Out of Darkness

“Within the great circle of light, men crawl over the crumpled form of a collapsed school. They cart away rubble and search for survivors. For their children. Mostly, though, they find bodies. Bits of bodies. They gather these pieces in peach baskets that they pass from hand to hand, not minding their torn gloves, torn skin. They say nothing of the stench.”

In the brief prologue to Out of Darkness, Ashely Hope Pérez describes the visceral aftermath of the New London school explosion. Through this structural choice, Pérez indicates that the explosion will be pivotal in the story. The actual story begins six months before the disaster; this prepares the reader for the inevitable and creates the opportunity for speculation as to how the characters might be impacted.

“Henry had taken away the twins’ names, too, registering them as Robbie and Carrie, never mind that her mother had named them Roberto and Caridad in the days before she died. […] ‘Smith’ was a slick, faceless thing, a coin worn smooth. Maybe that was why he did not understand that carrying a name was a way of caring for those who’d given it. Naomi Consuelo Corona Vargas. That was her name. She closed her mouth hard around it. Let him handle the silence. Let him decide what to do with it.”

Henry abandoned his newborn twins Beto and Cari when their mother Estella died. The twins were raised by their grandparents, but Henry, virtually a stranger, proceeds to Americanize their first names when enrolling them in school. This decision robs them of a connection to their Mexican heritage. Henry insists that Naomi and the twins call him “Daddy” as he is also Naomi’s stepfather. However, when Henry later attempts to change his and Naomi’s relationship to suit his lust, Naomi is disturbed by others’ willingness to overlook her being his stepdaughter and the half-sister of his children.

“Henry’s footsteps grew faint, and for a moment Naomi remembered also the dark blank of her mother’s grave, the casket lowered in, Henry next to her, his grip tight on her arm, his mouth so close she could feel his breath on her ear. And his words slipping in and wrapping around her heart before she could stop them: ‘You could have saved her.’ The twins, bawling in Tia Cuca’s arms, were two weeks old. He did not hold them once.”

At a church revival, Henry proudly introduces Beto and Cari to his fellow congregants, as if he has not been an absent father until a few weeks before. When Henry seeks out Naomi, taking a moment to herself, he seems like he is about to apologize for his past abuse, but instead encourages her to be more social.