before, not even Daddy. She always felt that she looked too much like her “worthless mother” and hearing him say that she was beautiful lighted her up inside. He leaned over and felt his body pressed up against her so close her breasts danced with the ripples of his muscular chest. The sweet dark scent of his spicy cologne intoxicated her. It was a beautiful wonderful night she would never forget—nothing like the fate of that terrible painful day.
When Daddy found out Esmeralda was seeing Michael he let it all out in a jealous rage. He blocked the door with the bed and there was nowhere else to run.
“You’re a little whore just like your mother, CHILD, and now, I’m gonna beat the whoreness out of you for lying to me…”
She stood defiantly and waited for her blows. She tried to block his charging fists to her stomach, and Mistress tried to stop him, but to no avail. Daddy yanked her by the hair and body slammed her to the nearest wall. Esmeralda flew onto the bed with his hands grasping tightly around her neck.
“No Daddy, No!” She gasped for air. Mistress climbed behind him and sunk her teeth into one of his ears. He yelled out in agony and loosened his grasp.
“Forgive me; I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Mistress cried. Esmeralda staggered out of the bed and ran out for what seemed like miles, never looking back. Pitch black, she ran through a back alley and scaled over a wire fence. She ran to the nearest phone and called Michael.
He was her savior and her strength. He would take care of her and find peace with someone who would love her unconditionally, promising she would always love him back.
She married him on the night of her graduation. She was eighteen. She looked forward to tending to Michael’s every need, resorting to the daily housewife chores of catering to her man. If he got home tired, he had a personal masseuse. When he was hungry, his cook was there to serve. His house was always spotless, and his bed was never cold. Esmeralda did everything she was trained to do, and she did it quite well. She could hear the words of her father echoing in her mind, “Remember the pelo del Diablo!” She worked twice as hard to please him, to get his approval, to get him to love her more than life itself, learning to follow the new rules of her house religiously.
She never spoke unless spoken to—didn’t look him in the eyes, kept her eyes on the floor when they went out, walked in his shadow, and always gave it away when he had the urge. Occasionally, she made mistakes and was sure to conceal her punishments under long-sleeved blouses, dark glasses, and several coats of heavy make-up. But it wasn’t enough to avoid the disdainful looks or incredulous stares whenever she went out.
It started with words that quickly led to fists. And when he did not come home on certain nights, she never questioned why. Perhaps Daddy was right about the “pelo del Diablo.” Maybe this was just the cross she had to bear for being a woman. This was all her fault and no matter how hard she tried she was nothing but an empty and lonely shell inside.
The only thing that brought her comfort was reading. In secret and through little white lies, she found time to escape the bondage of slavery and immerse herself in books at a little library located across the street from her home. Sitting in front of the computer, she typed the word “Woman” and in a flash the title, Woman Hollering Creek by Sandra Cisneros, appeared on the screen. She devoured that book voraciously, and then another, and another, and another. She could relate to the cruelties and injustices the characters suffered under the rule of tyrannical husbands and fathers. She could also relate to the imprisonment of Rafaela in House on Mango Street, Cisneros’ short story, “Rafaela who drinks Coconut and Papaya Juice on Tuesdays,” for she too, like Rafaela, lived a life of seclusion, locked away from society because her husband didn’t want anyone to even look at her. The papaya and coconut milk was to Rafaela what books were to Esmeralda. They took her to far away places, away from the four walls in the house that confined her. She found comfort and strength in knowing that she wasn’t alone, that it wasn’t her fault, that she didn’t deserve the cold stinging pain she felt coming from the back of a hand. She could also relate to Eliza Sommers, in Isabel Allende’s, Daughter of Fortune. Eliza Sommers lived part of her life disguised as a man to escape the cruelties that were inflicted upon single women during the California Gold Rush. If only she had the courage to do as Eliza had done. She read over and over again the following line until she knew it by heart, “I am finding new strength in myself; I may always have had it and just didn’t know because I never had to call on it… here men are proud, with no one above them but the sky overhead; they bow to no one… and I want to be one of them.” She, too, wished she could shed her old skin and conceal it with the identity of a man—to taste their freedom, their courage and strength. But soon, she began to recognize strength in herself and yearned to find a shadow of her own, free from the chain that weighed heavily around her neck.
Starved for knowledge she searched for information on shelters for battered women. Stealing moments when Michael was away with his mistress, she researched how to get scholarships and financial assistance to continue her education. She was determined to put an end to the pain. There was a time when she would have sacrificed everything to seek Michael’s approval just like she had done with Daddy, but not anymore.
She was going to put an end to cowering in a corner. It was time for her to stand defiantly again. And most importantly, she stopped feeling afraid of being alone. She saw herself in the mirror through new eyes. She was human, a person with feelings, and needs, and wants, and desires; yes, it was okay to have desires.
Esmeralda realized that she first had to love herself, discover who she was, and accept herself, before she could expect somebody else to love her. She no longer had to hide in Michael’s shadow, because she had formed one of her own. Esmeralda was no longer afraid. She just had to figure out a way to break through those chains, because if he couldn’t live with her, nobody else would either…
She would leave as soon as Michael left for his weekend excursion and catch the first bus ticket to a city five hours away from her town, where there would be a woman’s shelter waiting for her there. She could barely keep a steady hand when she served him coffee at the table.
“What the hell is wrong with you today? Haven’t you poured coffee before?!” he barked. “Worthless, like always…”
There would have been a time when those last few phrases would have sliced her heart in half and begged for his approval. But the thought of tasting freedom was much stronger than allowing herself to be turned into a blubbering sap. The minutes seemed to turn into hours and she couldn’t help throwing a casual glance at the front door every second he was there. This was the longest he had ever taken to leave, but she needed to refrain from showing any type of anxiety or he would catch on and force it out of her. When she heard the sound of the motor and the car leaving the garage, she ran to her bedroom and pulled the duffle bag from underneath her bed. The city bus was only a mile away and she could still make it if she sprinted her way there. There was no looking back once she made her way out that door. In haste, she twisted the doorknob leading to the outside.
As she stepped outside she made a motion to lock it, “Screw it, it’s not mine anymore,” she scoffed.
Rounding the corner to the house she heard a branch snap behind her and she whisked her neck around. Her heart throbbed in her chest. A small bird poked the ground for small twigs to use for her nest. She took in a deep breath and sighed with relief. A cool summer breeze swept her face and she took a moment to savor it. Suddenly, she caught the scent of spicy cologne and the hairs on her arms stood on end. Tears streamed down her face as fear paralyzed her body.
“You honestly thought I was stupid enough to let you go?”
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