Chapter 18 Summary

Eire talks about his Aunt Lucia, his father's sister. She apparently has no desires. As boys, Carlos and Tony view Lucia only as the woman who buys them their comic books on Wednesday. As it turns out, she is the owner of the house they live in, but she has relinquished the domain to them and lives in a back room. She never went to a university or had a job until her mother died, after which she worked in an upscale boutique selling nice clothes to rich women.

Eire cannot believe that she never had desires, but the only time he can remember seeing it on her face was when he would bring her McDonald's milkshakes when she was 90. By then, she was living in a nursing home in the worst neighborhood in Chicago. She had left Cuba at the age of...