Isabella became Iiisssaaa, moments after she was born. Her older brother, Miguel Trubino was five years old and was unable to pronounce her name as he held her in his twig-like arms at the hospital after her birth. What seeped between his jagged teeth was Iiisssaaa!
Their mother, had only minutes before pushed her newborn daughter through the narrow opening of her vagina the way you would force a boiled egg, absent of it’s shell, into a long stemmed shot glass. As she sat, her back propped on flat hospital pillows, her legs stretched beneath the thin blanket, she smiled and said, “¿Iiisssaaa? Qué lindo nombre.”
Iiisssaaa became: Isabella Rosalinda Trubino, weighing 7 lbs, 6 oz, and 13 in.
Isabella would grow up with a preference for knitting rather than sports, reading over socializing, and wearing rainbow colored clothing as thought a bag of skittles had melted and amalgamated into the thread that wrapped itself around her petite body. She wore dresses that reached the cap of her knees and sweaters with pearl buttons. Her dark brown hair and she wore it parted at the center with two braids crowing the top of her head.
She would often hide underneath the kitchen table while her family watched television in the living room or during parties her mother would throw for her and her brother’s birthdays, graduations, or holidays. As everyone else was outside battling for first crack of the piñata or waiting for their slice of strawberry and chocolate cake, Isa was under the table, in her pastel pink dress with hot pink ruffles and purple polka dot socks, knitting or reading.
It was there, with her dark brown hair haloed above her head where she first parted her lips and began to talk to Refugio, her imaginary dog.
Ms. Guzman is a first generation Mexican American with a Bachelors of Arts in Fiction Writing at Columbia College in Chicago.
