Chapter 22: Gabe — Summary, Key Moments, and Analysis

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

(House of Bone and Rain)

This chapter contains no major plot twists, but it does reveal personal history and emotional context that shape the story. If you prefer to discover character backstory as you read, consider skipping this summary until after finishing the chapter.

Summary

The chapter opens with Gabe waking up sweaty and disoriented, the rain still hammering outside. He goes to the bathroom and finds only a trickle of water—enough to wash the sleep from his face. The storm has already begun to strain basic utilities.

He finds his mother at the kitchen table, coffee in hand, fiddling with a small radio in search of any news signal. The smell of coffee is soothing, and Gabe pours himself a mug, letting the warmth briefly convince him that everything might work out. He pulls up a chair and joins her.

As they sit together, Gabe remembers that his father gave his mother this radio after failing to fix her old one. His father had a habit of taking things apart and trying to repair them, and when he failed—which was often—he saved the screws in jars and little boxes, saying he might need that exact size someday. After his death, Gabe and his mother cleaned out his clothes and some moldy boxes from the garage, but they could not bring themselves to throw away his tools or the collections of screws. Those objects remain as quiet memorials.

His mother grows frustrated as the radio picks up nothing. She tells Gabe she watched the hurricane arrive on the news, with warnings for coastal residents and images of empty grocery shelves and long checkout lines. She says it felt like facing a monster, and that there was something different about this storm—something evil. She uses the name her own mother used: El ojo del Diablo (the Devil's Eye). Gabe recalls how his grandmother would stay with them during hurricanes, waiting until he went to bed, then sitting with panicked eyes and arthritic hands wrapped around her rosary. She always said hurricanes bring something.

Gabe stays quiet because there is nothing to say. He reflects on the trauma every hurricane has left behind. He draws a parallel between the U.S. government's inaction on gun reform after school shootings and Puerto Rico's repeated failure to fix its fragile electric grid after each storm. The government patches things up just enough to get by, then forgets until the next disaster plunges the island into darkness for months. Looking at his mother's face, he knows she is thinking about the heat, the water shortage, the food supply, and the dead. She is also thinking about the demons her mother said lived in the angry winds—and about his father, just as Gabe is.

Key Events

Gabe wakes up sweaty and disoriented; the rain continues.
He washes his face with a trickle of bathroom water.
His mother sits at the kitchen table with coffee, trying to tune her small radio for news.
Gabe joins her, and the coffee provides temporary comfort.
He recalls his father's habit of saving screws from failed repairs and the jars and boxes still kept in the garage.
His mother mentions she watched the hurricane arrive on the news, with coastal warnings and images of empty shelves.
She describes the storm as feeling like facing a monster and calls it El ojo del Diablo, a name from his grandmother.
Gabe remembers his grandmother staying with them during hurricanes, praying with her rosary and saying hurricanes bring something.
He reflects on the trauma of past hurricanes and Puerto Rico's recurring electric grid failures.
He recognizes that his mother is thinking about heat, water, food, the dead, and his father.

Character Development

Gabe shows a deep capacity for empathy and memory. He is not just reacting to the storm; he is processing layers of personal and collective history. His recollection of his father's screw collection reveals a tender attachment to imperfect attempts at fixing things—a metaphor for how the family copes with loss. He also demonstrates a growing awareness of his mother's inner world, reading her thoughts without her having to speak them.

Gabe's mother is portrayed as resilient but burdened. Her attempt to find news on the radio shows her need for information and control in a chaotic situation. Her description of the hurricane as a monster and her use of her mother's term El ojo del Diablo indicate a spiritual dread that coexists with her practical concerns. She is not just worried about survival; she is haunted by inherited fears.

Gabe's father is present only through memory, but his legacy is tangible. The radio he gave his wife, the tools and screws he left behind, and the conversations he shared at the kitchen table all shape the current moment. His failed repairs and saved screws become symbols of hope and futility, and the family's refusal to discard them shows how grief clings to objects.

Gabe's grandmother is remembered as a source of ritual and superstition. Her rosary and her warnings that hurricanes bring something connect the family's present fear to a longer lineage of storm-related trauma.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Hurricane as monster: The storm is personified as an evil entity, El ojo del Diablo, reflecting the characters' sense of helplessness and the supernatural dread that accompanies natural disaster.
Generational trauma: Gabe explicitly notes that they carry trauma from every hurricane. His mother's face shows the accumulated weight of past storms, and his grandmother's prayers represent an older layer of fear.
Government neglect: Gabe draws a direct comparison between U.S. inaction on gun reform and Puerto Rico's failure to fix its electric grid. This critique highlights systemic abandonment and the cyclical nature of disaster response.
Father's keepsakes: The jars and boxes of screws symbolize both the futility of trying to fix what is broken and the emotional value of holding onto remnants of a loved one.
Coffee as comfort: The warmth of coffee provides a temporary illusion of safety, a small ritual that helps Gabe and his mother face the day.
Radio as lifeline: The radio represents the desperate need for connection and information when the outside world is cut off. Its silence amplifies their isolation.
Demons in the winds: The grandmother's belief that hurricanes bring something—perhaps demons—adds a supernatural layer to the natural disaster, suggesting that the storm carries more than physical destruction.
Unresolved threat on door: Gabe briefly remembers he needs to paint over the thing on the door, a reminder of an ongoing danger that the hurricane may exacerbate.

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter deepens the emotional and thematic foundation of the novel. It moves beyond the immediate action of the storm to explore how characters carry history, grief, and fear. Gabe's reflections on his father and grandmother humanize him and explain his motivations. The chapter also establishes the hurricane as a character in its own right—a monstrous force that is both natural and supernatural. The critique of government neglect ties the personal to the political, grounding the story in real-world issues. Finally, the mention of the thing on the door reminds readers that the storm is not the only threat, creating tension for what lies ahead.

Study Questions and Answers

1. How does Gabe's memory of his father's screw collection reflect his feelings about loss and repair?

Gabe's father saved screws from failed repairs, hoping to use them someday, but he never did. After his death, Gabe and his mother keep the tools and screw jars because they cannot bear to discard them. This reflects a desire to hold onto the possibility of fixing things, even when repair seems impossible. The screws symbolize the father's imperfect attempts and the family's unwillingness to let go of his presence.

2. What does the term El ojo del Diablo reveal about the characters' perception of the hurricane?

The term, passed down from Gabe's grandmother, personifies the hurricane as an evil, sentient force. It suggests that the storm is not just a weather event but a malevolent entity that brings destruction and perhaps supernatural harm. This perception aligns with the grandmother's belief that hurricanes bring something—likely demons or evil—and reflects the characters' deep-seated fear and spiritual interpretation of disaster.

3. How does Gabe's comparison between gun reform and Puerto Rico's electric grid highlight systemic neglect?

Gabe notes that after school shootings, the U.S. government talks about gun reform but does nothing, and similarly, after hurricanes, Puerto Rico's government patches the electric grid but never truly fixes it. This parallel underscores a pattern of empty promises and inadequate action in the face of recurring crises. It shows that the characters are not just victims of nature but also of political and institutional failure, which compounds their trauma.