Sofia was always caught and held by her mother’s frenzied seductions. Teresa’s net, woven from perfume and movement, was underscored by a hunger so deep that Sofia came to believe that desire was her mother. She fell in love with her every time she watched her outline her big brown eyes with kohl the color of sorrow. She studied her mother’s reflection on the vanity’s mirror closely as she created a deep blush of skin on her face and chest with a big brush she dipped in coral powder. Tiny sparkles glittered in the deep V of her breasts. When Sofia saw her mother pinching her cheeks and biting down on her lips so they’d get pink and swollen, Sofia bit her own–the taste of blood, warm and salty. Mami.
How do I look, mi amor, how do I look? Pulling Sofia up from the bed where she kneeled to look at her, to assure her that she was irresistible, that this fish would not break the line, that it would be reeled in like the magic fish of that old tale Sofia had read in her book of folk tales. The fish would ask, What do you want? You can have three wishes. And her mother would say, a house, I want a casita of my own, and a yard with green grass, and a car, and a life like women outside this barrio have, a real life, vacations. It’s OK if I have to have a man give me these things. I can handle a man. I can make a man happy. And the fish would answer, you shall have what you wish for, and more.
You look muy bella, Mami. You look beautiful. Will you be home tonight?
I do not know. Already her mother’s eyes were on the door. The pull of the ocean, a full moon. Fish. You shall have what you wish for, and more.
Born in Puerto Rico and raised in Paterson, New Jersey, Judith Ortiz Cofer now makes her home in Georgia. She is an award-winning poet, essayist, and novelist, whose work explores the experience of being Puerto Rican and living, writing, and teaching in the United States. She is the author of The Line of the Sun, The Meaning of Consuelo, Women in Front of the Sun: On Becoming a Writer, and most recently, Call Me Maria.