Daytripper

The chapter begins from six-year-old Miguel’s perspective as Ana reads a letter from Brás to him while he falls asleep. Ana seeks great comfort from Brás’s letters, texts, and emails. Ana is alone with Miguel while Brás is away for work, and while she misses him, she is also frustrated that she does not have his help around the house when he’s gone.

At school, Miguel’s teacher announces that there will be an upcoming Career Day, when fathers will come to the classroom to talk to the class about their jobs. Miguel views his father as a hero and is excited to have him come to school. Like Ana, he misses Brás. Ana and Miguel visit Aurora’s house for lunch, where Miguel finds his grandfather’s study virtually untouched since his death.

The next day Miguel and Ana wake up to rain, and Ana is surprised that she has not heard from Brás in a while. She picks up her son on a dramatic car ride home that evening and Miguel asks where his father is and why he isn’t home yet.

The next day Ana wakes up with still no word from Brás. She receives a call at work. There is no text accompanying the images, just a sequence of Ana’s face dissolving into despair as she learns that Brás has died. Miguel reads his father’s last letter to him during Career Day. Bereft, Ana listens to the final voicemail he left for her over and over again. In his mini-obituary, the reader learns he died during an emergency brain surgery, but that part of him will always live on in his wife and son.

Brás rides in the canoe from earlier with Iemanjá, surrounded by boats full of flower offerings. He knows he is dreaming, “in fact like so many times before, he already knew everything that was going to happen” (203). Iemanjá tells Brás that this is all a symbol for his life but that he must choose a path forward before all of the offerings sink.

He wakes up in his house as an adult, with Ana already awake and sleep-deprived from caring for Miguel all night. Brás tries to tell Ana about his dream on the boat, but she grows angry. As she washes the dishes, water begins to pour out of the sink and onto the floor, flooding the kitchen. She tells him that the dream was not real and that she can’t do this all on her own, so he needs to wake up.

Again, Brás wakes up, but this time at his desk in the newsroom as his boss tells him he needs to keep on pumping out obituaries, even if it is not his dream job. Demoralized, Brás finds himself ruminating, “How could he put his mind into it if he didn’t have the heart? He wasn’t even sure where his heart was anymore” (209). He leaves his desk to go get coffee and a young woman approaches him with his novel. In the background, the TV at the cafe begins to break the news of a plane crash.

Brás startles awake on a plane experiencing turbulence. He finds himself sitting next to Jorge, as the oxygen masks fall in front of their seats. Brás asks Jorge where they are heading, and Jorge tells him to look outside. Suddenly Brás realizes they are actually in the desert and panics, wanting to actually wake up. Jorge reminds his friend that he can’t run away and that he has a big decision to make.

A kite appears overhead, and Brás transforms back into his younger self flying a kite at his grandparents’ ranch. Under Benedito’s favorite tree, Brás finds Benedito reading to Miguel. Seeing his father, Miguel tells Brás that Benedito says he must tell him a story. Brás says that “Life is like a book, son. And every book has an end. No matter how much you like that book…you will get to the last page…and it will end. No book is complete without its end” (218). He passes Miguel the kite and tells him to go play.

Benedito asks Brás if he wants to keep dreaming, reminding him that dreaming is a choice and that he always has choices. Brás awakens once more in his bed, older now and hooked up to IVs. He’s illustrated in far more pale colors.

He walks through the house and goes outside to a beach, where fish kites fly. On the beach, a desk appears with his father’s typewriter and Brás’s dog Dante. He begins to type, saying, “My dreams tell me who I am. My name is Brás de Oliva Domingos. This is the story of my life. Take a deep breath, open your eyes, and close the book” (223-24).

The reader is transported back in time 76 years ago, when Aurora is in labor with Brás. Outside the delivery room, Benedito writes in a notebook. As Aurora pushes, the power goes out, plunging the hospital into darkness, which is depicted by two pages of pure black panels. A doctor talks Aurora through her labor in the dark.

Just as Brás is born, the story jumps forward 76 years later as Brás, now 76 years old, learns he has several brain tumors. It is revealed that this is not Brás’s first time fighting cancer. He tells his doctor he’s had a good life and is not willing to go through another treatment, and that he wants to go home.

On a train speeding home, Brás meditates on feeling at home as he stares out the window, noting, “home is not a physical place at all, but a group of elements like the people you live with—a feeling, a state of mind” (233). He arrives home to see Ana outside. The reader also sees the fish kites from the previous chapter hanging from a tree as decoration. Brás breaks the news about his tumors and his decision to terminate treatment to Ana, who accepts his decision. Miguel comes to visit, telling Brás he has moved into Aurora’s old house with his own family. While unpacking, he found a letter addressed to Brás from Benedito, tucked between the pages of Brás’s novel.

When Miguel leaves, Brás heads to the beach to read the letter from his father. It was written the day Miguel was born, as Brás was about to become a father himself. As the sun sets and someone flies a kite on the beach, Benedito tells Brás, “Only when you accept that one day you’ll die can you let go…and make the best out of life. And that’s the big secret. That’s the miracle” (243).

That night, Brás writes in a notebook while lying in bed with Ana. After peering outside, he kisses Ana goodnight and tells her not to wait up. He walks to the beach, lights three candles, and walks into the ocean. As he walks, his father’s letter echoes throughout the panel. In the final panel, which takes up a full page, Brás stands knee-deep in the water. It is unclear whether he will keep walking or turn back.