![]() Yet Señora Valencia’s fear of death is nonetheless real-the two women’s experiences illustrate how death is universal, yet its influence is unique in each person’s life. Señora Valencia’s comment that her previous greatest pain in life before childbirth was a bee sting highlights her privileged upbringing, and how different her experience has been from that of Amabelle, who has clearly suffered real loss and grief since childhood. More broadly, the opening hints that Amabelle’s parents aren’t around, and weren’t even when she was a fairly young girl-she has had to grow up among non-family members, and so her conception of home is complicated. It is 1937, the Dominican side of the Haitian border. As adults some of that friendship seems to remain, and yet Amabelle’s status as servant-shown bluntly in the way Don Ignacio shoves her-is never lost on her. As a child, Amabelle and her mistress were in some ways more like friends, jumping on the bed together. Yet the novel also shows how such clear lines can at times be blurry. In its opening the book establishes Amabelle’s social situation as a servant to Señora Valencia and Don Ignacio. ![]()
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