64 pages • 2 hours read
Kirstin Valdez QuadeThe Five Wounds
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2, Page 350-Part 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “Ordinary Time”
Part 2, Pages 350-383 Summary
Angel approaches Brianna and her father, a look of confusion on her face. Brianna puts on her best professional smile and pretends that she and Amadeo just ran into each other and were discussing Angel. In fact, Amadeo and Brianna had been arguing. Amadeo leaves with Angel, the status of his relationship with Brianna now distressingly unclear, and tries to play it cool. Angel, however, immediately asks how long he’s been sleeping with Brianna, then tells him that she does not want to speak to him.
In class the next day, Angel fumes silently. Brianna has put on her most professional outfit, a business suit, as a kind of armor. Brianna’s sense of self has been severely shaken by Angel’s possible discovery of her relationship with Amadeo—Brianna does not yet know about the conversation between Angel and her father in the car. Accordingly, Brianna relies on her clothing in an attempt to regain the authority that she’s lost. Angel looks sadly at Lizette’s empty desk, and when Brianna asks Angel to spit out her gum, Angel refuses, instead accusing Brianna of kicking the one girl out of school who most needed help. Brianna instructs her again to spit out her gum. When Angel does not, Brianna tells her to leave and not to return.
Angel goes home and does not speak to Amadeo all day. Finally, as she is getting ready for bed, she tells her father that his “little girlfriend” kicked her out of the program for chewing gum. Furious, Amadeo calls Brianna. With a false sense of professionalism and a clearly rehearsed statement, Brianna informs “Mr. Padilla,” as she calls him, that Angel broke the rules and has been expelled from the program. Amadeo accuses her of taking out her own unhappiness that their relationship “didn’t work” out on Angel. Brianna denies this, and the two hang up.
Caring for Yolanda is now a full-time job for Angel. Yolanda is fading rapidly and is mostly confined to the hospital bed that has been moved into her room. Angel, however, is still reeling from her expulsion and genuinely confused as to how it happened. She assumed that she and Brianna would talk, that Brianna would apologize, and the two would smooth things over somehow.
Thanksgiving is subdued, and Yolanda continues to decline. A few weeks later, she passes away at home in her bed. In the wake of Yolanda’s death, Angel is consumed by the many tasks to be completed yet struck by how life goes on even after such a tremendous loss. Amadeo drinks heavily, and Angel cannot feel anything but resentment toward her father. He does so little to help around the house and still expects Angel to comfort him. Marissa stops by regularly to bring food, and Angel witnesses her parents speaking amiably for the first time in her life. Marissa and Amadeo talk fondly of their early years together and reminisce about Yolanda.
Ryan comes to see Angel. He is genuinely interested in Connor. The two flirt and nearly have sex, but Angel stops him, and they go to Lotaburger for lunch instead. Angel is confused by the near-sexual encounter and can think only of Lizette. She is hoping to run into Lizette or to stop by her house. Lizette lives just around the corner from the restaurant. At lunch, Ryan tells Angel that she should challenge her expulsion. She is awestruck that neither she nor her parents had considered this option. As Ryan continues to talk about the importance of self-advocacy, Angel’s anger mounts: Ryan grew up in a privileged white family. Of course he would not only know how to ask for what he wants but also would be accustomed to getting it. She flies into a rage, tells him the baby isn’t his, but then seems to change her mind and says that if he wants to parent, now is his chance. She storms out of Lotaburger, leaving Ryan alone with Connor.
Part 2, Pages 384-399 Summary
Amadeo is out running errands in Española, more out of a desire to leave the house than out of actual necessity. He brings a small plastic baggie of airplane-sized bottles of vodka with him, rationalizing that police will not be out on the small roads between town and his home and that the alcohol takes long enough to enter his bloodstream that he won’t be impaired until after he arrives home. At home, Angel’s car is there, but she and Connor are nowhere to be found.
Angel is at Lizette’s. When Lizette answers the door, her voice is flat and uncaring. Her house is in a state of utter disarray. The two quickly embrace and have sex. After, Angel tries to talk with Lizette, but Lizette is cold. Angel says that she loves Lizette, but Lizette tells Angel that the two have merely been hooking up and their relationship is meaningless. She kicks Angel out. Angel tries to call her father, but is initially unsuccessful. It is after midnight, and she is alone and scared on the unsafe streets of Española.
Ryan drops off Connor at Amadeo’s house. Although Amadeo is very drunk, he realizes that he must go and get his daughter. He vomits to try to prevent the alcohol from his last drink from entering his system, buckles Connor into his car seat, and sets off. He hasn’t gotten far when he realizes that he has not turned his headlights on. When he flips the switch, he sees a coyote in the road ahead of him. He comes to on the side of the road, and although he assumes that he has killed his grandson, Connor is alive and screaming.
Nearby in Española, Angel hears the mournful howl of a coyote, followed by what sounds like a baby crying. She thinks of La Llorona, the mythical figure from local lore who wanders the countryside wailing after drowning her own child. A car approaches. It is her mother, who tells her that there has been an accident, but that everything is okay.
Part 3 Summary: “Lent”
At the hospital, both Marissa and Angel lie and tell the nurse that alcohol had not been a factor in the crash. Amadeo had admitted everything to them, but they need him at home, and as Angel points out, now Amadeo will “never drink” again. Amadeo does indeed stop drinking and becomes more active at the Morada. He has realized that redemption comes from accountability rather than performative religiosity, and his focus is on Angel and Connor.
Angel thinks that she might like to return to high school. She meets up with some of the girls from Smart Starts! and learns that Lizette is on heroin, and her baby had been taken from her.
Ryan texts Angel. He told his mother about the baby, and the woman wants to meet Angel and her family. Angel and Amadeo worry that Ryan’s mother will try to take Connor from them, and they thoroughly clean the house. Angel asks Marissa to be present for the meeting. However, Ryan’s mother, Mary Ann, is kind. She is a nurse in Los Alamos and has brought a bag of supplies for the baby. She frets that Connor inherited Ryan’s missing sternum, but Angel assures her that the baby is fine. Mary Ann has brought money and tells Angel that Ryan will continue to pay child support and that she wants him to get a job. Amadeo notes that Lowe’s is hiring. Saying they are all “family now,” Mary Ann leaves with her son.
At the procession this year, Isaiah plays Christ. Amadeo again reflects on the fact that the lesson he learned about Jesus was not about performance or pain, but about love. Amadeo loves his family, and as he stands with Angel and Connor watching the reenactment, he feels buoyed not only by his love for them but also by the support that he can provide to his daughter and her son.
Part 2, Page 350-Part 3 Analysis
The events surrounding the narrative’s conclusion fully develop each of the novel’s themes, and the Padilla family is finally able to come together and heal. Amadeo and Angel show tremendous personal growth, Angel and Marissa repair their relationship, and the story ends with the formation of a new family unit: Angel and her parents, Connor, and Ryan and his mother.
Angel has found out about Brianna and Amadeo, and the way that each of the adults respond to her is indicative of how much Amadeo has grown and, in contrast, how little Brianna has. Amadeo has an innate drive toward honesty, and he does not hide the truth from his daughter. Brianna, thinking only about power and professionalism, is not honest. When the two later argue about it, when Amadeo calls to intervene on behalf of his daughter after Brianna has expelled her, Brianna continues to arm herself with what she conceives of as distance and professionalism. She does not truly hear Amadeo’s points about the importance of honesty, and although she seems to think that she has held her own in the conversation, she is not observant and reflective enough to understand that everything she has said rang false. Here, Amadeo truly embodies the theme of Personal Growth and Identity, because he has shifted his entire person from a place of constant self-focus to one of concern for his daughter. Angel is the one to point out Brianna’s hypocrisy and racism. The result of that confrontation is not increased self-awareness for Brianna, however, but Angel’s expulsion from Smart Starts! At this point in the narrative, Angel truly understands power and privilege, and she tries to express that understanding, albeit in the form of an accusation, to Brianna. Brianna, who views most interactions in the classroom as about power dynamics, maintaining face, and retaining her sense of authority, is unwilling to even consider Angel’s points.
As much growth as Amadeo shows in his interactions with Brianna, he backslides after the fiasco with Monica’s windshield, and the climax of the narrative sees him drunkenly driving to Española to rescue a distressed Angel, infant Connor in his car. As Angel did during the accident that she nearly caused, Amadeo swerves to avoid what he thinks is a coyote in the road, loses control of the vehicle, and wakes on the ground next to Connor in his car seat. That Amadeo did not injure his grandson is a miracle, and this event is the final wake-up call that Amadeo needs. He quits drinking permanently, gets a job at Lowe’s, and fully embraces his role as father and grandfather. His narrative arc speaks to the theme of Redemption and Faith in that he finds redemption, and even a more authentic way back to his Catholic faith, as a result of commitment to family.
Everyone unites to care for Yolanda, although Angel takes the lead as she is no longer in school. Even Tío Tíve visits, and he opens up to Amadeo about the need to provide better than Amadeo’s own father, Anthony, had done. Although not judgmental, Tío Tíve understands the role that generational trauma has played in the Padilla family, and he is invested in healing from it. These last few months with Yolanda do become a kind of healing process for the family, and in this way, the theme of Generational Trauma and Healing reaches a resolution: Working together, exercising mutual respect, and building a sense of shared responsibility finally heals—or at least begins to heal—the Padillas from generations of pain and sadness. The Padillas even find additional support in the form of Ryan and his mother, Mary Ann. Mary Ann lives in Los Alamos, a nearby town that is markedly more affluent than Española and Las Penas; Los Alamos is the site of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, a hub for scientists and high-paying government jobs. Nonetheless, Mary Ann does not see the Padilla family through the lens of stereotype; instead, in line with her career as a nurse, she contributes to the healing. She is excited to be a grandmother, to meet her new family, and to help Angel. The novel thus ends on a hopeful note, suggesting that through redemption and personal growth, it is possible to heal from generational trauma.
