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64 pages 2 hours read

Kirstin Valdez Quade

The Five Wounds

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021

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Part 2, Pages 199-265Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2: “Ordinary Time”

Part 2, Pages 199-224 Summary

Yolanda begins chemotherapy without telling her family. Although she has a full schedule of appointments, no one notices. She feels invisible to them. One day, after leaving the doctor, she stops for a milkshake and an enchilada at Tortilla Hut only to back into someone’s car as she leaves the parking lot. Although Yolanda has been instructed not to drive anymore because of her risk of seizures, she cannot follow that instruction unless she tells her family about her condition. Yolanda is careful never to drive Angel or the baby, but she knows that it is unethical of her to continue to drive at all. She has dented the other car’s bumper, but she quickly exits the parking lot without telling anyone or leaving a note.

Amadeo calls Brianna to ask her out, and when Brianna returns his call the next day, they agree to meet on Thursday after she finishes work. On the way to meet her, Amadeo has a few drinks for the first time in 10 weeks. He picks up Brianna and, because his license is revoked (he tells her that his truck is in the shop), she drives. Since she does not want to be seen in public with a student’s parent, the two head to her casita, near Chimayo. As soon as they enter, she leaps at him, kissing him with more aggression than he is used to, and leads him to bed.

Brianna and Amadeo have sex. It is awkward, and she is self-conscious throughout. It is her first time, though she does not tell Amadeo until afterward. She wonders what their next steps will be, whether or not she used him for sex, and if she can truly continue to have sex with the “deadbeat” father of one of her students. Amadeo points out the irony of someone who has never had sex teaching a course for teenage mothers.

Leaving school, Angel is exhausted. Connor wakes her every few minutes each night, and she is struggling with the early days of motherhood. Her own mother is waiting outside for her, and Angel is not entirely happy to see her. Angel cannot seem to forgive Marissa, even though her mother has apologized. Her mother again tries to make amends, telling Angel that she lied about smoking while pregnant because she’d been jealous of how at ease Angel seemed at her school: Angel belonged. Marissa never felt such a sense of belonging during her first days as a mother; she had to do everything alone, she says. Marissa asks Angel to come home. Angel responds that it’s “a little late” and says that she’ll stay with Yolanda and Amadeo. Although Angel had wanted an invitation back home, she is still angry at her mother. Spurned, Marissa calls her a “bitch.” Angel does not have the energy for her mother and leaves.

Angel recalls the day that Mike choked her. Angel had come home to find him at his drafting table, eating her yogurt. Angel complained about the yogurt, and Mike lost his temper. They argued, and he ran toward her and pinned her to the wall. He encircled her neck with his hands, but hadn’t applied any pressure. Angel knew in that instant that Mike was sexually attracted to her, and the thought frightened her. Mike then told her that he was “just kidding” and let her go. In the wake of this incident, her mother took Mike’s side. This betrayal is why Angel cannot forgive Marissa.

Thinking about Brianna, Amadeo returns home to find Angel sobbing in the bathroom. Angel is horrified by her stretch marks and terrified that she will never wear a bikini again. Amadeo tries to pray for her, then feels silly for praying for something so frivolous, and then angry at a God who would consider his daughter’s worries unimportant. Angel tells Connor that she hates him, and Amadeo remembers being young and unprepared for fatherhood when Angel was born. He recalls one afternoon outside at Marissa’s parents’ house, when the two had argued, and he’d slapped Marissa. He spends the rest of the day helping Angel, who is despondent and clearly struggling as a young mother.

Part 2, Pages 225-265 Summary

Yolanda continues to deteriorate silently and ruminates on how uninterested she is in her grandson. Angel comes in and asks if Yolanda loves Connor. Angel cries, and Yolanda tells her that “the baby blues pass” (225).

Amadeo and Angel drive around northern New Mexico between Taos, Española, and Santa Fe, passing out flyers for his windshield repair business. Angel drives his truck, as Amadeo has made her his business partner. So far, no one has responded to the flyers and business cards they leave on cars with damaged windshields, but he is hopeful. Amadeo is struck by his daughter’s maturity and her self-possessed nature. He thinks back to her early youth and recalls how intelligent she always was, how much more comfortable in her own skin than Amadeo himself had ever been. While passing out flyers at the Golden Mesa Casino, they are stopped by a security guard and told to leave.

Things have improved between Angel and her father. Although she is not entirely sure that his business will succeed, she can see that he is trying, and she appreciates the help and support that he gives her. Days go by, and Amadeo receives no calls. He asks Yolanda to distribute his flyers at work. Although Yolanda initially balks at his request, he tells her that she’s never believed in him. Although both know this to be a false claim, she relents.

At her chemotherapy appointment, Yolanda hallucinates her late husband, Anthony. She drives herself home even though she’s not supposed to drive anymore. While driving, she recalls Anthony’s violent outburst with her children and his confession to her that he was gay. At the time, she was uncertain how to respond. Now, in hindsight, she realizes that it explains his darkness, addiction, and violence. She wishes that she could go back in time and tell him that she accepted him for who he was. She is pulled over going almost twice the speed limit. She gets a ticket and is grateful that the officer couldn’t tell that she was unfit to be driving.

Angel invites Ryan, the baby’s father, to visit. Amadeo is stunned when Angel requests that Amadeo be present for this visit. Ryan is not what he expects: the young man is white, and Amadeo thinks that he looks nerdy. Angel is borderline hostile, but Ryan is kind to her. He briefly holds Connor and then leaves.

In school, Angel worries that telling Ryan was the wrong decision. She made the choice because Ryan called out of the blue and seemed so happy, so casual. She wanted him to know what his role was in her “exile.” Ryan was surprised, but wanted to see the baby. Angel’s thoughts are interrupted by Brianna announcing the guidelines for an upcoming class project. Lizette shouts that she and Angel will work together. After class, Brianna asks Angel if this arrangement is okay. Brianna says that it’s nice that Angel is such a good friend to Lizette, but sometimes the wrong friends can bring people down.

Angel goes to Lizette’s house to work on their project. Lizette lives with her brother and his girlfriend in a run-down development. Although the yard is tidy, the house is messy. Angel is surprised that Lizette has put some thought into the project. Angel is even more surprised that they end up in Lizette’s bed, kissing. Angel leaves confused and spends the rest of the night wondering if she imagined the hookup.

Part 2, Pages 199-265 Analysis

Here, the narrative is again split among scenes narrated by Yolanda, Amadeo, and Angel. Yolanda’s monologues are divided between remembrances of her tumultuous marriage to Anthony and her attempts to navigate chemotherapy on her own. Amadeo further embodies the theme of Personal Growth and Identity, though further foreshadowing of a setback occurs when he sleeps with Brianna. Angel continues to focus on her infant in the face of post-partum depression, exhaustion, and continued conflict with Marissa. Angel’s relationship with her father does, at this point, begin to improve, and he starts to become a positive force in Angel’s life.

Yolanda, as a figure who is both existing on the verge of death and tied closely to the past, pushes forward the theme of Generational Trauma and Healing. During chemotherapy, Yolanda hallucinates a vision of her late husband, Anthony, and she continues to ruminate on the events of her life alone, largely because she remains invisible to Amadeo and Angel. Thinking about how unreciprocated the care that she has provided is, Yolanda remarks to herself that “they are so incurious, her offspring” (199). And yet, although she is trying to come to terms with the events of her own life during her final months, her thoughts remain with her descendants. She recalls how difficult it was living with a man rendered so volatile, violent, and self-destructive by his inner pain. The stress of trying to keep him from hurting himself and their children was profound. This experience is why Yolanda has spent Amadeo’s entire adult life supporting him. She does not think that he was properly set up for success, and she feels not only a sense of responsibility for him but also empathy and sadness.

Amadeo continues to redeem himself in his daughter’s eyes, his focus steadily expanding to include his family. Part of his turnaround happens as a result of how well he helps Angel through her post-partum depression, though he does not necessarily recognize her symptoms as such. Yolanda is the only character who seems to truly understand Angel’s mood swings and tears. Yolanda assures her granddaughter that the “baby blues” are temporary and that things will even out soon. Initially, Amadeo is irritated by these mood swings, but when he finds Angel sobbing in the bathroom one day over her stretch marks, he is finally struck by the similarity of their situations. They both became parents before they were ready, a realization that prompts him toward empathy. Amadeo recalls, with shame, the afternoon when he grew angry and struck Marissa; now, though, he processes the memory with the understanding that neither of he nor Marissa had been truly equipped for parenthood. While he cannot go back in time and change his lack of interest in parenting Angel when she was young, he can help her now, and he does. Amadeo cares for Connor so that Angel can rest, and he does what he can to ease the burden of single parenthood for her. In these sacrificial acts, Amadeo begins to understand the idea of Redemption and Faith. He earns redemption through his actions, not the performance of faith. The father and daughter work together to try to make his windshield repair business happen, and Angel seems truly supportive of her father’s venture, her skepticism aside.

In fits and starts, the theme of Generational Trauma and Healing also emerges in full with the relationship between Angel and Marissa. The two continue to be at odds, in part because of Marissa’s lacking maturity. Marissa is able admit to Angel that she was not ready to be a mother. She is also able to recognize and admit that she even has misplaced feelings of jealousy because Angel is rooted in support systems like Smart Starts! that Marissa did not have access to during and after her pregnancy with Angel. However, Marissa lashes out when these admissions do not yield forgiveness and, instead, elicit only further rejection from her daughter. The two thus remain in a state of partial estrangement. Marissa’s inability to put the needs of her daughter before her own like a typical parent prevents Angel from fully embracing her relationship with her mother.

The cyclical nature of problems, and Angel’s status as “at-risk” in the sense of generational trauma, also arises as Angel explores her sexuality, this time with a woman. Angel has told Connor’s father, Ryan, about their son, and although Ryan is interested in the boy and respectful toward Angel, she does not have romantic feelings toward him. Angel recognizes the liaisons she had with Ryan and the other boys from her high school as a combination of self-destruction and an attempt to cope with the instability of her home life. In contrast, what Angel feels for Lizette strikes her, at this early stage, as more rooted in her own sexuality and a more honest reflection of romantic interest. This exploration comes in parallel with Yolanda’s memories of how homophobia and rejection affected her husband, feeding into his struggles with addiction and mental health.

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By Kirstin Valdez Quade