The Break

The narrator, who identifies herself as Stella’s mother, Rain, thinks back to her experience at her daughter’s birth. She claims that even though she did not want to be a mom, her feelings changed to happiness and love. Specifically, Rain illustrates the moment as being more than what an emotion can describe: “There wasn’t even a feeling or maybe there’s just not a word big enough for that feeling” (81). She speaks to Stella to tell her that she is still around her, waiting on her.

The morning after Stella witnesses the assault, she looks to the scene of the crime; she takes note of how the snow has covered the blood and has left “everything clean,” despite the horrors that occurred there hours before. She thinks about her cousins, Lou and Paulina, and fixates on a memory from their childhood. During the summer, Lou and Paulina moved in with Rain and Stella, and they told Stella how they were sexually assaulted by the same man. They attempted to understand why they were harmed, but they could not come up with an answer.

Stella feels guilty for having not seen her family for months due to Jeff’s fear of her traveling to the city on the bus with their son, Adam.