PORTRAITS
Concubine (kä?kiubcin),
sb. ME. [a. F concubin, concubine:CL.concubinus,
concubina, f. con- + cubare.] I. A
woman who cohabits with a man without being his wife; a
kept mistress. Among polygamous peoples: A
>secondary
wife=,
having a legal status inferior to that of a wife.
H2.
A male paramour
C1540.
~ Oxford Universal English Dictionary
In the hallway of my house hangs my mother=s
wedding portrait from her first marriage. Colorization
lifts the ice-blue of her dress from the ethereal-grey
tones of the photography of the day. The faintly blonde
hair brushes the pearl drops at her ear lobes as she
glances just over her shoulder, smiling brightly for the
camera. Willowy until her pregnancy when I brought her
breasts and hips, her nineteen-year-old self is fragile
in brocade and lace.
I took the portrait from Grandmother=s
hallway after she died and hung it at the same height in
mine. I couldn=t
quite picture it any other way. Nevertheless, it is
wrong: the portrait of the slender woman in the fairy
princess dress should be flanked by bridal pictures of
my Aunt Carole and Aunt Karen. The elaborately framed
images of the three sisters belong together, the way I
saw them, craning my neck up at five, or stopping to
gaze for a moment on a visit back from college. |
