In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.
Albert Camus
Albert Camus
After one of the worst winter storms, college professor Richard Bowmaster ends up rear-ending a white Lexus. He goes off to exchange his insurance information with the other driver, but he barely manages to toss his business card in her lap before she drives off, without even bothering to close her car door. Much later that night, the driver shows up to his apartment and barely manages to introduce herself as Evelyn Ortega. Desperate for help understanding her, he calls his tenant, visiting professor Lucía Maraz, to help him out.
Eventually, they realize that Evelyn needs help with something far more serious than a minor car accident. An enthusiastic Lucia and a reluctant Richard decide to get involved in what becomes a Road Trip Plot, and more.
Tropes present in this work
- Asshole Victim: Kathryn Brown. She is having an affair with Frank Leroy and they do not do anything to hide it. On top of that, Cheryl Leroy thinks she is too hard on Frankie.
- Body in a Breadbox: Evelyn takes her employer's car to get diapers in the middle of a snowstorm, and finds a corpse in the trunk. Since she is The Illegal, going to the police is not an option.
- Broken Bird: When Richard Bowmaster first meets Anita Farinha in Brazil, she is a graceful dance teacher. The Trauma Conga Line (including multiple miscarriages, losing a child to SIDS and another to a tragic accident, Richard being an alcoholic and cheating on her) she goes through after they marry leaves her like this. Richard gets an excellent job offer that requires him to move to the United States and he accepts, which separates her from her close family and leaves her isolated in a place where she can't speak the language. This leads her to hit the Despair Event Horizon.
- Braving the Blizzard: Richard, Lucia, and Evelyn drive through one to get to the cabin belonging to Richard's friend.
- Canine Companion: Lucía Maraz has Marcelo, a Chihuahua. Richard, her landlord, allows him to stay even though the lease does not allow for pets. When they end up embarking on a Road Trip Plot, she insists on bringing him because Marcelo suffers from separation anxiety.
- Child by Rape: Played straight with Miriam, the product of Concepción Montoya being raped by soldiers.
- Conditioned to Accept Horror: Lucia and Richard make plans to get rid of the corpse in Evelyn's car without getting her involved. She doesn't seem to mind, as she appears used to never being in control of her existence.
- Death of a Child: Richard accidentally kills his daughter Bibi by hitting her with his car while in a drunken stupor.
- Dead Guy on Display: Gregorio Ortega, Evelyn's brother is found nailed to a bridge, his body covered in dried blood and feces, with a sign around his neck with the letters M.S. (for Mara Salvatrucha, the gang to which he belonged). On the back, the sign reads that traitors and their families died like that.
- Disposing of a Body: Richard is horrified when he realizes that Evelyn is driving around with a corpse in the trunk of her car. Lucia is more pragmatic and encourages her to think of a plan to get rid of the body, as going to the police is not an option (Evelyn is undocumented and her employer, Frank Leroy, is involved with human trafficking).
- Giver of Lame Names: Richard adopts four cats strictly for rodent control purposes. As if to prove his lack of sentimentality, he names them Um, Dois, Três and Quatro (one, two, three, and four in Portuguese). The cats are aloof but they become his companions.
- Hate Sink: Frank Leroy. He beats his wife, has no love for his disabled son, and cheats on her brazenly with his son's physical therapist. On top of that, he is a Human Trafficker.
- I Have No Son!: Frank Leroy takes the existence of his son, Frankie Jr., who has diabetes and severe cerebral palsy, as a personal affront. He also resents his wife for giving birth to such a child, and thanks to an emergency hysterectomy, being unable to give him the heir he feels entitled to. He even forbids visitors to the household because he is ashamed of his son. Evelyn learns to avoid mentioning the boy in front of his father.
- The Illegal: Evelyn was allowed to stay when she crossed the border because she was younger than 18, but after she reaches that age, her stepsister breaks into the home and beats her up. Doreen is arrested and tips off the ICE out of spite. So Evelyn's mother packs her up and through her contacts, sends her off to work with a family in Brooklyn who doesn't care about her undocumented status. The family turns out to be the Leroys.
- An Immigrant's Tale:
- Evelyn's backstory: Her mother leaves her children (Evelyn and her two brothers) in the care of Evelyn's grandmother in their village in Guatemala. After the gang one of her brothers belongs to kills him and the other brother and rape Evelyn, leaving her severely injured, the grandmother sends her off with a coyote to cross the border so she can go live with her mother.
- After the 1973 military coup, Lucia is forced to take refuge in the Venezuelan embassy until she can travel to Venezuela. She falls in love with a fellow exile and moves with him to Canada until she realizes he is no prize. She relocates to Vancouver and eventually moves back to Chile.
- Never Found the Body:
- Enrique, Lucía's brother, is detained after the Military Coup in Chile and is never seen again. Later on, after Lucía goes off to exile, Lena Maraz is given instructions to retrieve a sealed coffin with her son's remains and orders not to open it. Of course, she does; the body they gave her is not Enrique's. Nevertheless, she has him buried in the family crypt.
- Richard and Lucía make a plan to Dispose Of The Body by tossing the Lexus off a cliff with Kathryn's corpse in the trunk. But when Lucía brings up how to make sure her body does not surface, she realizes that if they go through with their plan, Kathryn's loved ones will suffer like her own mother did when her brother was "disappeared". They change their plan.
- Older Than They Look: Evelyn, partly due to being very small. She is almost sixteen when she crosses the border, but when she is taken shopping for clothes, she gets outfits that would fit a preteen. Much later on, Cheryl worries about someone so slight being able to care for Frankie. Finally, Richard sees her getting out of the car he rear-ended, and assumes she is too young to drive.
- Police Are Useless: When Padre Benito comes over to Concepción's home after the attack on her grandchildren, he finds that all evidence of the murder and rape has been contaminated, but he figures that the local police is so useless that evidence would not help.
- Polyamory: Lucía's daughter Daniela goes to university in Coral Gables, Florida. She calls her parents back in Chile to announce that she is genderfluidnote and into polyamory relationships. Her father Carlos advises her not to tell anyone in Chile and calls her relationships just an excuse to practice free love.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: After Gregorio's fellow gang members murder him for reasons unknown, they come for his siblings, Evelyn and Andrés. Andrés is murdered; Evelyn is raped and Left for Dead.
- Removed from the Picture: Lucia's father. After his death, her mother learns of his Secret Other Family and her grief turns to anger. She destroys all his pictures (except a few her son manages to hide from her), gets rid of all his belongings, stops seeing all their common friends and even cuts contact with his side of the family. She doesn't forbid the kids from talking about him, but discourages it.
- The Reveal: Lucía and Richard learn that it was Cheryl who shot Kathryn during a confrontation, and not her husband Frank like they had thought.
- Second Love: For Richard and Lucia. The former became a widower when his wife was Driven to Suicide; the latter's marriage broke up when her husband was unable to handle her breast cancer diagnosis.
- Secret Other Family: Lucia learns her father had a second family, including a son with the same name as her brother Enrique.
