Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of drug/alcohol addiction and the suggestion of sexual assault.

In the present, Maya reflects on what message her father’s story might carry about Frank. Frank is someone who knows the power of people’s cherished stories, “The ones that tell us about who we are and where we’re from. Our personal creation myths, the ones we blow out candles for every year” (185). Learning these stories is how Frank gains control of the people around him.

Maya was no exception, gladly opening up to his questions: “Maya might as well have handed Frank a key to her head and her heart the day she told him the story of her dead father” (185). Maya told Frank her favorite story, the one about how her mother and father met. Brenda had gone to Guatemala on a month-long mission trip, not because she was religious, but because she wanted to help people and have her eyes opened by an adventure. She was placed with a host family—an older couple with two adult children, including Jairo. Jairo was living at home while attending college. At night, Brenda heard a weird pecking sound she couldn’t identify.