Throughout life, people come face to face with the reality of having to see people leave their life, whether it is for the better or for the worse. In the book Everyone Leaves, the character Nieves faces both. In Everyone Leaves, Wendy Guerra reveals that people always have different reasons to leave, but people leaving can help them become a more independent person. This is revealed through Fausto, Nieves’ Father and Mother.
Towards the beginning of the story, Nieves is living a normal life, as normal as it can get living in Cuba in the seventies. Suddenly, Nieves is caught in a custody between her mother and her father. Unfortunately, her mom ends up losing the legal battle. Nieves must now go live with her father, whom she’s terrified
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Nieves gets sent to an orphanage, just meanwhile her mother goes to court to get her back. After a while of being in the orphanage she gets into trouble with a girl named Misuco, who wanted to molest her. They got caught, but consequently Nieves ended up getting in trouble as well. She gets sent to the office, where she has a realization. “... I’m not going home. I have to adjust to being here, my mother doesn’t care one way or another if I ever go back to the lagoon…”(80) Nieves soon realizes that she has to toughen up in order to survive in the orphanage. She realizes the is the only person she can rely on, is herself. This connects back to the thesis as it shows that as a result of her mom leaving her in the orphanage, she’s become a stronger person as a result of it. Later, Nieves gets a visit from Fausto, her mom’s boyfriend who she sees like a father figure. Although they did not let him because he is a foreigner, but she was able to see him behind the building where no one saw. Guerra writers “Fausto came later… He said he was leaving for Sweden Thursday night”(83) This quote shows that once again she has to see someone she loves depart from her life, helpless to do anything about it. It shows her that once again she is on her