Chapter 28: Stoops — Summary 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.

Summary

The chapter opens with Olga stopping at a bodega to buy a six-pack of beer, desperate to escape her uncomfortable heels. She reflects on how white women in the neighborhood walk barefoot on filthy sidewalks, a freedom her grandmother would never have tolerated. She had texted Matteo that she didn't want to talk to anyone, not even a bartender, inadvertently implying he isn't just anyone to her.

Matteo waits on the stoop of his brownstone with his own six-pack and a small speaker playing an old Spinners tune. Olga feels a new kind of happiness seeing him, describing him as soothing. She sits and rests her feet in his lap; he removes her sandals, squeezing each foot.

A skinny old man named Freddie passes with an IKEA shopping cart piled with his possessions, including a boom box, and asks Matteo for money for batteries. Matteo obliges. Olga asks if he'll really use the cash for batteries; Matteo says yes, Freddie loves his boom box and stands in front of the bodega blasting it, harmless but unsettling to the new white residents.

Freddie reminds Olga of her father toward his end, and she opens up to Matteo about him for the first time. Her father was a former Young Lords activist who became a junkie and died of AIDS in 1994. He was a functioning addict for a long time, keeping a job and visiting the family, before declining: missing shifts, losing his job, coming around high, pawning and stealing. The only thing he never sold was his record collection. When his landlord heard he was sick, he was kicked out; he carried out his records while the landlord burned everything else in the backyard.

After that, the family couldn't find him for months, then got a call from the hospital. In 1994, the people dying were mainly Black and Brown addicts, gay men, and trans women, and the hospitals were like ghost towns with no visitors. But Olga's family went religiously: Aunt Lola brought food, Abuelita gave sponge baths, even her uncles came. Her brother Prieto never went, not once.

Olga explains that she initially thought Prieto's absence was due to their mother's influence. Mami had sent Olga a letter advising her not to let their father's situation weigh her down, and Olga assumed she'd done the same for Prieto. Mami was angry, having fallen in love with a powerhouse activist who became another tragic Puerto Rican statistic. Prieto told family he was preserving his good memories of Papi, but Olga always wondered if he stayed away out of fear—not of AIDS specifically, but of everything.

Olga then recounts the fight she had with Prieto that day. She asked him to rent a vacant unit in their family house to a friend—the grieving boyfriend of her friend who killed himself. Prieto refused, and Olga outed him as gay in anger. She connects his refusal to his fear of being associated with gay men, which she believes also kept him from their dying father. Matteo observes that Prieto is just like every other politician, and Olga swigs her beer.

Key Events

Olga buys beer and meets Matteo on his stoop, where he removes her sandals.
Freddie passes and asks Matteo for money for batteries; Matteo gives him a bill.
Olga tells Matteo about her father: Young Lords activist, addict, died of AIDS in 1994.
She describes the family's hospital visits and Prieto's refusal to come.
She recounts the fight with Prieto over renting to a grieving friend, which led her to out him.
Matteo connects Prieto's behavior to political self-protection.

Character Development

Olga reveals a deeply private family history to Matteo, something she's never done with a stranger. Her usual confidant is Prieto, the very person she can't talk to after their fight. The chapter shows her processing grief and anger, and her growing trust in Matteo.

Matteo demonstrates compassion—giving Freddie money, listening without judgment, and sharing his own grief about his mother's death. His insight about fear and self-loathing in closeted people reframes Olga's understanding.

Prieto (off-page) is revealed as a closeted gay man whose fear of exposure has shaped major life decisions, including abandoning his dying father and refusing to help a grieving gay man.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Fear vs. compassion: Prieto's compassion for strangers with sob stories collides with his fear of being associated with gay men.
Closeted identity and self-loathing: Matteo's observation about fundamentalist homophobes who are outed links Prieto's behavior to a broader pattern.
AIDS stigma and legacy: The chapter depicts the loneliness of AIDS wards in the '90s and the stigma that isolated Black and Brown patients.
Music as memory and connection: The Spinners tune, the vinyl comment, Freddie's boom box, and Papi's records all tie music to identity and loss.
The stoop as intimate communal space: The brownstone stoop becomes a site of vulnerability and connection.
Political image vs. authenticity: Matteo's closing line frames Prieto's fear-driven choices as fundamentally political.

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter is a turning point in Olga's relationship with Matteo, as she shares her family's deepest wounds for the first time. It also reframes Prieto's character, suggesting his public compassion may be driven by fear rather than goodness, and raises questions about what else he might do to protect his image.

Study Questions and Answers

1. Why does Olga believe Prieto never visited their father in the hospital?

Olga believes Prieto stayed away because he was afraid—specifically, afraid that being seen near gay men dying of AIDS would reveal something about his own closeted identity. She connects this to his refusal to rent to a grieving gay man decades later.

2. What role does music play in this chapter?

Music functions as a thread connecting memory and identity: the Spinners tune creates intimacy between Olga and Matteo, Freddie's boom box mirrors Papi's love of music, and Papi's records—the only possession he never sold—become a symbol of what he held onto even in decline.

3. What does Matteo mean when he says Prieto is just like every other politician?

Matteo suggests that Prieto's choices are driven by image management and fear of exposure rather than genuine compassion. His public goodness is a performance that can be abandoned when it threatens his carefully constructed persona.