Abstract

Littered along the treacherous roads that wind through the mountains of New Mexico, descansos —handmade wooden crosses—mark the place where someone’s beloved died. Haley’s mother, Nina, stares at those mountains every day, as she drinks her way through bottle after bottle of wine. On the other side of the country, Haley receives worried calls about her mother from neighbors and friends, who fear the once beautiful and brilliant artist is suffering from Alzheimer’s. Haley doesn’t correct them; Alzheimer’s is more acceptable than alcoholism.

As Haley and her brothers, Jack and Idris, attempt to rescue their mother from the horrors of end-stage alcoholism, they find themselves up against a manipulative new boyfriend, a system that seems intent on thwarting them, doctors who believe a pill will cure anything, and, hardest of all, a mother who doesn’t want to be saved. Revisiting all the descansos in her mother’s life and her own, Haley’s struggle becomes increasingly tangled and complex. Who is she really fighting for? Is she truly helping her mother? Caught in the web of inter-generational trauma, Haley needs to find a thread that will lead to redemption: for her mother, herself, and her own daughters.