Three-year-old La Loca is pronounced dead by a doctor and miraculously rises from the dead at her own funeral.

Sofi banishes Domingo from the family farm after he gambles away the land she inherited from her father.

Caridad is brutally attacked by an unknown assailant and left for dead on the side of the road.

Fe's fiancé Tom sends a letter abruptly ending their engagement, and Fe begins screaming nonstop for a full year.

Caridad is miraculously restored to full health and Fe stops screaming on the same night, both attributed to La Loca's prayers.

Domingo reappears at the family farm after twenty years away and resumes living there without any explanation.

Esperanza returns home briefly before departing on a journalistic assignment to Saudi Arabia against her family's protests.

Caridad's horse Corazón escapes onto the highway, is found with a broken hoof, and is shot by police.

Caridad accompanies doña Felicia on the Chimayo pilgrimage and catches sight of a woman sitting on an adobe wall who overwhelms her heart.

Sofi announces her decision to become the unofficial mayor of Tome and begins campaigning for community change.

Esperanza disappears while on assignment in Saudi Arabia and is eventually pronounced dead with no body ever found.

Fe marries her cousin Casimiro in a small ceremony and begins working at Acme International seeking higher wages.

Caridad and Esmeralda run off the side of the mesa at Sky City together and are absorbed into the earth.

La Loca is diagnosed with AIDS and dies despite the combined efforts of doctors and traditional healers.

Sofi buries La Loca and founds M.O.M.A.S., an organization for mothers of martyrs and saints that grows to international renown.

Pool 1 traces the major plot milestones of the Dominguez family in Tome, New Mexico. It begins with La Loca's miraculous resurrection at her own funeral and follows Sofi through two decades of single motherhood after banishing her gambling husband Domingo. The pool charts each daughter's defining crisis: Caridad's brutal attack, Fe's year of screaming, and Esperanza's disappearance in Saudi Arabia. Sofi rises to become the unofficial mayor of Tome, enacting real change in her impoverished community while her daughters suffer and die one by one. The pool closes with La Loca's death from AIDS and Sofi's founding of M.O.M.A.S., a tribute to all she has endured and lost.

The headline events that drive the Dominguez family's tragic story.

Caridad marries her high school sweetheart Memo and has La Loca perform an abortion after discovering his infidelity.

Caridad has two more abortions and spends months drinking heavily and sleeping with strangers before her brutal attack.

Caridad's power of clairvoyance emerges after her miraculous recovery, and she makes four accurate predictions in quick succession.

Caridad predicts Domingo will win the lottery on the number 113, and he wins eighty dollars.

Caridad moves into a trailer on doña Felicia's property and resumes her hospital orderly job with her horse Corazón kept outside.

Caridad stops in a cave while traveling to the mineral baths and ends up living there in isolation for an entire year.

Francisco el Penitente and two friends discover Caridad living in the cave but cannot forcibly remove her from it.

Caridad leaves the cave and arrives at Ojo Caliente, where she discovers that Esmeralda works there as an attendant.

A fourteen-year-old Sofi first encounters Domingo at a community dance and is captivated by his boldness and dark eyes.

Sofi's sheep-grazing and wool-weaving enterprise provides jobs and college credit opportunities to women throughout the Tome community.

La Loca encounters La Llorona at the acequia, who reveals that Esperanza has been killed during her overseas assignment.

Fe recovers from her year of screaming, returns to her bank job, and announces plans to marry her cousin Casimiro.

Fe miscarries but continues working at Acme International despite worsening nausea, skin rashes, and constant headaches.

Domingo gambles away the deed to Sofi's family farm in a cockfight, forcing her to pay rent on her own land.

La Loca leaves her mother's property for the first time since her childhood funeral to join the Holy Friday procession in Tome.

Pool 2 fills in the story around the main plot, beginning with Caridad's marriage to Memo, his infidelity, and her subsequent spiral of self-destruction before her brutal attack. It follows the emergence of her prophetic gifts after recovery and her journey to doña Felicia's trailer park, her year-long cave retreat, and her discovery of Esmeralda at the hot springs. The pool weaves in Sofi's early enchantment with Domingo and the community-building wool enterprise she builds as unofficial mayor. It then traces Fe's quiet return to normal life, her engagement to Casimiro, and her slow destruction at the hands of Acme International's toxic chemicals. The pool closes with La Loca's poignant first venture from home in years to join the Holy Friday procession before her death.

The quieter turning points and supporting events that fill in the full story.

Esperanza gives up a job opportunity in Houston to stay near her college boyfriend Rubén, who treats her with little emotional respect.

Doña Felicia tells Caridad that her mystical gifts are too significant to be wasted in a hospital orderly job.

Francisco returns from the Vietnam War emotionally hollow and begins learning the santero craft from his uncle to find purpose.

Francisco becomes a penitente at thirty-three, sealing his dual role as santero and lay Catholic brother in his community.

Sofi and Domingo elope when Sofi turns eighteen, beginning a turbulent marriage her entire family opposed from the start.

Caridad returns to her trailer after the cave year and becomes widely known as a reliable medium and healer.

Sofi grows fed up with Domingo's refusal to fix things around the house and resolves to address her community's neglected problems.

Sofi and Domingo both witness the ghostly figure of Esperanza appearing by the acequia after her death is confirmed.

Esmeralda and her partner Maria visit doña Felicia and Caridad's trailer separately to seek healing consultations.

Caridad keeps watch outside Esmeralda and Maria's home at night, aware that Francisco is simultaneously watching over her.

Francisco follows Esmeralda to work and convinces her to get into his car, abducting her before the confrontation at Sky City.

Francisco hangs himself from a pine tree in his uncle's yard after Caridad and Esmeralda disappear off the mesa.

Sofi serves Domingo divorce papers with the help of her lawyer, ending their decades-long troubled marriage.

Dr. Tolentino diagnoses La Loca with HIV and performs a psychic surgery on her, warning Sofi that death itself cannot be stopped.

The Lady in Blue visits La Loca in her final weeks, comforting her with songs and games before holding her as she dies.

Pool 3 focuses on the choices and discoveries that alter each character's trajectory. It opens with Esperanza sacrificing a career opportunity to stay near an emotionally distant man and follows doña Felicia's pivotal encouragement of Caridad's healing gifts. Francisco's arc — from hollow Vietnam veteran to santero to obsessed penitente — is traced as a cautionary thread running through the novel's religious traditions. Caridad's return from the cave with refined powers, Sofi's decision to act on her domestic frustration, and Francisco's abduction of Esmeralda escalate toward the climactic leap off the mesa. The pool closes with Sofi's divorce from Domingo, La Loca's AIDS diagnosis and psychic surgery, and the Lady in Blue's tender vigil as La Loca passes away.

The key decisions, revelations, and emotional shifts that reshape every character's path.