Mary Alice Monroe - Girl In The Mirror

“As it stands, Papa is right. I am the only one in this family who can rebuild this nursery, and if you’d quiet your waspish tongue long enough to consider it, you’d realize it’s true. I didn’t come here to take anything from anybody. I came here to help my family. And I intend to honor that promise. But when I’m done, I’m out of here. It’s clear nothing has changed. I’m still ‘pobre negrito’ in your eyes. Undeserving. But I’ve learned something in that wide world out there. I deserve everything I work hard for.”

He scanned the faces of his family. They were flustered and silent. Then he followed his father out to the front porch.

He found Luis standing, one foot before the other, leaning against the porch railing. His eyes stared out at the dark. Michael knew it must seem to the old man that in rejecting the land he rejected him. Was it true? he wondered, gazing at the fertile property stretched out before him. Was he rejecting his father or the land?

“I will give you one year,” he said aloud. “This I will do out of love for you and my mother.”

“One year is not enough. We cannot rebuild in that time. Two. I need two. We can do much in that time.”

Michael set his jaw, realizing that a two-year leave would jeopardize all he’d worked for. Yet his father was right. Two years would be enough time to begin again.

“Agreed,” he replied. “If you promise not to hound me about my decision. After that—” he placed the papers firmly back into his father’s hand “—we will talk again.”

His father turned his head and studied Michael, staring intensely into his eyes, as though to catch a loophole. Whatever he found must have satisfied him because he nodded, squinting, and at last accepted back the papers.

“Starting when?”

“March. In time to complete orders for the spring.”

“Not soon enough! I begin in two weeks.”

“Mail me the materials. I’ll do it from Chicago.”

A loud, boisterous laugh burst from Luis’s lips and he wrapped his arm around his son’s shoulder, squeezing possessively. “How can I lose?” he asked in a voice gruff with emotion. “I know my land. She is like a fine, fat woman. All fertile and sweet smelling. You will plant your seeds in her and she will make you hers. See? I know you, too. You are my son. You are machismo. You will never turn your back on her that you love most.”

In Chicago, Ascension Church was ablaze in light and song as the jubilant congregation celebrated midnight mass. Though it was packed to the rafters, Charlotte and Helena sat in the reserved section near the altar, a boon for spending the day decorating the church. Charlotte looked with a proprietary air at the yards of crisp white linen trimmed in green embroidery, the six handsome balsams twinkling in white lights, and clustered around them the scores of fresh red and white poinsettias.

“Beautiful,” Charlotte sighed.

Father Frank offered them a wink of approval from the altar.

Charlotte’s heart was filled with thoughts of beauty this Christmas. Dr. Harmon had presented his final plan and, though she was shaken, the composite of her new face was so beautiful he could have wrapped and tied it up with a bow as a gift.

She’d stared at the sketches. “I can’t believe that will be me,” she’d said, breathless.

“Believe it. I can make it happen.”

“But the nose. You’ve changed it. It isn’t mine.”

“It will be,” he replied, persistent.

“I don’t know. My mother, she won’t like to see me so changed.”

“How do you like it, Miss Godowski?”

Her gaze lingered on the beautiful curve of the jaw. “I love it.” She then slipped a piece of paper over the face so only the eyes were left showing. “Is it still me?”

“Of course it is. And how clever of you to look at the eyes, Charlotte. That, my dear, reveals the real you.”

I wonder, she thought to herself. Yet, she had agreed to the design, refraining from telling her mother about the nose. Her new face was her gift to herself. Her gift to her mother was her new job. Dr. Harmon had kindly offered her the position of accountant for his practice at a handsome salary. Now her mother wouldn’t have to worry about the money coming in. She’d surprise her mother with the news when they broke the fast after mass tonight.

When the choir began singing “Joy to the World,” Charlotte joined in, singing loudly, joyfully—meaning every word. Her world was beautiful, full of joy and hope. How could her heart contain such happiness?

Three months later, Dr. Harmon methodically removed the bandages that wrapped Charlotte’s head while she lay motionless upon the hospital bed. Like a high priest and a mummy, she thought, staring out from an open patch. Three men and a woman in their late twenties, cloaked in white jackets and clutching clipboards, all inched closer, their eyes focused on her face. They were residents in cosmetic surgery, Dr. Harmon had told her. Her case was particularly interesting, and over the past few weeks, they’d stopped by frequently to check her vitals, ask the same questions and read over her chart. Dr. Harmon allowed no one but himself to direct this case. Charlotte sensed from the residents and nurses that he’d taken an especially keen interest in her case, and within the walls of Six West, where Dr. Harmon ruled, she felt like a queen.

Two weeks had passed since her operation, weeks of desperate arguments with her mother. Weeks of praying that the operation would be a success while beating her breast in worry if she even had a right to pray, now that she’d “defied God’s will,” as her mother claimed. Charlotte felt again the prickly surge of resentment. She was not her mother’s sacrificial lamb. How easy for her mother to condemn her decision. Helena had a pretty face.

Charlotte didn’t blame her mother, however. Charlotte was simply past the point of being able to accept her ugliness as God’s will. To her mind, God gave her this life and it was up to her to make the best of it.

Well, she thought, tapping her foot against the bed’s cool metal rail in a dance of anxiety. This was the moment of truth. There would be no more waiting. As the bandages were unwound and gathered from around her head, she could smell the oddly sweet, pungent odor of dried blood and her stitches. Loosened from the constraints, her jaw throbbed, the nerve endings tingled.

“Just a few more…” muttered Dr. Harmon. The seconds seemed an eternity as his delicate fingers twisted and unwrapped the bandages.

When at last the final layer was removed, Charlotte’s face felt tingly and raw, exposed to the elements. Dr. Harmon examined her, touching her face with confidence. It stung where his fingers met skin. When he was done he cradled her head in his nimble hands and studied her with his pale, piercing eyes. Time seemed to stand still as she searched his face for some sign of his approval or distress.

“Are you ready?” he asked at length. His tone was fatherly.

She couldn’t speak. Very gingerly she brought her fingers to her jaw and palpated the soft flesh. It felt squishy and swollen, like a partially deflated balloon. Yet even in its fullness she detected the unmistakable curve of a jaw and, traveling farther forward, a jutting of bone that could only be a chin.

She glanced at her mother. Helena was peering down, her eyes squinting and her mouth working silently. She looked appalled.

Charlotte swallowed hard. Her throat was as dry as a desert.

“Mirror?” Dr. Harmon asked a nurse.

It took a Herculean effort just to sit up. The room spun and nausea rose in her throat, but she fought it back down, determined to sit. In an odd way, she felt as though she were about to meet someone new. Someone important.