The Distance Between Us: Book Two: Prologue Summary & Analysis

In 2010, twenty-five years after Reyna’s new life in the United States began, Papi is diagnosed with liver cancer. Reyna and her siblings have little communication with him, but the diagnosis pulls them back together again, and Reyna begins a journey of finding her way back to her father.

On a day in early September of 2011, Papi’s doctor tells Mago, Reyna, and Carlos that it is time to let their father go. Reyna is reluctant to do so—the doctor doesn’t know about “all the times [she has] already lost him.” As Reyna looks at her father, though, and sees how ill and unresponsive he is, she understands that his mind has already gone—his body is fighting a losing battle. Mago, Carlos, and Reyna look at one another and know what must be done. They tell the doctor to take their father off of the machines keeping him alive, and wait for twenty minutes as Papi’s heart slowly stops beating. As his body shuts down, Reyna holds her father’s hand, and notices that it is the exact same shape as her own.