Prologue The kitchen in a small house in el Comandante, a neighborhood in Carolina, Puerto Rico, just outside San Juan. The home is a cement block, completely open to the air, consisting of a carport, a kitchen/sitting area, and two small unseen bedrooms. The doors and windows are various configurations of iron bars. A gnarled mango tree looms over the house, larger than life. Rotten mangos litter the overgrown grass outside. Ismelda, 46, as sturdy as the mango, cleans the kitchen, singing to herself. She puts away dishes, scrubs the counter, sweeps. She goes to the carport, takes clothing from a beat-up washing machine and hangs them out back to dry. Eventually she goes into the backroom, returns with a bed pan that she washes off in the bathroom sink. One by one Yinoelle, 44, and Wicha, 39, enter. They greet each other as sisters do, that is to say a blend of familiar affection and loathing. They settle in around the kitchen table, eating galletas. 1. Suena la tin-tin-tin de una campanita. A small bell. YINOELLE Te toca a ti. [It’s your turn]
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