In the Dream House

Machado and her partner visit New York over the winter. At the Brooklyn Museum, Machado is interested in finding an escape from her depression and anxiety. She is drawn to an exhibit by Félix Gonzàlez-Torres that features piles of candy that guests can take. The candy represents his partner, who died of an AIDS-related illness in 1991. Machado participates in the exhibit by eating some of the candy; this enrages her partner for reasons Machado can’t decipher.

Machado’s partner announces that she plans to reapply to Iowa’s MFA program so that the two of them can live together. Instead of expressing the fear that this inspires in her; instead, Machado helps her partner with her application by giving feedback on her stories. One story features a man who destroys his relationships through jealousy. Machado thinks it’s “pretty good.”

Machado spends Christmas break at the Dream House despite knowing that she “shouldn’t have been so stupid” (123) to keep the relationship alive. One night, they go to a bowling alley with some of her partner’s friends. The partner is the designated driver. Machado briefly enjoys herself while bowling and drinking, but when her partner calls her over and begins groping her in front of the others, Machado refuses. She then feels her partner growing angry and holding her from moving, telling Machado that she hates her. Machado realizes her partner must have been drinking after all; Machado refuses to let her drive, and they borrow cash for a cab from one of the partner’s friends, who expresses his concern for Machado.

At home, Machado tries to sleep on the couch to gain some distance from her partner’s anger, but her partner comes to the couch and begins yelling incessantly at her to leave. Machado rushes to the bathroom and locks herself inside. Her partner spends a long time trying to break the door down. When she stops, Machado hesitantly leaves the bathroom to find her partner completely calm and asking why Machado looks so upset.

Machado quotes Norman Mailer’s statement on women writers being a combination of undesirable queerness and psychosis. Since coming out, Machado has been “haunted by the specter of the lunatic lesbian” (126). She wishes that media portrayals of lesbians—such as the film Girlfriend—were more mindful of portraying lesbians through a more realistic lens.

This chapter addresses the question of what qualifies as a haunting. Machado argues that the Dream House has accumulated the energy of her suffering, that a haunting implies there is “always atmosphere to consider; that you can wound air as cleanly as you can wound flesh” (127). She includes several footnotes referencing Thompson’s folktale index on ghosts, hauntings, and the sounds associated with them. She imagines that her own crying and psychic distress experienced in the Dream House will linger to haunt future inhabitants.

The narrative returns to Machado and her partner. Despite hating live music and concerts, Machado agrees to go with her partner to a concert at a bar in Bloomington. When Machado tries to leave early, her request triggers her partner’s anger. They leave as the partner yells at Machado, including threats to kill her. Once home, her mood flips to sweetness, as if she has forgotten that she was angry.

When confronted about her actions after the concert, Machado’s partner claims that she doesn’t remember what she’s done. There is a gap in her memory.

The morning after the concert at a Bloomington bar, Machado rushes to catch her flight back to Iowa City. Her partner takes her time putting on her makeup and delaying their leave; thinking of the phrase “putting on her face” becomes ominous to Machado, as it implies that her partner “has one face and needs to put on another” (131). They rush to the airport, where Machado is so overwhelmed that she begins crying after TSA discards her water bottle before she has a chance to drink its contents. She is frustrated with her own emotional breakdown, believing that she must try to be more composed about her relationship, as “the last thing queer women need is bad fucking PR” (132).

Machado boards the plane convinced that she will tell someone of her suffering when she lands. During the flight, however, she calms down and once again resolves to hide the abuse from the people in her life.

Machado conducts an internet search for memory loss to try to understand her partner’s sudden, but more frequent, blackouts of violent anger. She compares this interest to her fascination with demonic possession stories; both end in “carte blanche forgiveness” (133) for the aggressor in question.

Machado compares the biblical story of Adam and his task of naming the animals to her own search for the right language to express her suffering. She sympathizes with Adam’s challenge, as she finds language inadequate to express all that she has experienced in the context of being a queer woman.

This chapter discusses lesbian activist Linda Geraci’s anthology on abuse in queer communities. Machado asserts that the problem with representation is that straight people have little understanding of queer relationships. They therefore struggle to understand that queer relationships operate on the same emotional and moral foundations as heterosexual relationships, with the added stress of societal marginalization.

Machado describes the legal system’s inconsistency in handling domestic abuse cases when the couple includes two women. She explains that in order to win such cases in court, a woman’s legal team will often paint their client as highly feminized to convince the jury that her relationship still models traditional gender roles. By doing so, the abuser—the other female partner—is associated with masculine qualities, which a jury is likelier to associate with abuse. Machado also cites cases that feature extensive physical abuse, which she herself did not experience. Her next question, then, is where she fits into the historical context of queer abuse. She notes that her own circumstances reinforce the archival silence on domestic abuse as there is no media or legal precedent for what she has experienced. Furthermore, she notes that she was never prepared for what it might mean to be afraid of a woman.

Debra Reid, a lesbian incarcerated for defending herself against her abusive partner, is often on Machado’s mind. Machado imagines her getting dressed for her court appearance and worrying what her partner will think of the dress she wears.

Since the night when Machado locked herself in the bathroom to protect herself from her partner, the bathroom has become a place both of security and fear for her. It becomes her “own little space” (141); she hopes that other queer abuse survivors such as Debra Reid have a similar refuge, no matter how small.

In addition to the fear and insecurity that domestic abuse causes her, Machado experiences a deep sense of betrayal. Because she has committed so much to the relationship and believed them to be building a future together, the realization of her partner’s abusive tendencies causes her to grieve the loss of an idealized future.