Work Text:
Julieta wouldn’t have been surprised if “Sí, Abuela” had been Isabela’s first words. Both charmed and troubled, she watched as her little daughter tripped over herself to please her grandmother. And ever since her younger sister had begun to walk, Isabela pulled Luisa along the same path. Putting a hand on her swollen belly, Julieta wondered if the same would be her third’s child destiny as well.
#
“Isabela!” Alma’s dismayed voice rang through Casita.
The four year old jumped to her feet and ran to greet her grandmother at the door, beaming. “Look, Abuela! They’re jacarandas! Aren’t they pretty?”
“Isabela!” the woman repeated more firmly, only taking the flowers to pass them to Agustín.
Big, dark eyes looked up at her father in hurt and confusion as her grandmother knocked the earth from her hands and brushed it from her dress.
“Good little girls do not get dirty, especially not perfect ones like you. Let’s go in, mi amor.”
“But-”
“Come inside,” the matriarch insisted, putting an arm around the child and steering her toward the house.
Isabela hung her head. “Sí, Abuela.”
#
“Wow!” Isabela breathed upon a sundew bursting into being above her small palm. Two steps toward Alma’s room, she paused. She and Abuela didn’t have the same view of beauty, and she had unsuccessfully attempted to share her differing ideas too many times already. Instead, she turned and made her way to her old bedroom, the nursery where Luisa, Camilo, and Mirabel all resided.
Only Mirabel was there, having woken up early from her nap to stand quietly in her crib. The toddler’s face became luminescent at the sight of her big sister. “Isa!”
“Hola, Mira,” the seven year old warmly greeted the baby of their family. “Look, I made this for you.”
It didn’t seem possible, but even greater delight shone in Mirabel’s face. Excitedly, she reached for the flower and babbled to her hero.
But the flower unexpectedly …bit the toddler, as best Isabela could tell.
Surprise more than pain made Mirabel howl.
Of course, Alma got there first. “Isabela!” Not only did she slap the sundew away from her granddaughters, she stomped on it for good measure. “Where did you get that?”
Sad and scared, Isabela had a hard time confessing, “I- I made it, Abuela. I saw its picture in-”
Alma pointed straight into her eldest granddaughter’s face and told her, “You do not make that kind of flower, Isabela! It’s dangerous! Look what it does!”
Big, dark eyes once more looked above her in hurt and confusion. Guilt added to all the other emotions bubbling within her to see her littlest sister crying and clinging to their grandmother’s neck. Her hands reached for Mirabel. “I’m sorry, Mira, Abuela. I didn’t mean to,” she whispered around the lump in her throat. Tears started to slip down her face as well.
But Alma did not let Isabela hold Mirabel. Setting her feet wider apart to stare the older child down, she shifted her grip on the younger. “You must promise me, Isabela. You will never make a dangerous flower ever again. Do you understand me?”
“Sí, Abuela! Sí!”
At last, seeing how heartbroken her favored granddaughter was, Alma knelt down. “I know you didn’t mean to. You’re our perfect little angel and are going to make sure nothing like this ever happens again, sí?”
“Sí, Abuela! Never! I’m sorry!”
“There, there.” Using her mourning shawl, Alma tenderly wiped away Isabela’s tears.
And as wonderful as that and the ensuing hug felt to the child, they could not compare to sweet little Mirabel diving into her arms and going so far as to try and pat her cheeks dry.
“I love you, Mira,” Isabela whimpered. “And I’m so sorry.”
The baby gurgled cheerfully to try and make her eldest sister smile.
Alma smiled too.
#
Isabela sat at the vanity in her grandmother’s bedroom while Abuela sat on the bed behind her, brushing her hair.
Unable to help it, the child wheedled, “Please, Abuela? I-”
Alma ignored her. “367, 368, 3- Isabela, stop squirming.”
“But-”
“Isabela!”
For once, Isabela pushed back. “But everybody else gets to play outside! And Tía Pepa made it so nice and sunny! I want-”
“To play in the dirt like a little ruffian. It’s not fitting, Isabela. Especially at your age. You’re nearly eight now, and-”
The child used a defense she had overheard her father employ in his latest protest on her behalf. “Abuela, I’m not a doll. I’m a little girl, and-”
“And little girls do as they are told.”
“But Papá said-”
“Mi vida, your papá doesn’t understand. He isn’t special, perfect, like you. You-”
“I like my regular hair,” Isabela grumbled.
“Isabela, that’s enough.” Roughly, Alma dipped the bristles of the hairbrush back into the oil and then dragged it along the girl’s scalp through her long locks.
Tears sprung up in Isabela’s eyes. “Ow, Abuela! That hurts! Please-”
The old woman became stone-faced. “It wouldn’t hurt if you didn’t run through Casita, like I told you. And if you stopped moving so much now. No more squirming.”
“Please-”
“Isabela!”
“Stop!” A vine sprouted up from the floor and snatched the hairbrush from the old woman.
Stunned silence hung in the room for a moment.
“A-Abuela?” Isabela timidly questioned another moment later, gazing into the far-staring eyes reflected above her.
Alma soon shook off the recurrent nightmare of Pedro being snatched from her. Her mouth flattened into a hard line. “Give me the hairbrush, Isabela. Now. No more of this foolishness.”
The girl quickly complied. “Sí, Abuela.”
“From the beginning. 1, 2…”
Isabela sniffled, crossing her arms over her chest and hunching over them. She did not open her mouth again.
#
Days later, the same issue reared its head. Isabela even tried to avoid going into her grandmother’s room. For what seemed like hours each morning, the old woman worked very hard to make her granddaughter’s hair straight like her own, like it was before Mirabel was born.
Something about the youngest Madrigal’s birth, or Isabela turning six and a half, had made her hair wilder, like that of the rest of her family. But Isabela liked the wispy waves and slight curls she had gained. They reminded her of poincianas and tabebuias. Abuela, of course, did not like Isabela’s new hair. She did not see beauty in wildness, but in order. Even less did she appreciate deviations from her will, and the last person she would accept them from was her own little mini-me.
Finally having enough with Isabela’s reluctance and attempts at distracting her, even to escape her, Alma grabbed the girl firmly by the upper arm and marched her up the stairs. The child pouted but did not put up much resistance otherwise. She even sat still through the entire 500 strokes.
“It just won’t lay flat,” Alma complained. “I guess we’ll have to go to 1,000.” She shrugged both flippantly and determinedly before dabbing the brush in more oil.
“Abuela!” Isabela cried. “1,000?” The idea was simply too horrible for the girl to imagine. Surely, her grandmother must be joking. She tried edging off the stool. “Maybe it needs a break! L-like me!” Isabela stuttered with a nervous grin. “I’ll come back later.”
Once more, that hard hand fell upon her and restrained her. “You will sit down and sit still, mi amor,” Alma pressed. Before Isabela could protest again, she added, “Is it really so terrible to spend time with your abuela?”
“No, Abuela! I love spending time with you! It’s just-”
Alma sighed and shook her head. “It’s just that you want to go outside. Isabela, you’re-”
“I love it, Abuela!” her granddaughter cried, beginning to tear up. “You never let me play outside, and I really love it! Please, Abuela? Tía Pepa made it rain. Rain helps flowers grow! It’s my gift!”
“Mi amor, your gift is to create flowers without dirt and mud. Don’t you see? Your purpose is pristine beauty. You are pristine beauty-”
Isabela crossed her arms again and huffed, “Not my hair. Not to you.”
“But we can fix that, mi vida. Sit back down and-”
“I don’t want to sit back down! It’s not fair!” she knew better than to say.
Mirabel’s laughter filtered in through the window shutters as if on cue, seeming to taunt the golden child purposely. Isabela frowned as she watched her baby sister splash in a big puddle, even Luisa hard at work in it, making castles for the toddlers. Tío Bruno tickled Camilo beside the girls. Dolores, per usual, was nowhere to be seen, probably hiding in her room to block out the sounds of the light thunder.
“Why don’t you brush their hair?” the eldest Madrigal grandchild all but accused. “Luisa’s hair is curlier than mine! Dolores’s too! And Mirabel! Camilo, most of all!”
“Isabela, they are not perfect. That is your place, mi vida. This is how you make your family proud!”
The girl bit back the retort that she didn’t want to make her family proud, just wanted to be happy, for once. She plunked herself back down as bidden. Despite her best efforts to stay still and quiet, she soon began to cry. To her utter discouragement, Alma did not respond but just kept counting.
And still Mirabel, Luisa, and Camilo laughed.
The droning numbers began to sound galling to Isabela. Using her grandmother’s phrasing, she exclaimed, “That’s enough! No more brushing!”
Alma stopped counting, and her voice plummeted into the depths. “What did you say to me?”
Not quite knowing the fire she was playing with, Isabela repeated herself. “I said that’s enough! Brushing isn’t working, so just let it be! Let me be!” Hot with humiliation, not wanting to see disappointment, let alone hurt or anger, on her grandmother’s face, the girl hopped up to flee from her room.
Unfortunately, that vice grip on her shoulder was back.
“What did you say to me?” Alma asked again in a deadly whisper.
Fear joined the sniffling shaking Isabela’s voice as she swiped at her eyes. “E-enough! N-no more!”
“So, you don’t want me to use this hairbrush to brush your hair anymore?”
Eyes and throat stinging, Isabela cried, “No!”
“Fine.”
Isabela’s gut twisted rather than swooped with victory when Alma lifted her from the stool.
And she was right. Rather than set her granddaughter on her feet, Alma repositioned the girl to lay across her lap. “I will use this hairbrush in another way then.”
Isabela didn’t have time to understand what that meant before the hairbrush cracked down on her behind. That first strike surprised her so much that she didn’t even get to scream. Instead, she gasped and tensed up entirely. The second and third wallops only got startled squeaks from her. Just as she was about to start sobbing, Dolores burst into the room.
“Abuela!”
Alma calmly stopped paddling her eldest granddaughter to address the second-eldest. “Go out and close the door, Dolores. Wait for me in the hall.”
Shaking harder than her cousin was, the small girl tremulously whispered, “B-but, Abuela-”
“Ahora, Dolores!” was punctuated by another sharp snap of wood against cloth-covered skin.
At last, Isabela yelped; Dolores did the same as she slapped her hands over her ears.
“Please don’t hurt Isabela!” In a jittery rush, she added, “I-it hurts me too!”
Then both girls were weeping.
The haze cleared from Alma’s vision as she took in the pain and terror on two little faces, of people she loved the most. Nevertheless, she shook her head and grasped tighter to her control. “If it hurts your ears, then leave the room, like I told you, Dolores. Isabela and I aren’t finished here.”
Isabela interrupted whatever her cousin might have to say with, “Abuela, I’m sorry! I’m really, really sorry! I-I-I won’t a-argue anymore! O-o-or f-fidget! Please!”
Alma dropped the hairbrush to the floor, causing the children to flinch. Quickly, she righted Isabela, plunking the girl into her lap with more force than necessary, but stopping the paddling all the same. She wrapped both arms around the girl and held her tight through her tears. “I didn’t want to have to do that, Isabela,” she murmured. “But I need you to understand. You must listen to Abuela! Claro?”
The child clinging to her and streaming tears couldn’t answer verbally but fervently nodded her head.
“That’s my good girl. My angel!”
“S-s-sí, Abuela.”
“Our perfect Isabela,” Alma murmured, somewhere between fond and foreboding. “And you’re going to be a very good girl too, aren’t you, Dolores?”
The younger child nodded as well. And she did not want to come forward when Alma lifted a hand to invite her into an embrace but skittered to accept it, nonetheless.
Their grandmother pulled the girls closer to herself. “Now, Isabela, you need to apologize to Dolores as well, for making her have to listen to that.”
The thought that that was unfair was swiftly driven from Isabela’s head by her fear. She knew that she could not defy Alma anymore or ever again. “S-sí, abuela. I’m sorry, Lores,” she whispered.
Dolores rushed to hug her, crying even harder but no louder.
It was quite sometime before any of them could let the others go.
Half-firm, half-embarrassed, Alma finally sent Dolores from the room to go get an arepa from her tía. Not only a concession to her intended extension of Isabela’s punishment—sending the girl to her room for siesta without lunch—she realized that she did want Isabela healed, if only so as not to have to brook another confrontation with Agustín. She knew Dolores wouldn’t dare share her and Isabela’s little secret.
And she knew she had to make the ordeal worth it. So, steeling her heart against any remaining pity, she sat Isabela back on the stool and resumed brushing the girl’s hair. To test her granddaughter, she announced that they were still going to 1,000 but starting again from zero.
Her perfect Isabela passed with flying colors when she winced only for a second, sat up straighter, winced again at the added pain the movement caused her, and then just nodded with all her heart. “Sí, Abuela!” the seven year old cheered. “Th-thank you, Abuela,” she added, the manic grin stretched across her face bringing to mind one of Pepa’s and hitting Alma in the heart anew.
That nervousness redoubled upon seeing the darkening of the woman’s eyes. “H-h-how about 2,000, Abuela? A-a-and I won’t ask to go outside never, ever again!” the child offered frenetically.
Alma smiled at last. “No, mi vida, 1,000 is enough. But I do like your idea to not ask about going outside. Let’s never speak of it again.”
Isabela’s smile slipped before she rushed to hitch it back in place. “S-sí, Abuela,” left her trembling lips in a breath. She didn’t even ask or reach for the arepa when Dolores brought it to her. “Thank you, Prima. But I think I will wait until Abuela’s done brushing my hair. R-right, Abuela?”
“Sí, mi amor.” Alma put down the hairbrush to hug her granddaughter from behind. “You make me so happy. My perfect little angel,” she sighed in contentment. The second her eyes closed, Dolores and Isabela met each other gaze’s in a glance.
Then they stared in opposite directions.
#
Late that night, Isabela snuck into Luisa’s room but hesitated by the bed.
“What’s the matter, Isa?” the younger girl asked immediately. Luisa rolled over and lit a candle when her sister didn’t answer. A sleepy, peaceful grin broke across her face. “I know. You want a hug. ’Cuz I give the best hugs, huh?”
Isabela still didn’t speak. Sniffling, she climbed up to cuddle with her sister, already able to curl into the now much-bigger child’s welcoming embrace.
Worry colored Luisa’s tone when she felt her sister’s trembling and tears. “Did you have a bad dream, Isa? I can beat up monsters, you know.”
The golden child giggled however tearfully and clung tighter to the younger girl. “Yeah, I need you to save me,” she said after a while.
“Okay,” Luisa mumbled, well on her way back to the dream world. “I’ll protect you from anything.”
Oh, how Isabela wished that was so as she began to drift off as well.
A tiny “Me too,” just barely dinged the silence of the night but gave Isabela a start, just the same. Then Dolores snuggled up to her other side. “Even Abuela, if I can,” she breathed into her cousin’s neck.
Big, dark eyes flitted to the round face above them, and their owner sighed in relief to see that Luisa was fast asleep. “That’s okay. I’m fine. …I’ll be fine,” Isabela muttered more to herself than anyone else. Her small hands buried themselves in her bedmates’ curly hair, both soothing and envious.
Twin deep sighs blew out the candle.