Liliana's Invincible Summer: A Sister's Search for Justice

Liliana struggled to voice what was happening to her despite her deep thinking and devotion to writing. Rivera Garza works like an archeologist through the layers of her sister’s life as she studies the archive. Liliana was killed violently one night, but the violence she experienced began during her teenage years. She tried to confront it, stop it, ignore it, and live with it. Rivera Garza observes that women live with a higher risk of being killed in the three months after they dissolve their relationship with a violent partner. Rivera Garza speculates that something must have occurred between Liliana and Ángel in the spring of 1990 that angered Ángel.

Four of Liliana’s notebooks were preserved in a single box along with various items that belonged to her, including jewelry, cards, and books. She made dated observations in these notebooks. She also stored items like receipts in chronological order. Some entries, however, are missing dates, so Rivera Garza relies on Liliana’s writing style to date them. She creates a timeline of her sister’s life from these notebooks and inserts other loose notes into the chronology. She transcribes the archive, which provides a “blueprint” of her sister’s life: “She was there, as real as the air we breathed” (196). Rivera Garza lets her sister’s voice take the lead so as not to represent her as only a victim. She was a woman with agency: “Liliana did not lose the ability to see herself as the author of her own life” (196).

The first notebook contains details of Liliana’s coursework during her fifth quarter mixed with personal musings like one dated to June 13, 1989, in which she wrote, “How I wish we were no longer fairies in a land of ice. So much need for company” (198). Her allusion suggests that Liliana felt like she was stuck in an unwelcoming environment despite her benevolence and like she was lonely. The note’s context seems mysterious, but Rivera Garza’s interviews with Liliana’s classmates reveal something significant: The previous autumn, she had revealed to her friend Laura that she was pregnant. Liliana then went alone to get an illegal abortion. Abortion was only decriminalized in Mexico City and Oaxaca in 2019, and in many parts of the country, it is still legal only in rape cases. The risks that Liliana faced remain for many women in contemporary Latin America. Liliana’s free verse from November 1988 reflects her experience, as she writes about the desire for escape and her loneliness. She later confided in Manolo that her experience shaped her resistance to sex during their relationship. She liberated herself from a permanent link to Ángel.

Liliana wrote a “cryptic note” in July 1989 about Ángel’s disturbing presence in her life again: “My privacy is being bombarded, my individuality” (207). The two appear to have broken up again later that month: “[B]y her own account Ángel was at once desirable and vile” (209). Her thirst for freedom is prominent in her writing from this period. She stopped using many names in her writing out of a desire for privacy. However, she wrote to Raúl during the summer of 1989, emphasizing her unwillingness to be in a relationship with him and her desire for liberation and truth. She resented his pressure.

Ángel’s name reappears in Liliana’s second notebook in an entry dated to November 1989. Rivera Garza questions why her sister continued her involvement with this abusive man. The answer is simple: It was an attempt to survive by not inciting his wrath. There was no public discourse on intimate partner violence in 1990; Liliana’s death was a systemic failure. Liliana fought for her life until Ángel ended it: “She thought she could fend off patriarchy by herself and overcome it on her own” (215).

Liliana spent a lot of time at her cousin Emilio’s cafeteria in April 1990. Emilio kicked out Ángel when he showed up because he had seen his violence before and worried that he was armed. He told the security guards at the building not to allow him inside. 

Liliana changed the subject when Rivera Garza visited her in May. The two spent time daydreaming about a trip to Florence. She wonders how she did not see that Liliana was in danger.

Liliana copied a playlist into her fourth notebook on May 24, 1990, that indicated another breakup, but she wrote two days later about her faith in herself. She wrote of her sense of exposure in Mexico City on May 30: “On the metro, so unprotected. I’m at home, this space belongs to me!” (224). She wrote to Raúl about her unprotected state a couple of days later. She was also more isolated from her friend group, including Ana, who had changed sections of a shared course. The two women spent less time together. Snyder’s Danger Assessment tool highlights the risk that isolation poses for victims of intimate partner violence. Manolo returned to Liliana’s life: “Though they were not officially together, little by little, they became a couple” (228). Nevertheless, Liliana’s risk of harm was high at this time.

Liliana wrote a note in June that mentions an unidentifiable Sergio and José Luis. She also wrote about Ángel, but his role in her life had changed: “Now he is family […] Perhaps even an object of pity” (230). He began efforts to rekindle their relationship soon after, about which she wrote angrily. She also copied out the Albert Camus quote, “In the midst of winter I finally found there was, within me, an invincible summer” (231). She ended their relationship with finality in early June, but he continued to harass her, and she did not realize the danger she faced, as lyrics that she copied into a notebook indicate. 

Manolo and Liliana went to a party on July 14, and he left her at her apartment that evening. The next morning, she wrote about her desire for companionship. Manolo came over, and they worked on a project for a class. She asked him to stay that evening, but he said that he had to be home and told her he would pick her up the next day. Ángel broke into the apartment early the next morning and strangled her.

Manolo arrived the next morning and called for Liliana. He walked to the bed when she did not respond, thinking she was pranking him. She appeared to be asleep but was fully clothed; he felt her cold body. Manolo began screaming, and the neighbors arrived. The landlord called emergency services while Manolo noticed the purple color of her lips. After the ambulance arrived, Manolo called his attorney cousin, Fernando Casillas, who told him not to speak to the authorities. They contacted Liliana’s other friends, who arrived in disbelief. Meanwhile, the police began questioning neighbors, who mentioned seeing Ángel frequently lurking in the area. Manolo provided Ángel’s name. He heard that Ángel paid unhoused people using drugs in the area to keep tabs on Liliana’s movements. He also overheard that Ángel had jumped the gate and been loaned a broom from a man across the street to unlatch it.

Manolo became the primary suspect, but Ana gave the authorities information on and a photo of Ángel. The police visited Toluca to search for Ángel but did not find him. Ana later heard that he had fled just as the police arrived at his family’s home. Liliana’s friends, including Ángel Garza, made a somber trek to Toluca to inform Liliana’s family, but her parents were on a plane from Europe to Mexico. Instead, they called an aunt in Tamaulipas. Rivera Garza, living in Houston, received a visit from the Mexican consulate, which informed her of Liliana’s murder. She arranged to travel to Mexico while Emilio, their cousin, identified Liliana’s body. An employee at the morgue remarked that Ángel had raped Liliana after strangling her. 

A journalist named Tomás Rojas Madrid began reporting on the “obscure crime” for La Prensa. Early reports indicated that the case would soon be resolved. The university provided a bus for Liliana’s friends and classmates to travel to Toluca for her funeral, which Rivera Garza organized. No one wanted to leave after the burial, but gradually they departed: “Cristina was not left alone in that space. The sun, the wind, the flowers accompanied her at that moment, and the spirit of Liliana, with whom she talked, and with whom she made plans, as usual” (267). Soon, Liliana and Rivera Garza’s parents arrived home from their trip abroad and had to be told the terrible news. Friends, family, and neighbors filled the house to comfort them as they erupted with sorrow. Rivera Garza went into her sister’s old bedroom and collapsed in grief.

La Prensa identified Ángel as Liliana’s murderer a week after her death, but he was already on the run. What precisely occurred within the walls of Liliana’s apartment remains unknown. Rivera Garza’s family retreated inward to protect themselves and Liliana from victim blaming: “What right do they have to demand justice when they themselves were not able to protect their own from danger?” (277). Others speculated that she would have lived if her family had not allowed her to go to Mexico City or if she had not begun dating and having sex in her youth. Victim blaming was pervasive. 

Rivera Garza contends that Liliana was trying to escape her abusive relationship during the summer when Ángel killed her. She thinks of her sister often, frolicking in the heavenly sphere with others who lost their lives far too young.