This Could Be Us

“It’s not just sex Edward has been stingy with lately. It’s attention. Conversation. Interest. All the things I found unexpectedly in a few moments with a stranger, and it feels like the sun on my face after winter. So hard to turn away from that warmth when you’ve stood out in the cold.”

Soledad’s reflection after she first meets Judah at the Callahan Christmas party foreshadows that Judah will turn out to be a better romantic match for her than Edward. The image of stepping into sunlight represents the awakening that Soledad will feel when she’s with him, as well as the heat of their shared passion.

“I don’t know what is going on with Edward, and he apparently didn’t see fit to call and tell me. Everything with him feels like shaky ground right now, but some things I can count on. My daughters and my friends.”

This image of Edward being shaky ground while her friends are firm supports the book’s argument that the enduring and uplifting bonds of female friendship persist even if or when romantic love can’t be counted on. This message is also confirmed in bell hooks’s nonfiction essay collection All About Love, to which the novel makes several allusions (See: Symbols & Motifs).

“The urge to bake, to make something tickles my brain. Warms my heart. I know my girls’ favorite ooey-gooey brownies won’t make all this shit with Edward disappear, but they’re something they love. Something familiar that will give us, even if only for the few moments the taste touches our tongues, something to enjoy.”

The morning after Edward’s arrest, Soledad’s urge to make comfort food for her daughters shows how she is already rising to the occasion and looking for fixes. Cooking for her family is the way that she shows love; eventually, it will become the way she supports herself as well. Soledad’s impulse to nurture her loved ones upholds her need for loving connections through her journey of Self-Care and Self-Acceptance.

“The world as I knew it falls apart yet again, bits of his lies and deceptions flying around my head, projectile, sharp, cutting at everything I believed about life, about our past. About our future.”

When Edward more or less admits that he stole money from his company, this image captures the feeling of Soledad’s life as she knew it ending. Her belief in her husband is shaken, and the worry about whether she can trust another man will provide ongoing tension. The metaphor of “sharp projectiles” mirrors her eventual use of the family machete to cut Edward out of her house physically and to uncover evidence of his theft—soon, Soledad will master the “cutting” that she now has to defend herself from.

“[Mami] never spoke against [Edward], but I would catch her watching him sometimes with a wariness usually reserved for strangers. I didn’t ask her then what she saw. Maybe I was afraid of the answer. Afraid the path I had chosen was the wrong one. That he was the wrong one.”

This recollection about how Soledad’s mother never trusted Edward helps clarify Soledad’s understanding that Edward was wrong for her all along; her mother’s intuition echoes that of Soledad’s friends, who are vocal about having disliked Edward. This theme of female support from family and friends, as well as the support of her heritage and pride in her ancestry, provides a counterpoint and contrast to the wreckage caused by Edward’s crimes and infidelity.

“All loves aren’t created equal. Some spring from the earth and wrap around and twine through our lives like vines. Some are plants that start with tiny seeds in your heart and blossom over time, nurtured by years and commitment.”

The novel is interested in exploring both romantic and familial love. This imagery captures the different ways that Soledad thinks romantic love works. Soledad also reflects on how her mother loved Lola’s father, Bray, and Soledad and Nayeli’s father, Jason, in different ways, suggesting how complicated passion can be. Soledad will encounter this later with Judah.

“My mind reels, replaying every moment since the day Edward and I met on campus, finding the thread that runs through good and hard years, through three delivery rooms and nearly two decades under the same roof, sharing the same bed. I’m tired of gripping that thread, searching for the moment things started to change. I only knew they did; he did.”

Soledad thinks of Edward’s betrayal as an unraveling of their lives; her search for the thread that will hold them together illustrates how hard she is looking for something to hold onto while the devastation of his betrayal is fresh.

“There aren’t enough sonnets for friendship. Not enough songs for the kind of love not born of blood or body but of time and care. They are the ones we choose to laugh and cry and live with. When lovers come and go, friends are the ones who remain. We are each other’s constants.”

Though the novel has a strong romance plot, a prevalent theme is female friendship and familial love. This passage explicitly shares the message that female friendships and sisterhood provide emotional support when romantic lovers fail to do so.

“I don’t know what added this layer to her beauty, but it’s new. There is a lot she has lost over the last few days, not the least of which is her marriage, but there is something that she’s found. Without even knowing exactly what it is, I can see she plans to hold on to it.”

Judah’s point of view gives the reader a different perspective on how Soledad is rising to meet her challenges. Her physical beauty attracts him, but more than that, Judah is impressed by Soledad’s courage. This appreciation for her personality eventually makes their connection deepen into love.

“On some level, I think I just can’t take another loss. The marriage I thought was this family’s anchor forever has dissolved, and even though I know Edward destroyed it, not me, the divorce still left me with an unreasonable sense of failure.”

Part 2 opens with Soledad at an emotional low point, struggling to make ends meet after her divorce. The imagery continues to show her unmoored without the life she thought she’d have with Edward, but this passage marks the beginning of her character growth as she begins learning to love herself.

“Motherhood truly is a thankless endeavor sometimes. We sacrifice everything for these people who never really understand what we’ve done for them.”

The theme of motherhood is a potent one throughout the novel, as is the theme of sacrifice when Parenting in Difficult Circumstances. Soledad recognizes the irony that while she pours everything she has into caring for her daughters, they don’t always recognize her labor. She feels very validated when her daughters see her as a person, suggesting that even in this sometimes unbalanced relationship, parents want to be seen and appreciated by their children.

“My hope is that my food will do what it’s always done: lower people’s guards, loosen their tongues, warm their hearts, and satisfy their hunger.”

Soledad has a strong nurturing component to her character, which is reflected in her love of cooking and feeding people. This passage captures the several ways she hopes her food will nourish her customers at the Harvest Festival. The recipes provided at the end of the book extend this idea by giving the reader a chance to extend their experience of the book.

“It’s not an endgame […] It’s a begin game.”

The declaration of Judah’s feelings is an important beat in the romance plot. Here, Soledad approaches Judah at his house, this time intentionally, and she commits to stepping into the attraction that is pulling them together. Judah’s sensitivity to Soledad’s journey of self-partnering shows his fitness as a romantic partner, and his honesty about his feelings and intentions is a contrast to how Edward treated her.

“I close the book and, instead of returning it to my nightstand, lay it on the pillow where Edward used to sleep. My dreams aren’t haunted by the past or all the cruel things he did to me. I dream about a bright future of my own making.”

Several moments in the book mark Soledad’s transformation from feeling devastated to feeling hopeful about her healing and recovery. Reading bell hooks’s All About Love is one of the triggers for this dramatic change. Here, when Soledad puts the book on the pillow vacated by her ex-husband, the gesture symbolizes that she is committed to loving and nurturing herself rather than devoting her energy to a man who takes her for granted.

“When conversing with the heart, expect it to talk back, to revisit the pains and disappointments that left the deepest dents and scratches.”

This passage sounds almost like a direct address to the reader; Soledad reflects on what she’s learning during the time she spends alone in a way that readers are meant to take to heart themselves. While Soledad is having this thought, she sits on a bench in the park in an autumnal landscape—an environment that represents the rich harvest of self-knowledge that her introspection has brought.

“I love how his fingers curl around my hand. The contrast between strength and gentleness in the span of his palm. I relish it as a small thing I don’t have in this period of my life.”

When Soledad and Judah meet, their sexual tension continues to build even during her period of self-partnering. Soledad’s study of his touch illustrates her awareness and attraction. That he is forbidden fruit to her at this point makes him all the more tempting.

“I’ve come to realize that a woman who wants more and realizes she deserves it is a dangerous thing.”

This line Soledad delivers to Judah captures the book’s prevailing theme about finding oneself and claiming one’s power. The novel promotes self-realization and self-actualization, and its argument for female empowerment is a strong vein throughout.

“She loves an undeserving man. It’s a sorrow most women experience at some point in their lives […] These men let us down and we pull ourselves back up, hopefully with the help of other women who love us in ways that heal.”

The novel suggests that while romantic partners can grow distant or betray, the love of family and friends is healing. This internal monologue by Soledad directly addresses an idea that has also been shown through scenes of her confiding in and being supported by her sisters, friends, and eventually daughters.

“I don’t want her self-partnering anymore. I want to be her partner. I want to be the one she leans on and for her to be whom I lean on in return. I want us to sort the tangled fibers of our lives, to knock down the barriers to being together. I want her to be whole. I just want to be whole with her.”

Having sex with Soledad is an emotional turning point for Judah, who here voices his wish for a substantial, grounded relationship after several years of not being attracted to anyone. The passage picks up the motif of unraveled threads, as Judah describes being Soledad’s partner and equal as re-weaving “tangled fibers.” This echoes Soledad’s preferred imagery for the way Edward destroyed her life shows Judah’s fitness as her ideal mate.

“Maybe the key is finding contentment wherever you are, whoever you’re with […] Knowing you always have you. Do you have to deny yourself happiness with someone else in order to be happy with yourself?”

Yasmen prompts Soledad to move on from solitary self-nurturing and acceptance by suggesting that being happy doesn’t require that she be alone.

“Each touch, each stroke, each kiss is quantum, propelling us forward fast, far into a moment that exists nowhere but here. A place in time we claim as ours alone, insulated from the world beyond these walls.”

A convention of the romance genre is that the bond between the protagonists is better, deeper, and more special than anything they’ve had with other partners. This imagery of Soledad and Judah creating an isolated world that they both inhabit contrasts with earlier images of Soledad’s world coming unmoored after Edward’s betrayal.

“It’s given me a lot more than just a way to make a living. It’s given me new confidence and helped me value making a home as vocationally valid in a way that culture hadn’t reinforced before.”

Whereas Edward didn’t see Soledad’s work inside the home as valid, reflecting a cultural undervaluing of domestic labor, Soledad has found that she can make a living by sharing her housekeeping strategies with others as a social media influencer—a fantasy the novel delivers alongside its romantic one. Her success proves that these activities do, in fact, have value and relevance outside her home.

“It’s not that part of me is missing. I feel whole on my own. Not an ache inside, but an ache by my side. That’s where the hole is.”

Missing Judah after he breaks up with her helps Soledad clarify what he means to her, moving her toward readiness for a relationship. She realizes that while she feels complete on her own, she would still like to be with him—not for rescue but for companionship.