Hortensia

Hortensia James, originally from Barbados, is a recently-widowed, 85-year-old black woman who has been in a decades-long feud with white neighbor, Marion Agostino. Hortensia is a retired interior design firm consultant, made rich by her work. Hortensia, having experienced the horrors of racism growing up and through most of her adult life, now looks at the world with deep suspicion that everything is motivated by racial attitudes. Having been cheated on by her deceased husband, Peter, and unable to have children, Hortensia becomes acerbic, bitter, angry, and antagonistic towards nearly everyone else around her, known and unknown.

As such, she does not wish to reach out to Esme and refuses Beulah’s burial request. When Hortensia seeks to remodel part of her house, a runaway crane damages part of Marion’s house, and so Hortensia takes Marion in as a matter of atonement and responsibility. The decision to...