Garonzik

Throughout the story, García Ramis constructs the little girl’s isolation by
amassing details that contribute to the foreignness of her environment. First of all, thegirl
is forced to leave her home to travel to an island that she does not remember ever having
been to before. On the island she is met with unfamiliar and disorientingsights; the street
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signs written in English are illegible to her and the Christmas lights in the plaza are the
first she has ever seen. She has never been inside ahouse with a central patio, and she has
no prior memory of the grandmother with whom she is to spend the week. Her mother
attempts to reconcile this obvious incongruitywith the notion that her daughter is
growing up, telling her that “you’re a big girl now and it’s good for you to know your
relatives” (64). However, both the girl’sage and the fact that neither her mother nor her
grandmother choose to explain the situation to her more fully prevent her from
understanding the events surrounding hermother’s disappearance. For example, the little
girl has no reference for the man who was her father other than the picture her mother
hangs on the wall above her bed;therefore, she cannot understand why her mother stands
staring off into the distance when they visit his gravesite. Similarly, in the disagreement
between mother andgrandmother as to whether or not the girl should be allowed to
accompany her mother to the local Christmas celebration, the mother points out that she
will be leaving thenext day and they settle the matter by speaking with their eyes.
Neither the mother nor the grandmother wants to voice the possibility that the mother
may never return.