The night Susana goes off to be the wife of Roberto Salas de la Cruz, I lie awake wondering if it will be different now that I am the oldest child in the house. When neighbors talk about what a good wife I would make because I am so devoted to my parents and the baby, sometimes I want to cry out that they don’t understand. I don’t care about making some man happy--all I want is for my mother and father to say what a good job I am doing, to notice how hard I try.
In any case, I am too important to Papa’s livelihood to consider letting me marry when I’m older. It’s Luisa whose future hips get talked about, how she will bear some man’s children and shop for his vegetables. Sometimes I glimpse pity when the neighbors look at me, as if it is already decreed that I will end up like the shriveled-up old crone at the end of our street, the one whose house Luisa and I hurry by.
Why doesn’t anyone ask me what I want? I catch myself grousing like Susana as I move through my days, annoyed that I get too much of the kind of attention I don’t want and not enough of what I do.
How could I forget that the sheddim are always lurking, listening to turn idle complaints into fateful wishes they can grant? “You think other people are happier than you?” the Evil Eye whispers. “You selfish child--just see what I have in mind for you.”