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Summary
Part III, Section 2: “At Lunch on Monday” – “There Are Words”
As Xiomara more fully embraces the poetry club, she feels less and less angry, depressed, and alone. Ms. Galiano and the members of the club support and encourage her, and Xiomara says she feels like a flower opening up. Things seem to be improving at home as well. During winter break, Mami gives Xiomara a gift on Christmas Eve, the baby bracelet she’s had resized for her daughter. Back at school, poetry club continues to be the thing that sustains Xiomara, and she continues writing and memorizing her poetry. On their shared birthday, Twin gives her a new notebook, and she begins writing in it. Unfortunately, when she pulls out the new notebook at the next poetry club meeting, Xiomara immediately realizes that she left her old one on the kitchen table back home, and she knows she’s in big trouble when she gets a voice mail to come home immediately after school.
At home, Mami is waiting in Xiomara’s room with her notebook. She knows enough English to have read and understood the poems, and she’s furious about what Xiomara has written about boys, church, and her mother. Even though Xiomara tells her the poems are private and says she’s sorry, Mami lights a match and sets the notebook with hundreds of poems Xiomara has spent years writing on fire. When Xiomara tries to grab it, Mami slaps her and knocks her down, reciting Bible verses over and over. Finally, Xiomara begins reciting her own verses, poetry she’s memorized from the pages turning to ash in front of her until they are both sobbing. Xiomara tells her mother that she’ll have to burn her to destroy the poetry because they live inside her, not just the notebook. Papi and Twin finally run in, and Papi takes the notebook away from Mami while she hisses like a snake, and Xiomara considers never being vulnerable again and never writing another poem. As Papi puts out the fire, Xiomara begins retreating before Mami can punish her more, and Twin holds Mami back so Xiomara can escape.
Outside, Xiomara texts Aman and asks to see him and then calls Caridad to tell her to check on Twin. She rides the train to meet with Aman who is not only exactly where she asked him to meet her but also not dressed for the cold because he was in such a rush to get to her. She asks him to take her to his apartment, and once they get there, Xiomara tells him what happened. Aman holds her, and the comfort she feels turns into kissing and, eventually, making out that leads up to actual sex and is only interrupted when Xiomara tells him to stop. She’s confused and frustrated, and she fully expects Aman to call her names and tell her to leave. Instead, he helps her get dressed, and they eat dinner and watch YouTube videos until they fall asleep together. One of Xiomara’s last thoughts before she sleeps is that she has crossed boundaries that she can’t take back.
Analysis
Xiomara’s baby bracelet symbolizes her complex relationship with her mother. When she was an infant, the bracelet represented Mami’s tie to Xiomara and her love for her daughter. Eventually, Xiomara outgrew the bracelet just as children outgrow their dependence on their parents and move toward independence. When Mami resizes the bracelet and gives it to Xiomara for Christmas, it’s a confusing gift because while it can be seen as a loving gesture, it actually represents Mami’s desire to put Xiomara in her place and remind her that she is first and foremost her mother’s daughter. When Mami burns Xiomara’s notebook, an act intended to erase and nullify Xiomara’s individuality and the things she values rather than what Mami wants her to believe, the bracelet is broken. That break indicates a fracture in the mother-daughter relationship as the result of Mami’s betrayal and her denial of Xiomara’s privacy and personhood.
Another symbol at work in this section is Xiomara’s notebook. As a gift from Twin, it represents his support for who she is and wants to be and his encouragement of her as a writer. To Xiomara, the notebook is a refuge and a sanctuary. In its pages, she can be vulnerable and honest in ways she can’t with anyone, even her brother or best friend. It is also emblematic of her dreams for herself and her aspirations to become a writer. When Mami finds the notebook, it confirms everything she suspected and feared about Xiomara. Because Xiomara writes about her budding sexuality, her growing relationship with Aman, her doubts about the church, and her anger over Mami’s attempts to control her, Mami is horrified and views the notebook as an instrument for sin that must be destroyed. Mami hisses like a snake in the process, alluding to the snake in the Garden of Eden that tempts Eve. Mami’s temptation is to lure Xiomara away from her true self and try to get her to abandon her identity and meld herself to Mami’s image of a good daughter. When Mami burns the notebook, however, the act is a catalyst to affirm Xiomara’s identity and how important her writing is to her despite Mami’s threats and abuse. Xiomara insists that the notebook is just a book and that the poems live in her. As she recites poems that Mami destroys, Xiomara shows that the notebook is just a vessel, not the source itself, and that she carries her poetry inside herself. Unless Mami wants to burn her up, Xiomara says, her mother can never exorcise or remove what’s inside her.
Asking Aman for help is indicative of Xiomara’s need for love and acceptance. Even though he didn’t defend her when she was groped, Xiomara asks Aman for help, and he comes through for her. When they are in his apartment alone, kissing, Xiomara is faced with a decision about sex, and she stops them from going to that level, showing that, unlike her mother’s assertions, she is capable of setting healthy boundaries for what she is and is not comfortable doing with her body. Additionally, when Aman responds to her telling him to stop with acceptance, gently helping her get her clothes back on, he shows that contrary to Mami’s beliefs, not all men disrespect the wishes and bodies of women. The entire encounter is indicative that Xiomara does have the ability to choose a boy who will respect her and her boundaries as well as the strength to set and stick to her own limits.
