Chapter 16 Summary

Since coming to America, Eire has been seeing clouds that are shaped like Cuba. These always take him by surprise, and they feel ominous to him. He sees one just as his son comes to head-butt him in the stomach, his daughter sneers, and his other daughter smiles. Just at the moment that he wishes would never end, he sees a Cuba cloud, and knows that every moment in life that is wonderful will end.

Chapter 16 Analysis

The clouds symbolize impermanence. Everything in his youth, his life in Cuba, everything he had and was supposed to have, is gone. Every moment, even this moment in America, so far away from his Cuban childhood, will be gone. He does not know where they came from, and he does not know where it will go.