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“This isn’t working,” Isabela huffed, throwing down her needle and thread with a clatter.
“It’s not working because you just started embroidering for the first time today,” Mirabel said patiently. “You can’t honestly think that you would have mastered it already?”
Judging by Isabela’s expression, that was exactly what she thought.
“Let me take a look,” Mirabel said, scooching her chair closer to her sister to peer at the tangle of string and fabric lying on the table. She bit back the urge to giggle. Isabela, perfect as she may be, was evidently not a natural craftswoman.
Even after a multitude of explanations, demonstrations, and eventually a very tedious half-hour in which Mirabel painstakingly marked guide dots across the stretched fabric where Isabela could follow them, what lay in front of her sister was what could politely be called a mess. The cloth was puckered and ripped, the string split and fraying, and, somehow, the needle was bent significantly to the left.
“Woah,” Mirabel said, in spite of herself. “Um. How did this happen?”
“I don’t know,” snapped Isabela. “I thought I was doing what you showed me, but I couldn’t get the needle to come through where I wanted it, and then the thread tangled on itself and I couldn’t get the knot out. I thought that if I just kept going then maybe it would work itself out, or that I would get the hang of it, or… I don’t know. Look, maybe this just isn’t for me, okay? I should pr-”
“Woah, hey, no,” Mirabel interjected. “We can’t give up on it this easily! I know that you’re frustrated. I mean, I don’t want to push you or anything, but I think you just need to get the hang of it.” She thought for a second. “Let me go grab something, okay?”
Isabela hesitated for a moment, then nodded begrudgingly. Mirabel lifted her feet off the floor as her chair slid back smoothly, then turned to the side. She sprung up and sprinted out of the kitchen. Isabela could hear her thundering up the stairs in her haste. She sighed and cupped her head into her hands momentarily, taking a deep breath. This was exactly why she never tried anything like this.
For the majority of her life, any skill she had, she had been able to excel at it almost immediately. Grace, charm, sprouting beautiful flowers from midair - she had always been able to instantly impress anyone with her ability. When Abuela had first hinted that a match with the Guzmáns could be beneficial to the family, Isabela knew exactly what she was being asked to do.
She had seen Mariano a few times before in town, and she knew that he always went to the market to buy fresh fruit for his Mamá on Tuesdays at noon. She had quietly paid the street performers ahead of time and got herself into position so that she would get there just as he entered the produce building. Isabela began tossing small bundles of flowers to anyone mingling in the square. While her being in town was no rare event, the music and strong pleasant smells quickly attracted an audience. She put on her best flawless smile and began to dance, offering her hands to the small children who tripped over themselves trying to grab at the petals falling down from above.
Isabela was very well practiced at acting natural when she knew she was under observation. She tossed her shiny hair around, spun until her skirts bloomed out, and made sure that just as Mariano pushed through the curtain covering the building’s entrance, she was in the midst of delicately placing a flower crown on the head of one of the smallest children who was gazing up at her in speechless adoration.
Although she pretended to not notice him, Isabela was paying close attention to Mariano’s body language out of the corner of her eye. Just as she had hoped, he was an easy sell. He had taken exactly two steps forward before stopping in his tracks to stare at her. Isabela peeked at him on one of her graceful twirls, sprouting flower petals and intact blooms onto the growing crowd. He was transfixed by her, his eyes wide and his mouth slightly open.
Even easier than I thought, Isabela mused to herself, equal parts self-satisfied and nauseated. She pushed the latter emotion down before she even had time to fully register what it was.
For the family. For the Madrigals. She repeated to herself, flashing her blinding smile to the crowd before finally going in for the kill. She let herself drift slightly towards Mariano, who straightened up as he saw her approach. He had put the bag of fruits down beside him to clap along with the music. Perfect.
Isabela expertly pretended to be distracted by the group of children now clamoring around her, and, just as she came within range of Mariano, she slowly caught her toe on a jutting cobblestone and began to fall towards him.
She honestly didn’t fully trust him to catch her, and was ready to spring up a convenient flower bed if he didn’t, but Mariano played the dashing prince as though he had been waiting to do so his entire life. He went halfway to his knee and got one arm behind her shoulder blades just in time to keep her from losing her balance completely.
She let herself sink into his embrace and fell backward into her own mind as she put on the perfect half-bashful, half-embarassed expression while she slowly raked her eyes up his face and gazed into his eyes through her lashes.
Charming people was as easy as breathing to her, and Mariano was an even more willing dupe than most. As soon as the music had died down, she had waved her hand and cleared up the remaining petals, and had graciously given large bouquets to the remaining children, Mariano asked her to go out with him. She batted her lashes and agreed coyly as her stomach turned.
For. The. Family. She told herself as she watched him retreat, having gathered up the bag and headed for his home. He could be worse. He could be so much worse. He seems clean, he’s clearly willing to help with chores, and he didn’t even try to grope me when I fell onto him. She paused for a moment, then shook her head gently. No. Not ‘he could be worse’. He’s perfect. Perfect for the family. Perfect for me. This is perfect. It has to be perfect.
When Isabela returned to the Casita, she proudly let Abuela know that a romantic evening between her and Mariano had been secured for the following week. When Abuela clasped her hands together in her own and beamed at her, Isabela could barely even feel the repulsion churning in her stomach anymore.
And, really, he could have been worse. He was always polite to her family and respectful to her, always making Papá laugh and lavishing Mamá with compliments about her cooking. He was more than willing to wait until they were married, if that was what she wanted. She could keep him at bay by stroking his chest with her gentle fingers and kissing his neck when they were alone.
It seemed all he really wanted was to be close to her. He would wrap his arms around her waist as they lay together in Isabela’s room, the flowers that padded the floor keeping them slightly engulfed. In those moments, when he was clinging to her, snoring lightly, as she stared at the ceiling high above them, she could even convince herself that they could truly be happy together. That she loved him back.
In reality, he was becoming exhausting to be around. She began to dread having him over or going out with him. The only thing they did together that she enjoyed was going down to the village at dusk to dance in the streets with other members of the town. Where she could leap and twirl and ignore the warmth in her stomach when she would hand bouquets to the other young women in town and their eyes would linger on each other for a moment too long.
But every time she would return, Abuela would praise her grace and beauty, cover her hands with her own, and tell her how proud her Abuelo would have been of her, and what a good thing this was. For the family. And that was enough for her to plan to continue biting her tongue and being exactly what she was supposed to be for the rest of her life.
“I’ve got it!”
Mirabel’s voice broke through Isabela’s thoughts. She blinked twice and took in what her sister was holding. It was a large wooden needle, bigger than a large toothpick, and a huge ball of yarn. Isabela flipped her eyes back and forth at the supplies her sister held, looked up at Mirabel’s triumphant grin, and raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow in an expression all too familiar to them both.
“Aaaand… what is it?” she asked, her voice clearly betraying her confusion and irritation. Her annoyance was mostly with herself, but her sister didn’t know that. Mirabel’s face fell the tiniest bit and Isabela instantly felt regret and shame. She knew better than to speak to her youngest sister like that, but she had done it for so long it had become something of an indulgent bad habit. Pick on the sibling who everyone already snaps at. She would push the bad feeling away every time she did it, hoping, every time, that it would make her feel good about herself, triumphant at how much better she was, how much more beneficial to the family she was. But all that was ever there was shame. And fear.
She needed to stop doing that.
“I’m sorry,” Isabela apologized. It was Mirabel’s turn to raise her eyebrows.
“I just… I don’t feel like I’m any good at it, and I don’t like not feeling good at things. And this looks like it’s for babies,” she added, her voice breaking slightly on the last word.
“Hey, hey, woah, not at all!” Mirabel said, shocked at seeing her sister’s large, beautiful doe eyes filling with tears. What had she said to upset Isa like this? She thought she had been patient and gentle. She thought this would help. Mirabel chewed the inside of her lip for a moment.
“I didn’t mean that you were a baby. I use this stuff all the time! It’s how I added the big yarn stitches on Antonio’s toy jaguar, you know that one?”
Isabela nodded. She was constantly picking it up off the floor after Antonio whizzed by with his entourage of animals. Within a few minutes, he would always realize that it had fallen out of his pocket and come looking for it.
Once he came to ask where it was and she hadn’t seen it, and the two of them looked for it together until they heard Camilo whispering for them to come over and look at something in the other room. The cousins had exchanged a glance and joined him in the doorway where he was watching Tío Bruno, sitting very lopsided in one of the large chairs in front of the fire, his ruana gathered tightly around him, sleeping soundly with Antonio’s stuffed jaguar in his arms. Since then, she had begun to occasionally leave it where it had fallen. It always seemed to make its way back to Antonio. Eventually.
“Well, that’s what this does. It’s a lot easier to grab onto and you can see what you’re doing waaay better. Maybe we should try something else! Umm, is there anything you’d want to make? Anything small and simple?”
Isabela thought for a moment. Her first thought was flowers, of course, and she opened her mouth to say so before realizing that she didn’t actually want that. She wanted something else. Something her.
She looked at all the embroidery Mirabel had done on her own dress and felt an unexpected surge of love for her sister. She was so creative and talented, and she had treated Isabela with kindness when she had done nothing to deserve it. Isabela swallowed hard, knowing that crying would just make Mirabel think she had done something wrong. Her eyes landed on a patch her younger sister wore on her chest, up by the butterfly on her shoulder. A rainbow. Pink, purple, and blue.
“I want to make one of those,” she said, pointing at it.
“One of which? Oh, uhh…” Mirabel stuttered as she realized which one Isabela was pointing at. The elder sister waved her hand.
“I’ll make it look like the ones Tía Pepa makes,” she explained, knowingly sparing her sister from having to explain the unusual color scheme.
“Oh! Uh, sounds great, Isa!” Mirabel said, quietly relieved. “I’ll go grab you some felt and we can get started!”
She bounded back up the stairs. Isabela carefully threaded the much larger needle, getting it right on the fourth try. She was practicing the dipping and pulling motion she had been taught when her sister came back with the fabrics. Mirabel pulled the embarrassing previous project off the table and placed it on the seat opposite her, out of view. She showed Isabela how simple it was to just join the two pieces of fabric together with the large needle and yarn, and sat patiently as her older sister painstakingly stitched the carefully cut colors onto the backing.
As Isabela sewed carefully, she thought back to how secretly grateful she had been when Mirabel had startled her during Mariano’s proposal. She genuinely felt bad for breaking his nose — she didn’t want him to get hurt — but the more she thought about why she was so angry about her ruined proposal, the clearer it became that her fury actually stemmed from seeing the angry and disappointed look on Abuela’s face, suddenly directed, for the first time, at her.
She was mortified and ashamed. She hadn’t meant to let it slip to Mirabel that she actually didn’t want to marry Mariano, and in the moment she was horrified, but after everything had played itself out Dolores had sheepishly asked if, since Isa didn’t seem interested anymore, could she possibly express her feelings to her cousin’s now ex-fiancé?
Isabela was so relieved that she flung herself onto Dolores. She had felt her cousin stiffen up in surprise, then relax into the embrace when she realized that she wasn’t mad. Isabela realized, in that moment, what a terror she had unknowingly been to her family. She was proud, vain, and haughty, but she decided then that if she wanted Abuela to change for the better, it was her responsibility to be better to her relatives as well. And maybe stop showing off so much. That realization stung, but it was true.
Isabela shook her head softly and smiled to herself. She had been genuinely overjoyed at the look on Mariano’s face when Dolores had taken his hands. He really was a good and kind person, and they made a beautiful couple. She didn’t mind at all the thought of living with him as a cousin-in-law someday. He deserved someone who really loved him.
Isabela pulled the final stitches through the rainbow patch. She turned to Mirabel to ask for help tying it off but found her sister laying forward on the table with her head on her arms, sleeping quietly. Eeesh, she thought. Had it really taken her that long?
It didn’t matter. What mattered was that she had made it and that it was real, and it was honest, and it was hers. Isabela tied the thread in half a dozen knots before cutting the excess off. “Good enough,” she said out loud to herself. If there was something wrong Mirabel would help her fix it. She quietly got up from the table, leaving her sister to sleep.
Isabela walked out of the kitchen towards the side stairs as she ran a pin through the back of the patch. She reached the first landing and looked at herself in the reflection of the glass that hung in front of Abuelo Pedro’s portrait. She pushed her hair behind her shoulders and carefully affixed the pin to her chest, in the same place Mirabel wore hers, but on the opposite side. Isabela looked at herself in the glass. The rainbow popped against the dark purple of her lacey dress.
Her eyes focused on the portrait behind the glass, then, of the grandfather she had never known. She had walked by the portrait thousands of times, always seeing it, but never really looking at it. He gazed down on her with warm brown eyes and a kind, proud smile on his face. She returned it.
Isabela turned around and descended the stairs again, a new sense of calm and peace overtaking her. Excitement, too. She realized she hadn’t felt genuine excitement in… years, at least. Nothing was planned for her anymore. She was no longer beholden to pleasing her family through beauty or marriage. She was free to make them happy by being herself, and by encouraging the rest of her family to embrace themselves as well instead of elbowing them to the side, desperate to prove her worth again and again.
Isabela smiled, touched her hand gently to the rainbow affixed above her heart, and stepped through the front doors of the Casita, into the late afternoon sun.