The Distance Between Us

Mago becomes the first in the family to graduate high school, and Reyna is the third in the family to graduate junior high. There is further cause for celebration as Reyna, her siblings, and her father have become legal residents. Additionally, Reyna hopes for a quinceañera party, but her father can’t afford the expense. Instead he promises her a trip to the local water park, but Reyna knows this is a ruse—her father’s employers have invited them for a free company outing.

Carlos breaks his leg playing soccer, but Reyna’s father refuses to take him to the hospital. As a result, Reyna reevaluates her relationship with him. Both she and Mago are afraid to challenge him concerning Carlos’s well-being: “I thought about the Man Behind the Glass […] In his eternal silence, he had been a much better father than the one we lived with now” (254). As Carlos’s condition worsens, Mago comforts him and enlists the help of friends to take him to the hospital, only to have her father intercede and insist that he will do it.  

While Mila defends his behavior, claiming that he was beaten as a child, Reyna asks herself why he would then continue the same cycle of abuse.