Of Women and Salt

As the novel lacks a single, unified plot, these final chapters work to explain mysteries and tie up loose ends more than to resolve a central conflict. The first question that this section addresses concerns the break between Carmen and Dolores. For years, everyone in the family, including Dolores herself, assumed that Carmen disagreed with Dolores’s politics, which would have been a neat cover story for her departure at a time when wealthy, conservative Cubans were leaving Cuba for the US in droves. Moreover, this version of the story seems entirely plausible because the narrative introduces Carmen as a wealthy, conservative Cuban American who believes in tough love and strict immigration policies; even Jeanette is unaware that her mother had little money when she emigrated. The reveal in “That Bombs Would Rain” is doubly effective because the narrative also reveals two other facts: first, that Dolores murdered her abusive husband, a secret she’s managed to keep for decades, and second, that Carmen in fact left because she witnessed the murder of her beloved father and, apparently, was never able to forgive her mother. As a result, while she and Dolores may also differ in their politics, it’s less clear which came first: Does Carmen despise her mother’s politics because she despises her mother for what she did? Or does her disdain for her mother’s politics exacerbate the fear and anger she felt over the years, preventing any possibility of reconciliation? (A similar question—though less pronounced—might apply to Jeanette and Carmen.)

Of course, these feelings are complicated by the knowledge of the kind of man Daniel was—which, at least ostensibly, Carmen is aware of. The night that Daniel nearly killed Dolores, Carmen heard everything that happened, although she didn’t interfere; she was just a young girl. However, the narrative implies that the family never spoke of the incident over the years—or at the very least that Carmen still doesn’t feel that Daniel’s actions justified Dolores’s. This speaks to the complex nature of domestic abuse and toxic masculinity to which the novel alludes earlier—and to the question of how a man could be so terrible to his wife while remaining beloved by his daughters. (The narrative also raises this question in “Other Girl” when Jeanette simultaneously recognizes the signs of abuse in Isabel’s relationship with her husband and wishes to be controlled in the same way.) Moreover, everyone’s belief that politics drove Carmen and Dolores apart conveys irony given that Daniel was an even more ardent communist than Dolores ever was: If Carmen’s anger with her mother stems from Daniel’s murder, it would be ironic for Carmen to so fervently oppose the new order in Cuba given how viciously Daniel beat Dolores, accusing her of loving Batista, simply because she was afraid that Batista would have them killed for taking part in the revolution. Ultimately, “That Bombs Would Rain” answers one question but in doing so complicates the narrative even further.

To the extent that the novel has a protagonist or central storyline, it must be Jeanette’s, and the last chapter, “More Than We Think,” brings her narrative to a tragic close. “Other Girl,” the penultimate chapter, returns to her substance abuse tipping point. She’s already gone through rehab once, but the narrative suggests—and it seems a reasonable assumption—that her first stint in rehab was more a product of parental fears than any real substance abuse issues. Ironically, her time in this first rehab center eventually leads to her downfall: She meets Mario, who at the same time meets contacts for more problematic drugs, which leads them to Oxy and then heroin. Although the novel doesn’t absolve them of blame, in showing this trajectory it does highlight the systemic issues that exacerbate drug abuse, including a system that harshly punishes drug use while simultaneously making highly addictive medications readily available (for example, at the loosely regulated pain clinics like the one for which Mario works). This directly references the opioid epidemic in the US, an epidemic that all too often leads to the same end that befalls Jeanette: death by overdose. In addition, the narrative examines Carmen’s “tough love” approach, calling it into question through the novel’s events, including Carmen’s apparently blaming herself for Jeanette’s death in “More Than We Think.” In fact, her decision to take in Ana—whose trip through a different kind of system resulted from another “tough” stance Carmen took—might indicate her desire for a second chance at motherhood.

Ana’s storyline is the last one that the final chapters wrap up. While Jeanette seems the most likely protagonist since so much of the novel focuses on her, Ana and Gloria’s storyline has the clearest narrative structure. The last chapter, “More Than We Think,” picks up soon after Gloria has passed—it takes place in 2019, and their last appearance was in 2018—so Ana, after Gloria’s death, presumably begins at once figuring out how to get back across the border (using either her own savings or savings Gloria gave her; the narrative has no indication that Nancy helps out, either here or in “Privilegio”). Ana’s story reflects the complex understanding of home that infuses the entire novel—after all, why does Ana, whose only real nationality is Salvadoran, work so hard to get back to the US? The answer in part deconstructs the idea of nationality and borders: Ana wants to get back to the US because, undocumented or not, the US is where she felt most at home; for 13-year-old Ana, belonging is not a legal but an emotional concern. Moreover, with Gloria gone, Ana’s only real sense of family is with the woman who took her in just for a few days five years earlier. Of course, this is complicated by the narrative’s revealing that Jeanette is both the woman who took Ana in and the one who put her back into the system, which resulted in Ana’s deportation. However, the novel resists easy characterizations, suggesting that people are often not all good or all bad—sometimes they make good decisions, while other times they make bad ones. Jeanette is neither a hero nor a villain here; rather, the novel again suggests a systemic issue. In addition, at least on the surface, the novel has a somewhat bittersweet ending: Carmen gets another shot at motherhood, while Ana gets another shot at the life she wanted, where she feels most at home.

The novel begins with a love story, a revolution, a martyr, and a child; however, by the end, it has deconstructed these large, romantic ideals without arriving at neat conclusions. In this story, systems are dangerous, and grandiloquence is suspect: For instance, the same passion that drives Daniel’s anger toward the government drives his abuse of Dolores. Likewise, Carmen’s concern with social convention and appearances likely drives her behavior toward both Jeanette and Dolores. On the other hand, the novel finds strength in interpersonal relationships, particularly in the often complex relationships among women within a heavily patriarchal society given to ignoring its effects on individuals and its role in their suffering. A key moment in “Other Girl” is a restaurant scene in which Jeanette, though unable to bring herself to open up to Carmen, wishes desperately for Carmen to recognize her pain: “See me, I think. Just this once, see me, Mommy” (180). This moment recognizes the importance of interpersonal connection and how easily a lack of it can lead to weakness rather than strength. Conversely, as Carmen and Ana’s stories exemplify, the power of connection brings the strength and the force, or fuerza, of resilience.