Out of Darkness

Among the volunteer helpers is Wash Fuller, who was tending the garden of the school’s superintendent when the blast occurred. Arriving minutes after the explosion to search for his beloved girlfriend Naomi and her twin half-siblings, Wash enters the building and sees a shoe he recognizes.

On their first day of school in New London, Texas, 17-year-old Naomi Vargas walks her twin half-siblings, seven-year-old Beto and Cari, to school. She decides to skip class for the day; a skilled climber, she retreats up into the trees. A young man walking by notices one of her shoes on the ground and introduces himself as Wash Fuller. He tries to entice her to come down and talk, but she declines, and he goes on his way.

Until recently, Naomi, Cari, and Beto have lived with their maternal grandparents in San Antonio. Naomi’s stepfather, Beto and Cari’s father Henry, found himself in New London working the newly established Humble Oil fields and was convinced by his pastor to send for his children (as he abandoned the children after the death of their mother Estella days after their birth). He convinced the children’s grandparents that New London’s newly built school presents a unique opportunity for them to receive an excellent education, and they agreed on the condition that Naomi be allowed to accompany them. Unlike Naomi, whose brown skin, glossy black hair, and facial features are similar to those of other Mexican Americans, Beto and Cari’s fair skin makes them white-passing. When the children arrived in New London, Henry changed Naomi’s last name to his own—Smith— and Americanized the names of the twins, from Beto to Robert and Cari to Carrie. (However, this guide will continue to refer to the twins as Beto and Cari.)

When Wash goes home, he adds the money he made that day to the education fund he and his sister Peggy contribute to. Wash’s father, Jim Fuller, is the principal of the African American school in their part of New London, known as Egypt Town. Wash and Peggy are expected to be responsible and eventually attend college. The former works multiple jobs throughout the community, earning as much as he can.

While Wash works at Turner’s store, unloading grocery shipments in the basement, he overhears Naomi being run out of the shop because of her race. He runs to catch up with her and promises to bring her to Mason’s store in his community of Egypt Town, where she will be able to buy groceries. The twins appear, and Wash invites them to go fishing with him at the river.

Naomi is charged with the household duties of a traditional wife; Henry expects Naomi to care for the twins when he is working in the oil field, prepare meals for all four of them, clean the house, and most upsetting to her, launder his clothing, while attending school and completing her homework.

Gradually, it is revealed that Henry sexually abused Naomi in the years before the twins’ birth. Naomi’s mother Estella suffered several miscarriages after marrying Henry, each of which caused significant trauma to her body. Despite warnings from Estella’s doctor, who insisted getting pregnant again could kill her, Henry continued to force his wife into having sex. Henry continually manipulated Naomi by claiming she had the ability to protect her mother by performing her “duty” in her place. Estella nevertheless became pregnant several more times, and the twins were born of her final pregnancy, which resulted in her death. Henry was considered incapable of caring for his children in his emotional state, so Naomi’s aunt tasked her with minding the twins while funeral arrangements were made—a caregiver role she continues to serve. Before Estella died, she cut her long braid and gave it to Naomi as a way to remember her. Naomi has since traveled to New London with her mother’s old guitar case, filled with her mementos.

Henry brings Naomi and the twins to his church, where Beto is so moved by the service that he approaches the front of the revival tent to be “saved” and is later baptized in the nearby river. At the church cookout which follows, Naomi loses her patience with some women who inundate her with racist questions and seeks alone time by the riverbank. Henry follows, skirting around an apology by barely acknowledging the atrocities he committed against her so many years ago.

Many male students have begun to fixate on Naomi sexually, and the group represented by the moniker “The Gang” are particularly crude in their sections of the novel. The popular girls, particularly Miranda Gibbler, ostracize Naomi, merging their racial biases with rumors about her character. However, Tommie Kinnebrew, an outgoing girl also new to New London and living in the same oil camp housing as Naomi, has been consistently kind to her.