Out of Darkness

“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. Henry believes he has been changed by his new commitment to religion. Naomi, however, cannot forget the moment Henry blamed her 10-year-old self for her mother’s death (because she refused to be his sexual partner and fought back). She also remembers his lack of engagement with the newborn twins, juxtaposed with his newfound role of proud parent.

“Washing his clothes. It wasn’t just one more thing to add to the work of cooking and cleaning and tending the twins and trying to buy food. It meant handling shirts and pants that he’d worn. It meant touching things that had touched his body. It meant the smell of him. […] The bedcovers were in a tangle, and there was a greasy spot in the middle of the pillowcase. Sourness rose into her mouth. She thought about swallowing it back down, but instead she spat. Before she walked out, she looked for the small glob of saliva glistening on his pillow.”

While attending school full time, Naomi is also expected to care for the twins, cook, clean, maintain the house, and do Henry’s laundry—as he has no consideration for her busy schedule. Naomi is sickened by the notion of having to handle her sexual abuser’s soiled garments for the extended length of time required to launder them by hand. Through her collective responsibilities, Naomi’s role in the household more closely resembles that of a mother and wife than a sister and daughter.

“In the morning, when her mother asked her what was wrong, Naomi smiled a bright, false smile and said that it was nothing. Henry, sitting across from her at the table, raised his eyebrows at her over the top of his coffee cup and smiled. ‘She’s a good girl, ain’t she?’ he said. He winked at her as if he were promising to keep her secret rather than commanding her to keep his. The fourth pregnancy took, but it also took away what strength had left. […] The twins came early in a rush of blood that slowed to a trickle but never stopped.”

Henry begins sexually abusing Naomi after he and Estella are told that Estella could die if she becomes pregnant again. Even though Henry and Estella are given options for preventing pregnancy, Pérez implies that Henry does not comply, as he continues to force himself on Estella, and she suffers repeated miscarriages. Henry acknowledges his own endangering of Estella in manipulating young Naomi to save her mother’s life by being his replacement sexual partner. As a result, when Estella does die, Naomi can’t help but think she might have prevented her death.

“No telling how the white folks caught wind of what was happening. […] Some say it was the Tall Man that left the tracks followed, others said Blue himself was careless. Anyway, I guess the gal looked white to the whites, and that was enough to get Blue hung by the tree in front of his house with his balls stuffed in his own mouth. […] Sue Sue said some of the folks over in Kilgore still have the photos they sold down at Longhorn Drugs. Souvenirs.”

Wash’s friend Cal shares this horrifying conclusion to a local story on their way to a work site. Wash has just come from the riverbank, where he and Naomi spent time alone together for the first time. The Black man in the story, Blue, was lynched when locals found out he was living with a woman they perceived to be white. This quote foreshadows Wash’s own fate at the end of the novel and emphasizes the budding friendship-turned-romance between him and Naomi—a romance dangerous in itself due to the racism in their community.

“‘Adorable. But the older sister…can that really be their sister?’ That was Blue

Pumps.

‘Dark. And sneaky-like. […] Maybe a little r-------. A lot of those Mexicans are.’

‘She might be slow when it comes to books, but have you noticed how she walks? […] A girl like that can be fast in other areas of life, you know.’

‘Runs in the blood. You can just tell she wants the boys to look.’

‘Can’t help it maybe.’ Black Oxfords followed Blue Pumps to the door. ‘That kind will follow their animal urges.’”

Naomi is hiding from popular girl Miranda Gibbler in a bathroom stall when two women from the PTA enter and begin gossiping about her and the twins. She hid to escape Miranda and her friends’ bullying following Miranda’s ex-boyfriend Gil speaking to her, only to be subjected to the same viciousness from adults. This exchange establishes that Miranda’s perception of Naomi extends to adults as well. It also emphasizes that the white community sees a distinct, intellectual line between Naomi, whose appearance reflects her Mexican heritage, and her half-siblings, who are white-passing.

“In a day or two, they’d be out of staples, and if she borrowed from Muff, she’d have to give an explanation. […] She couldn’t use the emergency money; they might need it more later. If Henry didn’t return by Friday, she would do something.”

When Henry’s surprise, a radio that turns out to be broken, does not go as planned (he does not receive the admiration he believes he has earned), he leaves for several days. Naomi is forced to consider her options if he does not come back in time for her to replenish their food. Henry imagines himself to be changed by his newfound religion, but one disappointment so rattles him that he leaves Naomi and the twins to their own devices. Although he returns, he has relapsed in his abuse of alcohol, an indication that insecurity and instability are mounting in the household.

“All kinds of forgetting were possible in the tree. Naomi could forget the grime she scrubbed from the sinks, the slap of wet sheets against her ankles as she flung them over the clothesline, the breakfasts and lunches and dinners waiting to be made and eaten and cleaned up. She could forget the stares at school and Miranda’s icy words. Inside the tree, she could forget the girl she saw Wash with at his house and the ones at Mason’s. She could forget that Wash belonged to the twins first of all. She forgot until, for a moment, she remembered only Wash’s laughter and the late-summer light through the trees by the river. The memory of his smile kindled hers, even now.”

Climbing trees is Naomi’s only respite from the stress of her unrelenting responsibilities. She finds comfort in the notion that she can hide, out of reach and out of sight, while retaining the advantage of observing the world below. Trees are featured throughout the novel in both comforting and threatening contexts: A symbol which begins as Naomi’s personal haven takes on the role of secret sanctuary for her and Wash and is eventually corrupted at the end of the novel.

“Even then, Naomi had felt that an exchange of some kind was taking place. She could not be sure what she was giving up. But once she untied the thick ribbon holding the wrapping paper in place, she knew exactly what he was getting. ‘Naomi, guess what?’ Her mother smiled at her after she had said her thank you. ‘Henry’s going to be your new daddy […].’ And then Naomi knew that the trade was finished, and she could not go back.”

When Henry gives Cari a doll for Christmas, Naomi is reminded of the one he gave her when she was five years old, and her mother Estella announced that she would be marrying Henry. Though the gift was a superficial gesture, Naomi somehow understood that she was surrendering something profound. Once again, years later, Naomi is reliant on Henry for her survival and that of the twins. When Estella died, Henry smashed the doll in a rage and abandoned Naomi and the newborn twins. Through these gestures, Naomi came to understand that Henry’s support is conditional.

“‘But they know that I love them, and they know that you love them.’ He brought her close again. For a moment, he let himself imagine what it might be like to be a family. He pictured framing out a little cabin with Beto working by his side. It would be deep in the woods, a lost place. So far away no one would find them. Ever. […] ‘Birds,” she said. She touched each of the small Vs. He had carved each one as a wish for lightness, for freedom. Feelings he wanted to give her. Feelings she gave him. He took it from her and slipped it onto the ring finger of her left hand. The gesture brought her longing coupled with despair. They couldn’t have that, not in this world, no matter how much they loved each other.”

Inside the secret sanctuary of their hollowed-out tree, Wash gives Naomi a ring he carved with birds, a gesture of freedom and his love for her. They find in each other solace and strength that they long to celebrate without fear, but both are acutely aware of how essential it is to keep their relationship a secret, even from Beto and Cari. The couple cherish their time together but grieve the obstacles which prevent them from realizing a life together. It feels right to them to one day have their own home, where they could raise the twins, a dream which seems impossible.

“Wash gave a dry laugh. ‘Come on, Pa,’ he said, ‘you were right. We’re dealing with some cold, cold hearts here. Heck, it’d take an explosion to wake them up.’ The last words rang out through the thin January air. Wash and his father glanced back. They didn’t see anyone on the porch, and Wash felt a wave of relief and then instant shame. He didn’t want to be like his father, chained to ‘yessirs’ forever, but maybe it was harder to burn bridges and break habits than he thought.”

In trying to secure better resources for his father’s school in Egypt Town, Wash offered to change the New London school’s gas supply to green gas, saving them money he hoped would be allocated to the Egypt Town school. When he and his father are rebuffed, excluded from a meeting they were slated to attend, Wash is so frustrated that he proceeds to the principal’s house, where he is rebuked. He utters this flippant reference to an explosion when he thinks they are out of earshot, but when the accidental explosion does occur, Miranda takes advantage of the situation to relay what she overheard, which eventually leads to Wash’s destruction.

“She stared at her own reflection, at the ridiculous pile of hair on top of her head. With a little sense she could have avoided this whole evening, kept their life in Henry’s house as predictable and safe as her simple braid. She yanked the pins out of her hair as fast as she could and was pulling the last ones out when she heard the bathroom door open. She slipped the pins into the pocket of her apron and started to smooth her hair so she could put it back into a braid. She wasn’t quick enough.”

Naomi has few items belonging to her mother. One night, when she wears her mother’s dress and styles her hair the way Estella did when dancing, Henry comes home intoxicated and, fueled by Naomi’s resemblance to Estella and his assumption that she enjoys her role in the house, makes unwanted advances toward her. Naomi’s attempt to quickly alter her appearance to deflect Henry’s behavior indicates that she is aware of his nature, his lack of decency, and wrongfully blames herself for dressing up.

“Finally she said, ‘You told him to bring us here, didn’t you?’

‘The Spirit led him. Henry’s got to work out his salvation like all of us. You and the twins are part of his.’

‘He’s not my father, you know,” Naomi said.

‘And thank goodness!’ The pastor mopped his forehead and squinted at the noonday sun beating down through the trees.

‘Pardon?’ Naomi said.

‘I thought surely by now you’d considered…’ he trailed off.”

Taken aside by Pastor Tom at the river before he proceeds to perform baptisms, Naomi discovers that it was he who inspired Henry to send for her and the twins. A few days before, Henry had presented Naomi with a sewing machine, and Tommie hinted that it might be a present intended for a special occasion. The idea of marrying her stepfather never occurred to Naomi, but those around her are beginning to hint that a romantic relationship between the two would be considered acceptable, and in fact, encouraged.

“Tears flooded Beto. Snot poured down his face. He tore off through the woods toward the truck. He imagined his own body ripped by bullets like the bird’s, and he sobbed harder. By the time Henry and Vince returned, the crying had had passed and there was only fear and, in spite of everything, a desperate wish to please Henry. On the way back to New London, Beto lay still in the bed of the truck, the certainty of his father’s disappointment holding him down like stones.”

In contrast to his twin sister Cari, who is independent and defiant, Beto is eager to please and desperate for approval. Henry has beliefs about masculinity which typify the time and place in which Out of Darkness is set, and Beto’s sensitivity and empathy elicit his father’s disappointment. Henry is increasingly jaded by the twins not conforming to his image of the compliant, adoring children he anticipated they would be. When he takes Beto hunting and the boy reacts with hesitation, he traumatizes him by forcing him to kill a wounded bird. Henry’s decision that Beto needs to be hardened foreshadows the complicity he will force his son to engage in later in the novel when the stakes are much higher.

“He went on in the same vein, filling her ears with lines cribbed straight from Pastor Tom. He didn’t seem to require any response. Meanwhile, she studied the cheap, nubbed fabric of the tablecloth. There was a loose thread; she longed to pluck it out. Instead, she slid her fingers back and forth across the rough grain of the table’s underside, letting her skin drag over the unfinished wood, working out a kind of counterpoint to Henry’s rambling. Only when a splinter caught under her fingernail, biting deep into the tender flesh, did Naomi react. She gasped and pulled her hand back, bringing the finger up instinctively to her mouth. She worked the splinter loose with her tongue and teeth and began to reckon up the too-few options left to her.”

When Henry proposes marriage, Naomi has already received hints from Pastor Tom, Tommie, and Muff that he was going to, but she has been dreading this moment. She declines, but Henry persists. As Naomi sits, forced to listen to Henry justify his reasoning, she begins to dissociate. She has been complacent with Henry in their exchanges for the sake of the twins’ wellbeing, and though she asserted herself, once again she is forced into silence, attempting to ground herself by engaging with something she can physically touch. It becomes clear to her that Henry will not take “no” for an answer. Naomi cannot imagine an outcome more horrifying than marrying her abuser, and when she is stabbed by a splinter, she is forced to confront the reality of her situation.

“She felt a tightness in her throat as her future unfolded before her. IT would be her unhappy face in the wedding photo. Then laundry. Dusting. Biscuits. Cooking ham hocks and beans. Mending. The twins would grow up and move out, like children do. And then there would only be the ceaseless housework. And Henry. No, it was even worse than that. Him forcing his leg between hers, him pushing her down onto his bed, taking her in the bathroom, in the closet. ‘A bun in the oven.’ Henry’s child. She shuddered and remembered the sound of her mother’s crying, overlaid with the squeaking of the bedsprings. All those miscarriages. So many wrong things that could never be made right.”

At their tree, Naomi confesses to Wash the desperate nature of her situation. She discloses the details of her sexual abuse, her mother’s forced pregnancies, and the way Estella suffered through each one before she finally gave birth to the twins and died. Naomi knows that if she is forced to marry Henry, one day she will be left alone with him. As Henry has demonstrated that he has no respect for the bodily autonomy of women and girls, her fate would mean a lifetime of the same subservience and violence which resulted in her mother’s death. She has never told anyone but Wash about her abuse, but she is still shocked by her friends and acquaintances’ encouragement of a union between her and her stepfather. Wash decides in this moment to form a plan of escape for Naomi and the twins, knowing now that they must risk the uncertainty of the outside world to ensure Naomi will not suffer a worse fate.

“‘You tell us stories about hairstyles and pickles and dance contests, things that don’t matter, but you leave out everything we need to know. Like how come she died and why did Daddy go and what did she want us to know about her.’ Naomi did not turn. She did not call Cari to her. She did not reprimand her. She did not cry. She sat feeling her sister’s words burrow into her. Cari was cruelest when she was right. But the past was Naomi’s pain, something she caried and kept to herself. For herself. Somehow, Cari had caught on to that, and what she was asking for was not the kind of story that would lend anybody strength. Naomi didn’t want to feed Cari’s anger.”

Cari is precocious, often challenging authority in sly and trivial ways, but the memory of her deceased mother Estella becomes a critical battle ground between her and Naomi. Not only does Naomi want to keep certain memories to herself for its own sake, but to protect her half-siblings from pain. The twins resent Henry on their own, without the knowledge of their mother’s death and Henry’s abandonment. Naomi is afraid the twins will become traumatized by the truth and act out in ways that will endanger them.

“‘It’s not fair,’ Cari said. ‘Why should everything be yours? Why didn’t she leave us something?’

Naomi stiffened. ‘She did. She left me.’

‘Well, we want her.’

‘Yeah? I do, too. But I lost her when you were born, so let’s not talk about fair.’ As soon as the words were out, Naomi wished she could snatch them back. Cari’s face turned to stone. Tears slid down Beto’s nose.”

Naomi is so overwhelmed by Cari and Beto taking their mother’s mementos from her guitar case (for a séance), and so resentful of Cari’s recent behavior that she lashes out and tells them the truth in a way she never intended. This is Naomi’s last exchange with Cari, as Cari is soon killed in the school explosion; Naomi blames herself for sending the twins back to class because she believes it resulted in her sister’s death. This quote is the only inclination in the novel that Naomi has ever harbored resentment toward the twins, even unconsciously. She blames Henry for the pregnancy which resulted in her mother’s death, but the death and her siblings’ blood undeniably placed her in a caregiver role which permanently tied her to Henry.

“Naomi could not make Beto let go of Cari, so Wash carried them both to the back of the truck on a blanket. She limped after them in her mother’s tiny shoes. […] Naomi tried to put her thoughts in order. Go to the house. Put Beto to bed. Call for Henry. Clean Cari. Do not think, Cari is dead. Do not think, it’s my fault. She was skimming the surface of the world again, but now that surface was shattered, littered with debris. A dark undertow threatened to pull her under, down to the horrible truth.”

Naomi is in shock following the school explosion. Wash rescues Beto and searches for Cari, pulling her body from the rubble and bringing her back to Naomi and Beto. The mention of Naomi wearing her mother’s shoes reminds the reader that Cari and Naomi switched shoes when Naomi discovered the twins had taken Estella’s dancing shoes. The appearance of Naomi’s shoes in the Prologue suggested the likelihood of Naomi’s death, but Naomi is spared and filled with guilt at having sent Cari back to class, punctuated by the shoes on her feet.

“When he put her down, he tried to keep the jacket over her, but she was broken in so many places. Hurt bloomed and faded, bloomed, and faded on Naomi’s face. And Beto. Lost without his twin. Wash wanted to hold them both close. Tuck Beto safe between him and Naomi. Wrap Naomi in his arms and lay her head on his shoulder. Join what could be joined. But the white man was with them. Wash could not even show his friendship. Then he was in the back of the truck headed again to the school. But his heart was in the tree with Naomi. He would go. When the work was done, he would find a way to her. Give her what wholeness he could. No telling if it would be enough.”

Wash is heartbroken by Cari’s death and the circumstances which prevent him from comforting Naomi and Beto in their grief. Even amidst such a shocking tragedy, Wash is forced to school his autonomy and emotions in order to avoid hostility and violence. When he returns to the school to help, he is confronted by racist men who bar him from even touching the bodies of the deceased and injured children; Wash’s humanity is rejected in the face of hatred.

“In a flash, Wash could see their situation clearly. The explosion had shattered their timeline. School was over now; Henry might not be persuaded to wait any longer. He would want to secure his hold on what was his. What he wanted to make his. ‘Be careful,’ he said. A lump formed in his throat. The size of his helplessness. It wasn’t just Henry. He thought of the roughnecks blocking his way at the school. The truck that came to Egypt Town and demanded volunteers to dig graves. Even at the cemetery, he heard murmurings. People were restless. They wanted answers, any answers. Anything could happen. Anywhere. Nowhere here was safe enough.”

Up until the school explosion, Wash had been carefully researching and weighing possible locations for him, Naomi, and the twins to make a new life together. Naomi has staved off Henry by relenting to his marriage proposal on the condition that she be allowed to graduate first, which would have offered them a few more months to solidify a plan. But in light of the explosion and the residents’ growing anger, Wash is left with no choice but to proceed unprepared.

“She thought she understood when she saw the flames. Wash’s house. The car. The shed. A terrible loss. But then in the light from the burning house she saw something nailed to the trunk of the huge magnolia tree. Crude black letters on a white board. LIKE FATHER LIKE SON. So may shadows. But she knew what she saw. Two dark forms, swaying. Hung.”

When Wash does not appear at their meeting place, Naomi goes to find him and sees what she believes are the bodies of Wash and his father Jim hanging from a tree in their yard. Neither Naomi nor the reader, the latter of which has been privy to the impending violence of the mob, are informed that the two figures are those of the twins’ two scarecrows for Wash’s mother, Rhoda. Naomi concludes that Wash is dead, and that she and Beto are in a hopeless predicament. It is only when Wash appears at the tree that Naomi is able to enjoy a brief period of hope.

“There was a ferocious pain in both of them but also the promise beyond it. A moment of warmth that they could stand up and walk around in. A world bigger than their tree. A sunny plaza. Bobbing hibiscus flowers the size of dinner plates. Golden-fleshed mangoes. Tiny oranges they could peel with their teeth. The clang of cracked cathedral bells. They walked through that promise together, the Mexico they imagined. They would meet there. And it would be heaven.”

As Naomi and Wash lay dying, each broken and brutalized beyond comprehension by Henry in his lust and hatred, they find comfort in their proximity to each other in their last moments. They reassure each other that they will be going to Mexico as they had dreamed. All of the obstacles to their relationship have compounded in this conclusion, with death being the only way they could ever love without consequence or fear.