A young Latino man named Pedro returns home from work to where he and his wife Rosa live with her parents. Immediately, he feels trapped and breathless in their apartment, with the fear of being kicked out and not owning anything himself always hanging over his head. As he eats dinner with his wife, he dreams of a new apartment in which he can control the food, the furniture, and their future. He remembers how they’d first met at a house party and he’d thought she’d be grateful to bear his children and be his wife, but when he didn’t have the funds to immediately move them out of her parents’ house she had begun to question his ability as a husband. Now, she takes them into her childhood bedroom that they share and shows him a beautiful new armoire that her parents gave them. He gets so angry that he can’t provide these things for her that he begins punching the armoire and mocking his wife’s spoiled attitude. Their fight is momentarily interrupted by Rosa’s mother coming to check on them, and when she leaves, he notices a new doll on his wife’s dresser. It was a souvenir from her friend’s honeymoon, but when he insists she get rid of it, she refuses and he hits her. In terror, she curls away from him on the bed, and after fruitless apologies he goes to sleep looking at the doll.  He remembers a time when his three older sisters ganged up on him and insisted that he take their mother’s precious bridal doll for them to play with. They whipped him with a belt until he agreed to do so, but when they had the doll in hand they decided instead to give him a makeover. They held him down, cut his hair, put makeup on his face, and called him “muñeca”. Worse still, he knows his father will have no pity for letting his sisters do this to him.  In the morning, Pedro wakes up to Rosa still curled away from him. He insists on seeing the dark bruise on her face, but instead of apologizing, he tells her that makeup will fix it and to make sure she gets rid of the doll. He hits the doll down to the floor and feels he can breathe easier without its eyes watching him.