ASHES

"Everyone else can leave, but not you."

This week's New Yorker introduces a strong new voice in fiction. Ashes, a story by Cristina Henriquez enters the consciousness of the reader harshly. In the middle of her shift at the Casa de la Carne, the narrator, Mireya, is informed that her mother has died suddenly. She finishes the shift before calling her brother to get the details. At this point, I feel like I am on foreign soil, both geographically and emotionally. I'm not sure who is more heartless, Mireya's employer or the stoic daughter with whom I'm being asked to empathize. But the prose is sharp and concise and I'm still reading. Lucky for me.

This story rewarded me for my time in the way that only the best fiction does. It started with a blank and unknown heart, and then illuminated it so brightly that I felt like I had walked the streets of Panama City with Mireya, worked a few mind numbing shifts at the Casa de la Carne, and then gone home where a shiftless and unfaithful boyfriend named Armando waits for her to provide him with supper. It soon becomes obvious that the only meaningful connection Mireya has is with her mother.

"Everyone else can leave, but not you," her mother told her once, and now it seems that she has renegged on her own bargain. By the end of the story, even Mireya's taciturn response to her mother's death is seen for what it is: a reflection of the grief that ultimately derails her life. In rapid succession, she loses her job, and pummels Armando in the street when she sees him with another woman.

In our final image of Mireya, she is alone with her mother's ashes, but she is "looking out on what she can see." As bleak as the scene appears, there is something particularly hopeful in it that outward vision. Hopeful is also the way I would describe the future of this new writer, whose first collection of short stories will be released in September. I, for one, will be watching for it.