Make Your Home Among Strangers: Chapter 30 Summary & Analysis

Lizet has asked Omar to pick her up from the airport—she hasn’t told him the true reason for her visit, and has instead lied and claimed to have found a cheap Easter flight home. When Omar asked why Lizet was coming home for Easter, she challengingly asked him if there was any reason she shouldn’t—he replied that there wasn’t.

Now, as Omar greets Lizet at the airport terminal, he asks where her ring is. She tells him she left it at school so that it wouldn’t get lost or snagged on the plane. Omar seems to not really believe her, and Lizet herself knows she’s lying—she hasn’t worn the ring for weeks.

Omar starts driving Lizet towards Little Havana, and she tells him she’s not going to her mother’s house—she wants to be dropped off at her father’s apartment in Hialeah. Lizet has realized that she needs her father’s help. When they pull up to the apartment complex, it seems as if no one’s home, but Lizet insists Omar help her get her bags out of the trunk anyway. Omar refuses, not wanting to leave Lizet in a such a seedy place so late at night. Lizet gets out of the car, goes around to the trunk, and begins banging on it; Omar eventually relents. Lizet takes her bags, thanks Omar for the ride, and starts heading up to her father’s building; Omar tries to stop Lizet by yelling at her, but soon another voice calls Lizet’s name.

Ricky has come out of his apartment building at the noise; he is shocked to see Lizet home, and Lizet can tell he is more than a little angry. When Lizet tells him that she’s home for Easter, he immediately realizes what she’s really saying. Omar tries to speak up and tell Ricky he had nothing to do with Lizet’s trip, but Ricky just tells Omar to leave. Before he does, Omar tells Lizet there’s no reason for the way she’s treating him—he’s only ever been good to her.

Lizet brings up what she’s seen on the news, but Omar insists he didn’t want to tell her the truth because there was nothing she could do from all the way up at Rawlings. Lizet says that’s what she’s here to do—to stop Lourdes, since obviously no one else will. As he throws the car into gear, Omar yells for Lizet to think about “whose fault it is” that she isn’t in Miami anymore in the first place.

Lizet goes into her father’s apartment and sits with him in his bedroom. She and her father instantly begin bickering about Lizet’s abandonment, Ricky’s choice to sell the house, and their respective disappointments in one another. They both get tired and sad, though, and quiet falls over the room. Ricky gets Lizet a snack and asks if Lourdes purchased her flight for her; Lizet replies that she bought the ticket with her own money, and that Lourdes doesn’t know she’s coming.

Lizet tells Ricky that she needs to get her mother away from the Ariel situation. She tells her father that she has been watching the news up at school—“we look like a bunch of crazy people,” she says, referring to how the reports frame Miamians. When Ricky asks what Lizet means by “we,” she clarifies that she means Cubans; Ricky laughs and tells Lizet she isn’t Cuban. Lizet is deeply hurt, and her face reflects it, because Ricky attempts to backtrack, telling her she’s American. Lizet replies she must be “Latina at least.” Ricky argues that Latinos are Mexicans and Central Americans. Lizet, frustrated, says that “other people” think she’s Cuban—her father, equally upset, gives the argument up.

As Lizet eats her snack, Ricky asks if she needs a ride to her mother’s apartment—she can’t stay with him. She says she’ll sleep on the couch, and asks if he can take her over on Saturday or Sunday. As they continue arguing, Ricky threatens to call Lourdes, but Lizet begs him not to—in fact, she says, when she does go to her mother’s, she will need him to come with her. She tells her father that she believes he is at least a small part of why Lourdes has thrown herself into all the Ariel stuff. Lizet will not be able to pull her away from it by herself.

Ricky points out that Lizet has gone to college by herself and has paid for all her own trips home herself; she doesn’t need his help. He tells her that she can stay the night, but says he’s dropping her at her mother’s first thing in the morning—he does not want to get involved with “whoever [Lourdes] thinks she is now.”

In the morning, Ricky drives Lizet to Lourdes’s apartment. Leidy answers the door for her; Leidy seems both surprised and unsurprised to see Lizet. The two sisters almost immediately begin fighting, as Lizet accuses Leidy of pushing her out of the family and lying to her while Leidy calls Lizet a selfish snob and a traitor for staying at their father’s house. The argument flares up and winds down again and again until both sisters are exhausted. They go to the living room window together and look down at the street at the procession of people heading towards Ariel’s house. Quietly, Leidy admits she is happy to see Lizet; Lizet knows Leidy must think that all their fighting is over, but Lizet knows—with a sense of dread—that only the “opening act” is out of the way for now.