Anita attends Tilly Barber's party, where both Jack and Tilly are openly surprised to hear Anita has a solo show.

Raquel earns a prestigious summer internship at RISD and chooses sculptor Jack Martin as the subject of her Brown thesis.

At Jack Martin's Berkeley art show, Anita is sidelined and overshadowed while Jack dominates the spotlight and conversation.

Jack blames Anita for his repeated infidelities, resenting her frequent absences and her growing success as an artist.

Anita and Jack meet at a feminist art event in Iowa organized by Leslie and eventually begin a relationship.

Anita secretly gathers evidence of Jack's affairs and consults a divorce lawyer, planning to leave him with half his assets.

Jack beats Anita and throws her from their apartment window during their final confrontation, killing her.

Raquel has dinner with Nick Fitzsimmons's wealthy parents before the campus dance; they are warm but reveal patronizing attitudes.

Jack attends Anita's memorial service alongside his mistress and is met with open hostility from the assembled crowd.

Raquel's supervisor Belinda Kim reveals that Jack Martin murdered his wife, the artist Anita de Monte.

Raquel discovers Anita de Monte's artwork and is stunned by its vibrancy and originality compared to Jack Martin's work.

Nick cuts far more of Raquel's hair than she agreed to, leaving her with an unwanted pixie cut.

Raquel leaves Nick Fitzsimmons's apartment for the last time, resolving never to speak to him again.

Raquel shifts her thesis to Anita de Monte's influence on Jack Martin and asks Belinda Kim to be her new advisor.

Raquel's completed thesis is published in Art in America, and the magazine offers her a staff position.

The novel's two storylines unfold across different decades, centering on the fatal marriage of Anita de Monte and sculptor Jack Martin and the struggles of art student Raquel Toro at Brown. Jack's resentment of Anita's growing success culminates in her murder, an act of gendered violence he ultimately escapes unpunished. Across her own timeline, Raquel navigates a controlling relationship with the affluent Nick Fitzsimmons, whose possessiveness mirrors Jack's toxic patterns. A pivotal revelation from her mentor Belinda Kim introduces Raquel to the suppressed legacy of Anita de Monte, reshaping her entire academic path. Raquel redirects her thesis to examine Anita's influence on Jack's work, producing scholarship so compelling it launches her professional career. Both storylines converge around the idea that women of color who refuse to be silenced will ultimately prevail.

The headline events driving both Anita's and Raquel's stories.

Raquel observes the clique of 'Art History Girls' and feels like a perpetual outsider in Brown's art history department.

Raquel meets Nick Fitzsimmons at his campus art show and agrees to get drinks despite her low opinion of his work.

The Art History Girls accuse Raquel of being racist for having no white friends and of manipulating Professor Temple.

At a RISD party, Nick's sister Astrid nearly overdoses and Nick snaps at Raquel for talking to another guest.

Marcus dedicates a radio song to Nick on Raquel's behalf and raises pointed concern about her dramatic weight loss.

Jack attends a gallery event and recalls being jailed after Anita's death and Tilly Barber securing his legal defense.

Anita spends a full year in Cuba, deepening her bond with Cuban culture, spirituality, and her identity as an artist.

Nick secures gallery representation with Tilly Barber and orders Raquel a salad at lunch instead of the burger she wants.

Raquel's mother and sister arrive for a visit and immediately comment on her dramatic weight loss and new tight chignon.

Anita's spirit haunts Jack Martin during his intimate encounters with Ingrid, the mistress he brought to Anita's funeral.

Anita's spirit takes the form of a bat and disrupts Tilly Barber's apartment after Tilly works to block Anita's retrospective.

Anita attends her own retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Americas in spirit form.

Jack Martin's Madrid show earns exceptional reviews for pieces that Anita's spirit has secretly altered and softened.

Betsaida takes Raquel for a Santeria limpia cleansing; Mavette returns from New York with surprising news about Claire and Margot.

Anita's revived spirit haunts Jack at a party one final time, then releases her anger and watches over Raquel instead.

Alongside the novel's central events, a rich network of secondary moments shapes the lives of Anita and Raquel. Raquel's struggle to navigate Brown's white art world is defined by social exclusions, a damaging romance with Nick, and the quiet support of friends like Marcus. Anita's extended return to Cuba grounds her artistically and spiritually, even as Jack's behavior grows more hostile following her death. In the afterlife, Anita's vengeful spirit interferes with Jack and Tilly, manifesting as a bat to protest their ongoing erasure of her memory. A brief retrospective of her work offers Anita fleeting triumph, while Jack's Madrid show—secretly improved by her spirit's alterations—illustrates the bitter irony of his dependence on the woman he killed. Raquel ultimately finds healing through community and ritual before her work on Anita's legacy changes everything.

Supporting plot beats and secondary moments across both timelines.

Professor Temple warns Raquel away from Belinda Kim but smiles approvingly when Raquel announces her thesis on Jack Martin.

Raquel attends a small gathering at the Art History Girls' apartment and privately examines the expensive products in their medicine cabinet.

At the Iowa feminist art event, Anita's artworks spontaneously fall from their hooks when the crowd ignores them to focus on Jack.

Raquel admits to herself that her relationship with Nick has worsened her long-standing disordered eating habits.

Nick presents Raquel with a designer gown and a pair of control-top pantyhose to wear to the campus dance.

Raquel realizes she has no passion for her Jack Martin thesis and would rather pursue a project that genuinely excites her.

Raquel brings her family to Nick's studio; Nick is visibly upset that she plans to spend the whole weekend with them.

Jack becomes increasingly convinced he is being haunted by visions of Anita's body as his murder trial approaches.

At drinks with Nick's parents, they dismiss Anita de Monte as 'loud' and 'a Cuban thing,' revealing their contempt for artists of color.

Jack's lawyer advises him to forgo a jury trial and let a male judge decide his fate; Jack is ultimately acquitted.

Anita's spirit learns from another spirit that her power to visit the living depends entirely on people remembering her work.

Anita's spirit weakens significantly as Jack and Tilly successfully suppress her legacy and she fades from public memory.

Anita's spirit discovers that a woman who purchased her artworks acquired them only to keep them hidden from public view.

Raquel confronts Nick, telling him his parents are racist and she cannot stay with someone whose family disregards right and wrong.

After Raquel's thesis is published, Nick's mother sends her a print of one of Anita de Monte's artworks.

The novel's most significant turning points reveal how power, identity, and memory are contested across both timelines. Early warning signs appear in Raquel's growing awareness of Nick's controlling behavior and in Anita's recognition that her relationship with Jack was doomed by inequality from the very beginning. Jack's acquittal exposes a justice system that protects powerful men, while Anita's spirit discovers that her continued existence depends entirely on being remembered. The systematic suppression of Anita's work weakens her spirit beyond recovery until Raquel's research unexpectedly restores her power. Raquel's final confrontation with Nick and her immersion in Anita's artworks mark her decisive turn toward authenticity and away from assimilation. By the novel's close, both women's stories affirm that the erasure of women of color is an act of deliberate choice—and one that can be undone.

Key decisions, discoveries, and emotional shifts that reshape both women's paths.