Summary

In “Light Is Like Water,” Totó and Joel asked their parents “for a rowboat” (157). Because they were living in “a fifth-floor apartment” in Madrid, the parents said they could have the boat once they returned to Cartagena, where they “had a yard with a dock on the bay” (157). The boys begged for the boat “here and now” (157). The parents gave in.

The boys put their “beautiful aluminum boat” in the maid’s room (158). Every Wednesday when their parents went to the movies,” the boys played in the boat (158). Because the narrator had once told them that light was “like water,” the boys broke a lamp, letting the golden light “pour out of the broken bulb” (158). They let it “run to a depth of almost three feet” (158).

Although the parents were often frustrated...