2. ISELA IS A DREAMER
ISELA IS A DREAMER
Isela’s passion was meticulous, but that didn’t mean she was picky about finding a man.
He could be a drinker, as long as his hair shined like an obsidian stone and his cologne smelled like the depths of the forest. He could have no money, as long as he could hold a conversation, make her laugh and give her multiple orgasms. She enjoyed men who were good with their hands and the earth.
She enjoyed the bravado of a man who insisted on dancing close enough to inhale each other.
Isela lived inside her head. In this luminous landscape, she was given the treatment of an ancient goddess. Devotions and offerings and songs were conducted in her honor. The crown on her head erupted upwards in bundles of bright pink camellias and round purple allium bulbs.
Isela didn’t know how to love herself but she carried theories.
She knew how to mold herself in order to make a man fall for her.
She knew how to use her hands, the sweetness of her tongue, and the poignant stories about her childhood, as a wild little thing.
Isela alleged no desire for attention, but disclosed endless stories that she knew weren’t true.
There was a tingle between her legs and at the tips of her fingers when she lied.
Her mouth salivated. She became wet. In truth, she wanted the responses.
The questions after. People with their mouths wide, spouting how courageous she was, asking her how anyone could survive such a life.
When she was five, she went missing in the middle of a tourist town.
On a September road trip at a gas station stop, Isela found herself compelled to climb a southern live oak tree across the street.
Her mother, Rita, found her hours later wandering along the edge of a riverbend where cottonwood trees ignited in bursts of yellows and oranges.
Isela could not remember what happened during that lost time, but she happily filled in the blanks for anyone who asked.
In Isela’s version of the story, she was kidnapped at the hands of a beautiful and mysterious woman with honey eyes, red lips, and floral perfume.
The mystery woman dragged her by the hair and then attempted to drown her in the river.
Isela opened her eyes underwater as small bluegills tried to nibble at her hair and her eyebrows.
The beautiful woman became distracted by a screeching baby in the distance and let Isela go.
She was lucky to be alive. She proclaimed this with tears in her eyes.
When Isela was a teenager, her mother slapped her across the face because Isela insisted on getting married to an unnamed man who was twenty-one years her senior.
This “elder,” as Rita put it, was a creep and a pervert.
The unnamed man brought Isela fresh flowers every morning; he left them on the porch like a lovestruck fool.
On Sunday nights, he snuck into Isela’s room, stood in the corner like a demonic entity and watched her sleep.
Rita caught onto the peeping and beat the shit out of the elder with a baseball bat, promising she would meet him in hell.
In Isela’s version of the story, her admirer wasn’t that old.
The fact was simple: her mother never wanted her to be happy, as Rita was unlucky in love.
So, she locked Isela in an unfinished dusty basement with a candlestick, a loaf of bread, and a bible until she finally agreed not to marry the older man.
Isela’s breakup stories were typical. Men left her for wars. Men left her for alcohol. Men left her because they could.
Isela considered herself a dreamer. A woman of the imagined arts.
When Isela met Alfonso days after she turned thirty-three, her dreams overflowed.
They dated for four months and became official.
Isela beamed. He was kind, handsome, and wore his heart on his sleeve.
Isela indulged herself and she lied to Alfonso.
She told him that her two daughters were her younger sisters.
She allowed her dreams to become bigger than herself.
Her daughters were not going to get in the way.
She envisioned a future with the family she always wanted. In a small house with a wild garden out front. The backyard, nothing but forest. The smell of pine and mud every morning. The migration of small winter birds looking out for each other overhead. An enchanting little life.
Isela could not imagine giving up her dream life.
Bile bloomed in her chest from anxiety. She wasn’t going to let go of Alfonso.
She was manifesting a life around him. He was the key.
She needed alignment. An aura cleanse. A fresh start.
So, she sent her daughters away. Lucia and Isabel.
They were fourteen and twelve at the time.
She handed them their birth certificates and an envelope filled with 213 one-dollar bills.
She didn’t kiss them goodbye or feel an ache swell in the back of her throat as she shut the door on them.
She was ready to start over. She was ready for a new life.