Make Your Home Among Strangers: Chapter 20 Summary & Analysis

Lourdes’s side of the family is “big and messy.” Though they don’t see each other often, they have a ton of fun at noisy family gatherings a couple of times a year. On the drive over to Zoila’s house, Lizet wonders how much her mother’s family knows about the split—or, for that matter, about Lizet herself going away to college.

When Lizet, Lourdes, Leidy, and Dante arrive at Zoila’s house, Zoila is already half-drunk and greets them all loudly and effusively. Though Zoila and Lourdes are technically cousins, they refer to one another as sisters; Lourdes lived with Zoila and Zoila’s mother when she first arrived from Cuba, and the two have been close ever since. They talk to one another in obscenity-laden speech and call one another insulting names, yet their love for one another is evident.

The girls make their way out to the backyard, where a pig is roasting. They greet the rest of their family, and Leidy passes Dante off to a cousin so that she can have a drink and enjoy herself. As Leidy and Lizet begin gulping sangria together, Lizet feels “normal” for the first time since she’s been home. It almost feels like she and Leidy are “on the same team,” the way they were years ago before Leidy got pregnant and before Lizet had ever even heard of Rawlings.

One of Lizet’s cousins asks her where Omar is, and Leidy interjects, revealing that Lizet has broken up with Omar. Lizet feels ill, and realizes she shouldn’t drink any more of her sangria. Against her will, she misses Omar; though she hasn’t called him since she’s been home, she’s upset that he hasn’t called her, either.

Over the course of the night, Lizet fends off her increasingly drunk relatives, who comment on her changed appearance and ask her if she is engaged yet. When it’s time to sit down for dinner, Lizet notices that there is a place card at her table with Omar’s name on it. Lizet wonders whether her mother went behind her back and told Zoila to put Omar’s place card out despite knowing Lizet had expressed ambivalence about their relationship—or whether she didn’t say a word about Omar, and by proxy Lizet, to Zoila at all.

Lizet rushes outside to confront her mother—she walks out to see that Zoila is teasing Lourdes about her involvement with Ariel Hernandez. Most people in Miami believe that Ariel is sure to get the political asylum his family has recently requested, and Zoila now tells Lourdes that she looks foolish campaigning so hard on Ariel’s behalf when his asylum is already a done deal. Zoila then turns to her much-younger boyfriend, Tony, and tells him that Lourdes is obsessed with Ariel because she’s lonely and has nothing better to do.

Lizet tries to get her mother’s attention, but Lourdes is riled up and distracted by her own confrontation with Zoila. Lizet firmly tells her mother that they need to talk immediately. Zoila urges Lourdes to pay attention to Lizet and see what “the profesora” has to say; Lizet knows that the nickname is meant as a dig, but also realizes that it at least knows that her family is aware of the fact that she’s in college somewhere special.

Lourdes drags Lizet back into the house and reprimands her for talking to her so disrespectfully in front of the rest of the family. Lourdes pushes Lizet against a wall and tells her remember her place—“Maybe,” she says, “you forgot that up there.”

Lizet shows Lourdes the place card and asks what it was doing on the table—she wants to know if Zoila forgot to take Omar out, or if Lourdes told Zoila to leave it there. Lourdes suggests that Lizet needs the “reminder” of the place card to show her what’s “really important”—she thinks Lizet believes she is too good for Omar now.

Lizet and her mother continue to argue—about Omar, about Lourdes’s disinterest in Lizet’s experiences at school, about the sacrifices each is making. When Lizet pulls out her trump card and accuses Lourdes of only caring about Ariel because she has nothing else going on, Lourdes pushes Lizet hard, and Lizet falls to the ground. Lourdes tells Lizet that no matter what college she goes to, she will always be “fucking stupid” about some things. She turns her back and walks out of the room, still screaming about how selfish Lizet and Leidy are—they have invented their own problems, whereas Ariel and Caridaylis are going through something real.

Lizet, sitting on the ground as the room spins around her, believes her mother is the selfish one for volunteering all her time on Ariel’s behalf when her own daughters need her. Eventually, Lizet stands up and heads back to the dinner table. Her mother takes a seat at the opposite end from Lizet and Leidy; Lizet spends the whole meal telling anyone who will listen that Omar is busy at work and will be present for the meal next year.