“She doesn’t care. She can’t see her son anymore, and she’s entering panic mode. Craning her neck, she peers through the throngs of locals and tourists, who all seem to be moving through the market in packs. Sebastian can’t have gone far. […] She can’t spot him anywhere.”

Sebastian Machado’s disappearance acts as the novel’s inciting event. Marin Machado’s response to losing her son in turn foreshadows her devolving emotional state over the course of the weeks and months that follow. Marin defines herself as a mother and therefore feels like a failure when Sebastian disappears while under her care. Furthermore, the repetitive construction of these lines illustrates Marin’s panicked state of mind.

“Four hundred eighty-five days of this nightmare. Panic sets in. She takes a minute and does the deep-breathing exercises her therapist taught her until the worst of it passes and she can function. Nothing about anything feels normal anymore, but she’s better at faking it than she used to be.”

Marin struggles to invest in her own healing 16 months after Sebastian’s disappearance. She has begun to attend therapy and support group, but she privately knows that she doesn’t actually want to recover from her loss. She feigns investment in her healing to convince others that she is okay; meanwhile, she allows her grief to fester for fear of losing Sebastian for good.

“Lila and Kyle’s marriage has been in trouble for as long as Marin has been attending group. Divorce rates for couples with missing children? Exorbitantly high. At least Lila and her husband still fight. Marin and Derek don’t. You have to care at least a little to yell at someone, and he has to care about you at least a little to yell back.”

Marin’s support group friends’ marital discussion foreshadows Marin’s discovery of Derek Machado’s affair. Marin knows that she and Derek aren’t doing well. However, she doesn’t know that her friends’ marital complexities are in fact an omen of the complexities she will soon face in her own relationship. At the same time, this reflective passage captures Marin’s difficulties to engage with her husband since Sebastian’s disappearance.