Drown by Junot Diaz

The book skips around telling parts of Yunior's life while he is in high school and working to help pay bills for his mother. It also tells of his struggles with love and being on his own in adulthood. The last story in the collection highlights Ramon's struggles to gain citizenship in America. He works hard, but ends up being swindled twice by people he trusted until finally he makes a way to get his family move to the United States. .
             During his adolescent years, Yunior witnessed his mother and father's emotionally abusive relationship and through experiencing the absence of his father, he has become very protective of his mother. When she is abandoned by his father she becomes very fragile. She ends up waiting for him for over five years through lots of misleading promises that he would return for his family. It was to my understanding that she did not bother dating any other men, because she truly loved Yunior's father and was patiently waiting for his arrival. In the short story "Aguantando"," after receiving a letter from him saying that he was coming home and he actually did not, this made his mother very depressed. It upsets Yunior because he did not know how to console her. Yunior, his aunt and his uncle knew about his father's infidelity, but no one ever said anything about it in fear that it would tear the family apart. He tells us of his knowledge of his father cheating by saying "It seemed like Papi had always been with her, even when we were in Santo Domingo for him to send for us"." Yunior also feels bad because his mother was abandoned by a husband that deceptively took her money yet ran out on her again for another woman. Yunior and his mother both share the pain of Ramon being absent in their life. Yunior says, "I didn't know him at all. I didn't know that he'd abandon us. That this waiting for him was a sham. " It seems like the mother is a confusing character because despite the emotional roller coaster this man is putting her through, she is still willing to take him back versus being alone without a husband.