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I used to love searching through closets. I still do. Closets are the corridors to the past. My mother's closet held stories of a time long gone. Her closet had the scent of the aged smell of clothing, starch, and foot odor.This closet was the only hint of my mother's past. Pairs of old spiked heels resided in her closet: pastel, satin, and spiky heels that were were worn before childbirth and spreading hips. There were A-lined dresses and pill hats that hadn't been worn during my lifetime, and an Avon starter kit with business cards that sported her name. I loved hiding in my mother's closet. It was packed with memories in which I had no part.

Closets were made for dress-up, especially the old pretty girl dresses that mother saved. They weren't my dresses, nor my sister, Rebecca's. They were Rosa's dresses. Pretty dresses for the first born, before the other children came around, and money was short.

Blue chiffon. Blue chiffon with that aged smell that I loved so much. Actually, it was aquamarine, but for a five-year old, it was blue. This was the dress that I found. And it fit! It was just my size, and I looked so pretty in it. My birthday party is near, and I will wear this pretty blue chiffon dress, not my shorts, and not my old dresses, but this pretty chiffon dress. I can twirll in it, and I will be pretty.

May 1, 1973, my fifth birthday. I would wear my blue chiffon dress. Nobody knew this, but it was my plan. Mother came home from shopping. My cousin Nina was there. Nina was old enough to be my aunt, but she was my cousin, and she acted like a cousin. She was beautiful with creamy skin and red hair. She was making my birthday cake. On one side, it said Rachel. On the other, it said Rosa. We shared the same birthday, May 1st. I didn't mind. We were special, and I would wear my blue chiffon dress.

"Rachel, come in here," I was summoned by mother. I enterred her bedroom. It was a surreal scene. Nina and my sisters, Rosa and Rebecca were there, and so was Carmen, my protective, underpaid, illegal resident from Mexico, get between the belt and me, nanny. The normally bland faces were dressed in large smiles. There was a big secret, and everybody was happy. "Look, what I bought you, my mother said, as she reached in the JC Penny bag. I stood with contained excitement. Mother had never bought me anything; not from JC Penny, at least. As my excitement grew, she pulled out a pink chiffon dress with sheer sleeves, lined with pastel colors. I stood silent. "Here, put it on," Mother said nicely with a self-approving tone.

"I don't want to," I replied in a soft tone.

"Put it on, it's for your birthday party."

"I don't want to," I replied in a louder tone.

"Put it on!"

"No," I defiantely pronounced.

"I said put it on!" and with that, she grabbed me by the hair, and pulled me toward the bed. I wrestled, and tried to wrangle my way from her, but I couldn't escape. The more she tried to dress me with that pink chiffon dress, the more I wrangled. My God, I was going to wear my blue chiffon dress, and nobody was going to make me do otherwise. "Put on the dress!" The more that I kicked and struggled, the more that she pulled at my limbs, forcing me into that pink chiffon dress. "You're going to wear this dress...that I bought you...for your birthday...."

As usual, Carmen with an aged face filled with the lines of labor from a hard past in Mexico, who would dampen her long, grey hair in castor oil so it wouldn't fall out, with the aged hands that would make me fresh tortillas with butter everyday, who would brush my hair into tight braids that would make my face pull back, who would take me with her to her Bingo games because she didn't trust my mother alone with me, who would always intervene, and take a hit on my behalf, came to my rescue. The others did not move a muscle. They knew better. My mother was another creature when her emotions were elevated. She grabbed my mothers clenched fists, and held them in a stranglehold in her hands. When she was able to liberate me, I cried out in desperation, "I want the blue dress," Everyone stood silent with amazement.

"What blue dress?" My mother asked between the tired breaths of the first battle.

"This one." I pulled my blue chiffon dress from the closet. My beautiful blue chiffon dress with the long sleeves and fabric covered buttons down the back that still smelled like a child's sweat because it had been tucked away in the back of the closet without cleaning.

"You are not going to wear that dress. I bought you this pretty pink dress." She demanded, and then with a smug look asks, "Isn't it pretty?"

I could only gather up the energy to reply with silence. I just looked down at my feet with pursed lips. It didn't matter if the dress was pretty. What mattered was that she never really cared about me. The issue was not the dress. It was a battle of wills, and this thirty-nine year old woman was picking a fight with a five year-old child on her birthday. "I want the blue dress, " I replied in a broken voice.

"Put on the pink dress," she said matter of factly.

"NO!"

With that, the wrestling match began anew. The more that she tried to make me put on the dress, the more I fought, kicked, and yelled. Then, with a crack that resonated the room, she slapped me accross the face. The room stood still. I didn't cry at first, I was too surprized. I was used to her violence, but a slap was so personal. I was used to her generalized anger that came with constant beatings, but this slap was directed at me. It wasn't a beating spurred on by the frustration of a loveless marriage or the agony of not making ends meet. Blood began to slowly trickle down my face. It was slow at first, but in an instant, it gushed. It gushed like an open spicket, and it engulfed the dress. Everyone ran around in a fury to stop the bleeding, but the more everyone tried, the more blood came out of my nose. I was pushed back onto my mother's bed. Nina pinched my nose, as Carmen drenched me in alcohol, but it was too late. The pink chiffon birthday dress was marred by bright red blood stains. When the effort to stop the bleeding failed, Carmen took me to the bathroom and cleaned me up.

The birthday Poloroids tell it all: a chubby five year-old with pig tails in front of a round, chocolate cake with five candles which reads, "Rachel. " The birthday girl is wearing a blue chiffon dress.

posted by Rachel Calderon at 4:27 PM