A Place Where the Sea Remembers

Chapters 1-5

Reading Check

1. The color blue (Chapter 2)

2. Because Don Gustavo does not believe he can make a Caesar salad (Chapter 2)

3. “La mesa santa, Remedios’s altar” (Chapter 3)

4. Because he is eager to see his lover, Lupe Bustos (Chapter 4)

5. The fact that “[t]heir glossy pages presented an orderly world, perfectly captured” (Chapter 5)

6. Stealing money from the hotel guests (Chapter 5)

Short Answer

1. Remedios is la curandera (“the healer”) of the town Santiago. On this day, she “awaits the one blue wave that will bring a corpse to shore.” (Chapter 1)

2. Upon hearing his wife Chayo and her sister Marta discuss what should be done about Marta’s baby, Candelario offers to take the baby. He makes this decision first because he and his wife have been unable to have a baby thus far, and secondly because he has recently been promoted to “salad-maker” at the restaurant where he works. (Chapter 2)

3. Candelario is summoned to make a Caesar salad for Don Gustavo’s important guests at the restaurant. While preparing the salad, he overhears their discussions regarding the importance of education and helping the impoverished, while listening to the conversation surrounding abortion. (Chapter 2)

4. The “gringo” offers Fulgencio a ride to Santiago. Along the way, Fulgencio becomes suspicious of the man’s motives, especially as he drives off the road to visit the beach. (Chapter 4)

5. Marta’s dream is to give the baby to her sister, then leave Santiago and her job as a chambermaid and move across the border to El Paso, Texas. However, Chayo announces that she can no longer take Marta’s baby as she and her husband will soon have a baby of their own. (Chapter 5)

6. After seeing the success of Luz’s visit with the healer, Marta decides that she too will visit Remedios with the hopes that she will be able to persuade Candelario to change his mind and accept her baby again. At Remedios’s hut, the healer advises her not to cross the border as “going north would only give [her] more troubles” and ultimately says she will not help her with any plan that helps Marta travel north. (Chapter 6)

Chapters 6-12

Reading Check

1. The magpie (Chapter 6)

2. A book of “Indian legends” (Chapter 7)

3. Seashell (Chapter 8)

4. Stories (Chapter 9)

5. His dog Yoyo and his three canaries (Chapter 10)

6. So she can “later bury [it] in a place of her choosing” (Chapter 11)

Short Answer

1. Inés is a local 14-year-old girl whom Rafael’s mother hires in order to help her in the kitchen. Inés asks Rafael to teach her how to read, which, despite his mother’s clear disapproval, he agrees to do. (Chapter 7)

2. After Inés faints during work, Rafael and his mother learn that she has had a miscarriage from a pregnancy with her much older husband. Rafael’s mother immediately assumes that Rafael had sex with the girl, which ultimately causes Rafael to stop acquiescing to all of his mother’s wishes. (Chapter 7)

3. Beto Burgos is a student in Rafael’s class. When Rafael visits Beto’s home in Chapter 7, we learn that the family consists of the mother, father, Beto and his two brothers; however, by Chapter 8, Beto’s mother and his two brothers have died in a bus accident. (Chapters 7-8)

4. After building their shrine, Beto and César bring the item to the place where the bus accident happened. Beto, who has not spoken since the accident, says to the shrine that he wishes he had been on the bus to save his family, but he did not go to Oaxaca because he was listening to his teacher Rafael’s advice to stay in school. César is shocked to hear his son say this, and assures him that he could not have done anything to prevent the crash. (Chapter 8)

5. The telegram is from his daughter Ernestina and says that his eldest daughter, Justina, is “gone” from the family. As a result, he drinks tequila, ending his 10-year sobriety, and discovers the next morning that his prized canary named Rita is now dead. (Chapter 10)

6. Esperanza is Rafael’s mother’s nurse, and she begins to formally court Rafael once his mother leaves for her other son’s house. She admits to him that she was sexually assaulted when she was 17 years old while working for a family in Miami. (Chapter 11)

Chapters 13-14

Reading Check

1. Because she saved Chayo’s son Tonito from dying the year prior (Chapter 13)

2. He died. (Chapter 13)

3. César (Chapter 13)

4. Smile (Chapter 13)

5. A pig (Chapter 13)

Short Answer

1. The arroyo makes it too difficult for Santos to park his car near his house. He and Chayo joke that they should ask the local city council to fill up the hole, knowing that it is unlikely “el gobenador” would support their community. (Chapter 13)

2. After four years, Chayo still harbors resentment against her sister Marta for visiting el brujo. She is resolute that there can be no forgiveness for this act of betrayal, even with numerous apologies. (Chapter 13)

3. Chayo agrees to let Marta’s son Richard spend the night at her house with his cousin Tonito. As a result, he is present at her house during the storm, and he is swept away by the river. (Chapter 13)

4. Remedios is waiting for the body of Richard to wash ashore after being carried out by the river. She is joined by Chayo, who is filled with grief, and Marta, who reveals that this was the same spot where she was raped and impregnated with Richard. Now that her son is dead, she will soon travel to El Paso, Texas. (Chapter 14)