DOROTHY HALE IS DEAD. SMASHED TO SMITHEREENS IN FRONT OF THE Hampshire House, her luxury apartment building in New York City. Hairpins in place, seams straight, corsage of tiny yellow roses neatly fastened to her black velvet dress, right side of cranium shattered—a gooey mess of blood, bone, and filth. Sticky splinters of skull stuck to her cheek, her bodice, the concrete, the stones of the elegant structure she had called home. What would it be like to jump off a ledge and feel yourself falling falling, falling into space? Did she repent suddenly and try to undo that fatal step? Did she flail? Did she struggle to grab on to a ridge or a balcony? Did she pray? Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven … Thy will be done? Did she ask herself if this was God’s will? Communists don’t believe in God, you know. They say that religion is the opiate of the people, although a Jesuit priest once told me that they’ve got it all wrong, that communism is the opiate of the intellectuals. Was Dorothy a communist? I don’t think so. Most of Frida’s New York friends weren’t communists. Just the opposite. They were rich jackals who spent their days partying and licking their paws. Oh, they made communist noises. They talked about exploitation of the proletariat. But they were really just comunistas de salón, armchair communists. Anyhow, I think Dorothy was just a society girl, used to having money, who found herself in a real stew when her husband died. Her husband, Gardiner Hale, was a painter. He did portraits of people who were dripping with money, and he charged them an arm and a leg for a painting.
Dorothy was a knockout. I met her when she was in Mexico. She had been a showgirl in the Ziegfeld Follies. That’s why Gardiner married her. She was really stunning, with black hair, skin like vanilla cream, and sculpted features. They bought a house in southern France, on the beach, and they entertained in high style. All the bigwigs came to visit, all those guys that Frida called the cacas grandes. But then Gardiner was killed in a car crash, and there was Dorothy. Gorgeous face, gorgeous figure, but no dough. And after she had spent all that time entertaining Picasso and the other pashas of High Art on the Riviera, she couldn’t take it. One moment he’s here, the next moment he’s dead, a mangled mess of guts and metal. I’m talking about her husband. She didn’t want to go to work. She didn’t want to be poor, so she blocked it all out and went looking for la pelona. Did she squeeze her eyes shut, or did she stare straight ahead? Did she wind up lying on the sidewalk, irises front and center, blood trickling out of her ear, the way Frida painted her? What would it be like to plunge through space, knowing that you’ll crash and shatter like a crystal vase? Shards of your crown flying off every which way. Blood spurting onto the sidewalk. Blood gushing from your smashed body, dirtying pedestrians’ shoes and hems. Do passersby spring aside so that your body fluids won’t mess up their outfits? Do they run in terror? Do they even flinch? Does anyone ever try to pick up the pieces?
Dorothy Hale gave a party the night before she did it. Everyone was there—Bernard Baruch, Isamu Noguchi, Constantin Alajalov, who did covers for the New Yorker … everyone. Frida left early because she was supposed to begin a portrait of Dorothy the next morning. They had met in Mexico a couple of years before, and Frida had promised to paint her someday when she was in New York. Now Frida was there, and they had decided on that day in October 1938, that day after the party. There was a problem, though. Dorothy couldn’t pay. Since Gardiner had left her without a penny, she was begging from friends, paying the rent on her fancy penthouse with the money Clare Boothe Luce grudgingly gave her. At first Frida planned to drop Dorothy. “She’s such a bore, darling, always whining about her tough luck.” Frida wasn’t so interested in hearing about other people’s suffering. But Bernie Baruch said he’d pay for the portrait, and Frida was anxious to be in with that crowd, so she suddenly remembered she was a good communist and didn’t care anything about money. “You don’t have to pay me, darling.” “No, I insist.” “No, really, darling.” “I insist!” “Well, all right, darling, but only because I really need the bucks.” Frida was trying to become financially independent. She didn’t like to have to ask Diego for money. That day, I mean the next day after the party, Dorothy was going to sit for Frida. They had it all arranged. I see Dorothy pushing aside the curtain, opening the window of her fancy New York penthouse. Frida knocks at the door.
“Can I come in, darling? I’ve come to paint you.”
“Sorry, darling, I’m busy killing myself.”
Dorothy is standing on a chair in her strappy, high-heeled shoes. She’s balancing on the sill, looking out over the city, the skyscrapers, the office windows, the haze, and down below, the cars, the cabs, the vendors, the bustling shoppers and office workers—all doll-house size. She’s taking a deep breath, she’s stepping forward into nothing, she’s dropping … dropping, faster, faster … She’s yielding to the sweet darkness of death, to the sweet, sweet darkness.
Have I ever thought about it? Yes, I’ve thought about it. Hasn’t everyone? Frida used to think about it all the time. She was still reeling from her separation from Diego, from the business with her foot. She’d be suffering horribly, and she’d mix herself a cocktail of liquor and painkillers to put herself out of her misery for a few hours. She was beginning to do it more and more often.
“Someday I’ll plop all these little candies into a pint of vodka and drink the whole thing down,” she told me more than once. “Then adiós, Frida. Good-bye, you little bitch. No great loss to the world. You never could paint anyway!”
After Dorothy Hale died, Clare Boothe Luce asked Frida to go ahead and do the portrait anyway. She supplied a couple of photographs so that Frida could do a nice painting. Ms. Luce was going to pay for it and give it to Dorothy’s mother as a gift, you know, as a kind of memento. Mrs. Luce wanted to give Dorothy’s mother something beautiful to remember her daughter by. But Frida did a scandalous thing, a really scandalous thing, and cruel. It was just like Frida. She could be so cruel. She painted a picture of Dorothy Hale’s suicide! I mean, of Dorothy actually committing suicide. That’s right. It shows Dorothy tumbling head first through the air, enveloped in a whirl of clouds that extend onto the frame, her shoe flying off her foot, her arms stretched forward above her head as though to break the fall. And then, in the foreground, it shows another image of Dorothy, already dead. Dorothy lying on the ground, her dress wrapped around her legs, her eyes open, blood spilling off the sidewalk and onto the frame, blood everywhere, blood dripping onto the banner that borders the scene, the banner that originally said that Mrs. Luce had commissioned the picture, but which Mrs. Luce made Frida change, blood that seems to splash onto the floor, the very floor where you’re standing and looking at the painting. It’s as though you’re right there, right there in the same space as Dorothy, you can almost smell the flowers in her corsage, you can almost reach out and take Dorothy’s foot in your hand.
It came out in all the Mexican papers, not the suicide, nobody here cared about that, but the painting Frida had done. We were all embarrassed. At least I was. How could she do something like that to a poor mother who had just lost her child, a beautiful daughter? Frida, you bitch, why did you do it? Why did you paint that picture? Was it an act of pure meanness, or did you do it just to get attention? Like when we were kids and you stole my little blond doll with the porcelain face and the cloth body, and you left her on Mami’s bed, naked, with her legs open. And then you put my little rag donkey on top of her, with his mouth on her … you know. Maybe that painting wasn’t about Dorothy at all. Maybe it was about you. That would make sense, wouldn’t it? You always were the star of your own drama, the tragic heroine, the victim. Is that woman falling through the clouds Dorothy Hale or is it Frida? Frida’s pain, Frida’s desperation—Frida’s—Frida’s … I’m … I’m sorry. I don’t know—I don’t know what came over me. Wait … I have a hanky here somewhere … It’s just that—She never wrote to me. She never wrote to me the whole time she was away. Not even a postcard. Why didn’t you send me at least a postcard, Frida? I know you were still mad at me because of Diego, but I loved you so much, Frida. I missed you so much, and I was so alone here. Why couldn’t you forgive me? Adri and Maty got letters—a few letters. They showed them to me. You talked about your new lover, Nikolas Muray. He was a photographer, you said. Very handsome, you said. And Hungarian. But he didn’t spark my interest. I wasn’t interested in meeting him. No, not at all. I didn’t want any more rivalries with Frida. Anyhow, I could never really compete with her.
Frida was going to exhibit at Julien Levy’s gallery in New York. It was all set for the end of 1938, the year before the war in Europe. She left for New York in October, and from there, she would go on to France. I remember that people were edgy because nobody knew what was going to happen with the Germans. There were rumors. Papá had Jewish relatives in Germany, and there were stories about bombs going off in people’s living rooms. There were a lot of Jews coming into Mexico then, Jews who weren’t able to get into the United States because the Americans had quotas. Someone told Papá that German soldiers had grabbed a toddler out from under the skirts of a cousin of his, a little girl, and they threw her in the air the way you toss a mamey up over your head and shoot it for target practice, over and over again, up and down, up and down. The baby is screaming, I can see it in my mind. The baby is screaming, and the mother too, and then they give her one final toss, very high. She seems to float up forever in slow motion, and then one of the Nazis pulls out a gun, all the time the mother is watching, and the Nazi pulls out his gun and aims right at the baby. When the mother sees what he’s going to do, she grabs his arm and tries to yank it away. He pushes her down. She’s on the ground struggling to get up, and he points his gun at her and fires. The instant before, she was alive, and now she’s dead. The baby is not traveling slow motion anymore. The baby is plummeting. She crashes and smashes her head. The instant before she was alive. And now Frida was off to where those things were happening. First to New York, but then to Europe. There was no danger of—what I mean is, Mamá was Catholic, and since Jewishness is transmitted through the mother, there was no danger that some Nazi would grab Frida, because Frida wasn’t Jewish. Anyhow, Frida was an important painter, a celebrity, not just Mrs. Diego Rivera. So there was no chance at all. Nobody bothers you if you’re famous.
Frida left for New York in October. I remember it was October, because we were getting ready for el día de los muertos, the Day of the Dead, when we celebrate those who have gone on before us—Jesus Christ, triumphing gloriously over death, rose the third day, immortal, never to suffer again. I remember that we were preparing sugar-candy skulls for the festivities. Skulls, skeletons, crossbones, all decorated with sugar flowers of every color. My kids just loved to suck on those luscious little skulls. They loved to chew on those sugary white fingers and ribs and femurs. Ha! I bet you thought I didn’t know that word: femur. How could I have a lame sister and not know it?
Frida was getting ready to go. As for her and Diego, their marriage was as wobbly as a top, so I didn’t expect Diego to take such an interest in Frida’s show. After all, both of them had been carrying on with other people for months. But all of a sudden, Diego started running around like he had a firecracker up his ass. Everything had to be perfect for Frida, darling Frida. He put her in touch with important people, helped her put together the guest list for the opening, that sort of thing. André Breton wrote a piece for the brochure, and the gallery publicized the event as though Frida were a movie star. Newspaper articles, a spread in Vogue. Frida was everywhere, just like the Holy Ghost. Frida in her Tehuana outfit standing in front of What the Water Gave Me. Frida dressed like a movie star next to Fulang-Chang and I. Frida holding a cigarette in a long, elegant holder and sipping champagne by the self-portrait she did for Trotsky. Frida laughing boisterously and pointing to Papá in My Grandparents, My Parents and I. So you see, not only did every painting contain a portrait of Frida, but every publicity shot contained two portraits of Frida, the photograph itself and the painting inside the photograph. Two Fridas for the price of one, see? Frida, Frida everywhere! By the windows! On the chair!
My Grandparents, My Parents and I did include a portrait of Papá. But at that moment it was okay to bring up Papá. In fact, in that particular New York crowd, it was quite fashionable to be Jewish. What with the war coming on and everything, Jews were the new political cause. Such terrible things were happening to them, more terrible than anybody knew at the time, and Frida knew how to milk a situation. A lot of the American leftists were Jews, and a lot of the people who were active in the art world, people who bought paintings, people with dough, people Frida needed as friends and allies. So Frida just suddenly became one of them. Very exotic, very Mexican, and yet one of them. The best of two worlds. They were enchanted that they could count this alien creature as one of their own, this bird of wondrous plumage, so familiar, yet so foreign. And that made selling them paintings so much easier, didn’t it? Clever Frida. She was clever. She was shrewd at selling. Signs and announcements were going up all over the place. They all read Frida Kahlo (Rivera).
I asked her why she used Diego’s name in her publicity. “You always say you want to be recognized for your own work. You don’t want to be known as la señora de Rivera.”
“It was Levy’s idea,” she said. “Levy’s and Breton’s.” That’s what she told me when she returned home. “They insisted on including Diego’s name in the publicity.”
“Ah? And you couldn’t do anything to prevent it? You couldn’t talk them out of it? Couldn’t you have just told them, Look, it’s a matter of professional pride?”
“No, darling, of course not. Julien is in business to make money, and Diego Rivera’s name sells.”
“Yes, but your stuff is good. Diego says you’re a better painter than he is. You didn’t need to latch on to his name like that!”
She looked at me like she thought I was trying to steal her silk stockings. “You know how these gringos are, darling,” she said finally. “Everything is money.”
“But what about the Mexico City exhibit, Fridita? The one you had before you went to New York? Every piece of publicity mentioned that you were really Frida Kahlo de Rivera.”
She was beginning to snort and paw the ground, so I didn’t insist. After all, what was the point? What I wanted more than anything was to make peace with her.
She wrote to Maty that the New York show was a huge success, that she had sold every single painting. “Look at this!” Maty shrieked. She had just burst through my front door and was clutching Frida’s letter in her hand. “Our baby sister has taken New York by storm!” Actually, I was the baby of the family, but never mind.
I read the words, written in turquoise ink, on a page that Frida had decorated with fruits, flowers, and cactus leaves.
Maty darling, you won’t believe it, but everyone here is in love with your Friducha. They love me so much that they bought absolutely everything. Alfred Stieglitz even wanted to buy a lock of my hair, and Mrs. Rockefeller wanted to buy the dress off my back! Ah no, I told her. My Tehuana dresses are not for sale! I hate it when gringas use Indian clothing. They don’t understand the meaning, the symbolism of our designs. They cheapen our native culture, don’t you think so, darling? But in the end I did offer to have one made just for her. I had to, darling. She has been so nice to me.
“She’s done it again!” I said, laughing. But maybe not, I thought. Maybe she’s exaggerating. It wouldn’t be the first time. Still, if one of her goals was to break loose from Diego, then the trip certainly was a success.
Darling, I’ve seduced all the men in New York. Well, maybe there’s a policeman or a butcher or a schoolboy or two I’ve missed, but really, almost all. Listen to what happened at Fallingwater. You’ve heard of Fallingwater, haven’t you, Maty? It’s a magnificent house designed by the famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
Everyone in Frida’s life was a famous something or other. A famous photographer. A famous movie star. A famous philanthropist. A famous architect.
This house is in Pennsylvania, in a perfectly wonderful place called Bear Run, full of trees and streams and animals (even human ones, kid, wait till I tell you!). Wright’s idea was to blend nature and architecture—I’m sure you can understand this, Maty, Cristi never could, she’s awfully slow, isn’t she, darling?—so he built the house on a cliff, perched over a waterfall. The house consists of several terraces cantilevered (that means hanging, kid) over the ledge. It’s right in the middle of a forest, so you can imagine that when Eddie Kaufman, the owner, first invited your poor Friducha to visit, she was just terrified. I mean because there you are, right in the middle of all the ACTION—chipmunks scrambling around, foxes springing out from behind bushes, I swear, Maty, you can hear the bunnies screwing from the guest house! [Look, here she drew a picture of one rabbit leaping on top of another.] At night you fall asleep to the crickets’ song, the whisper of soft breezes nibbling at the leaves, and best of all, the steady rush and gush of the waterfall. In the morning, you look out the window, and suddenly you’re seeing the world for the very first time—a branch twisted into an exotic sculpture, a drop of rain (left over from when Saint Peter peed the night before!) glistening on a trembling petal, a tree like a priest with arms outstretched toward a perfect sky. The fantastic thing is how Wright combined concrete, glass, and steel, creating a sculpture that you can live in. The cantilevered slabs clutch the boulders and produce such a sense of power! You feel so sheltered. It’s like lying snug with a man you’re truly in love with.
She went on to describe sections of the house, the concrete pier, the terraces, the living room with its enormous picture windows, the tangled, tricky stairways. The tangled, tricky stairways are significant. Here, I’ll read the next section.
Darling, you won’t believe what happened. First, let me tell you that Edgar Kaufman, his son (whose name is also Edgar), and Julien are all madly in love with me, and I flirt shamelessly with all three at the same time. Well, one night Julien and Edgar Sr. decided to face off once and for all. Each was waiting for the other one to go to bed so that he could sneak into my room via the double stairway. And me, I was just relaxing in bed, placing bets with myself to see who would win. Really, Maty, it was hilarious. First I’d hear Eddie open his door and pitter-pat up the steps. Then Julien would open his, and Eddie would scamper back down to his own room, but instead of going in, he’d linger in the hallway so that his rival would know he was watching him. So Julien would go back and shut the door, and the whole comedy would start all over again. Well, Julien finally threw in the towel. But what do you think was waiting for him when he got back to his room? Me! While he was on the staircase trying to outsmart Eddie, I sneaked into his room, took off my clothes, and jumped into his bed!
Soon I’ll be leaving for Paris. Believe me, kid, I would be really having a good time here if it weren’t for my spine. It’s like having the devil ride you piggyback everywhere you go. He just hangs on with those pointy little claws of his, which he digs into you deeper and deeper.
I’ll write to you from Paris. Do you want me to buy you some perfume?
Now, doctor, look at this:
The American Hospital
Paris, February 15, 1939
Dear Maty:
I arrived here in the underworld last month, and Satan (disguised as Breton) has been showing me off to all his little incubi and succubi (I mean, of course, his surrealist playmates) like a new toy. It’s not as though they don’t love me, darling. Quite the contrary. They adore me, but only because they think I’m one of them. André calls me a surrealist par excellence, a quintessential surrealist. Quintessential. Got that, kid? He thinks because I cut myself open and show my pain that I was influenced by his stupid doctrine. The painting he loves best is What the Water Gave Me. He thinks it’s full of birth and life symbols that came to me in a dream, when actually it’s just the way I see things: floating in the pool of my own reality, what do I perceive? My ailing foot. Mamá and Papá. Lovers and corpses. Skeletons and embryos. My body. Chac Mool. A skyscraper shooting out of a volcano. My cast-off Tehuana dress. Gnarled vegetation. What these morons don’t understand is that we Mexicans see things differently. For us, death and life are all rolled up into one. This shit-filled little planet and nirvana, darling. All one and the same. For them, that’s odd, you see, whereas for us, it’s perfectly normal. The grandes cacas of surrealism can’t get it through their little heads that we move between the material and the ethereal as easily as a frog goes from land to water.
You wouldn’t believe what a fuss they’re making over me, and even though I think they’re full of shit, darling, I must admit I’m having a wonderful time. Pablo has been just outrageous, showering me with gifts and introducing me everywhere. They’re having a big Picasso exhibit in the spring, and he wants me to stay, but I’m anxious to get back to New York to see Nick, so I probably won’t. But I have met the most fascinating people—the poet Paul Eluard and the painter Max Ernst (you’ve probably never heard of them, darling, but over here, they’re very famous)—and, of course, Elsa Schiaparelli, the designer. She was so taken with my Tehuana dresses that she’s designing a version for Parisian women! I’ve seen the sketches. The frock is scrumptious, of course, but the idea of a Tehuana wardrobe à la parisienne is sort of silly. I’ve gone to a few Trotsky meetings here. (Please don’t tell Diego. I know he’s mad at Leon.) But I’ve hardly had time for political activities, precious Maty, because my exhibit goes up in March. And now I can’t even attend to that because I’m sick again, this time with a kidney infection. So here I am, holed up in this awful American hospital. As hospitals go, it’s the best in Paris, and the doctors are wonderful, they hover over me constantly, but all I want to do is get out of here.
The truth is, I miss Nick so much. You remember him, don’t you? Nikolas Muray, the photographer. Well, we’ve become very good friends. He’s the most dynamic, beautiful man I’ve ever met, with those volcanic Hungarian eyes. What a lover! And what an artist, Maty. You should see some of the pictures he’s taken of me. He understands me as no man ever has before. He photographs my very essence, Maty. My very soul. What I mean is, he captures my inner core. My pain, my passion. He knows how to look at me. Oh, my darling Maty, my sweet sister, can you imagine what it’s like to pose for an artist like that? Diego would be very jealous if he knew how much I love Nick.
Maty, dearest, please forgive me, but I won’t be able to get you that perfume you wanted. In the first place, I have so little money. I had to move out of Breton’s apartment and into a hotel because I really need a nurse, and there was no room there to put an extra person. I was so ill that I couldn’t even stand up, never mind go shopping, and when I leave the hospital, I’ll still need to be attended to. You understand what I’m saying, don’t you, Maty? I have to save my money—the few cents that I have—to take care of myself. I haven’t bought anything at all, nothing, except for two dolls for my collection. They’re lovely, really. One has blue eyes and blond hair. The other one is dark. Those are the only things I bought, precious Maty. Just two baby dolls to keep me company. Your poor little sister will be so lonely in Mexico without her dear Nick.
Kiss everyone for me, and don’t fret too much over your little dog. It’s better to die than to suffer so much. Poor thing. If you get another one, don’t let Isolda roughhouse with it. Escuincles have such fragile bones.
Hugs and kisses,
Your Frida
She didn’t mention me even once. Not once did she say “give my love to Cristi” or “say hi to Cristi” or even “don’t tell that bitch Cristi that I wrote to you.” No, not a word. Not a single word for the sister who pampered her and nursed her and loved her. Not a word.
One more letter came from Paris, this one addressed to Adriana. I don’t have a copy, but it was dated March something. In it, Frida talked about her exhibition, which had just finished. They included other stuff in the show besides hers, she said, mostly junk—cachivaches. She led Adri to believe that she was definitely the star. I had already begun to suspect that the gallery-going public wasn’t as enamored of Frida as she had said. Why? Because Frida always exaggerated her own success, and also because articles had already come out in the Mexican press about the New York show. She hadn’t sold all her paintings, as she claimed. In fact, the show wasn’t a financial success at all. Later it came out that the Paris exhibit was a real disaster. Breton called it Méxique, which means Mexico in French. According to Novedades Mexicanas, the French are so damn nationalistic that they look down their noses at foreign artists. If it had been someone from Germany or Italy, at least, that might have been a little different, but a Mexican painter? Half the French probably don’t even know where Mexico is. Couldn’t even find it on a map. Well, that’s what Novedades Mexicanas said, but who knows. Maybe being Señora de Rivera doesn’t mean anything over there. Or maybe Frida’s work just isn’t that … Another thing you have to take into consideration is that the war was about to start. People were nervous. I mean, you’re not going to be interested in looking at pictures of Aztec gods and dead birds floating in the bathtub when you’re scared shitless that the Germans are going to drop a bomb on your house and blow you and your kids to bits. Frida was supposed to exhibit in London after she left Paris, but she decided not to. She was sure that Europe was going to explode any minute, and besides, she was anxious to see Nick. That’s what she told us when she got home. By the end of March she was on her way back to New York and her beloved Nick.
I close my eyes, and what do I see? I see a beautiful, spacious kitchen. I see walls of glistening blue and white Mexican tiles. I see kettles, huge kettles, bubbling on the fire. I hear the glug glug glug of their cooking, and I smell the aromas of mole, of albóndigas con chipotle, of caldo de camarón. I see a wide, sturdy wooden table laden with read and white hand-painted bowls from Guanajuato, red and yellow platters from Puebla, scalloped, earthenware crocks from Oaxaca. Avocado salad. Nopal and tomato. Chilaquiles, pork rinds, stacks of tortillas wrapped in loosely woven red napkins embroidered in blue, yellow, and green with intricate Indian designs. I see two women, young, slim, nearly identical. Twins. They could be twins. They work together without speaking. One chops chiles, the other stirs pipián sauce. Both are somber. Each labors with her back turned slightly toward her sister. One has betrayed the other. A shadow falls across the floor. There is no laughter in this room.
But then, as the onions crackle and the caged parakeet in the patio begins to twitter, as butter melts in the baño de María and a fly darts drunkenly from sill to table, one sister begins to hum, ever so softly, and the other sister listens, smiling slightly. It is time to begin the desserts. It is time for sweetness. One sister mixes the batter in a huge, flowered bowl, and the other stirs the chocolate, catching the rhythm. The shadow lifts gradually, as though someone has eased open the shutters. Sugar dissolves into syrup as they chant a nursery rhyme.
| Arroz con leche, | Sweet rice pudding, |
| me quiero casar | I want to marry |
| con una señorita | A nice young lady |
| de este lugar … | From around here … |
One sister giggles. A high-pitched titter; a tinkle, like a tiny bell. The other sister tilts her head toward her and smiles.
The first sister lays down her spoon and turns to face her twin. She smiles a warm, forgiving smile. She holds out her hand, and the second sister takes it. They stand there a moment, squeezing hands. The first sister draws the second toward her and holds her in a firm embrace. The other sister lays her head on her sibling’s shoulder. A tear materializes on her eyelid. The shadow is gone. The kitchen is filled with light.
But that didn’t happen, did it, Frida? It was just a fantasy. A fragment of dream that I held on to my whole life. Now it’s time to let it go.