Summary

In “Session Five,” Cara brings Lissette her homemade “arepitas de yuca” (73).

Cara “didn’t go” to the housekeeping interview because it was too far away (73). “Too many people” depend on her for her to be away from home that long (73). La Vieja Caridad needs her to cook for her. She is 90 and Cara can “smell the cancer on her” (74). She needs a job “close to [her] apartment” like Hernán’s hospital cooking job (74). Cara has taught him his best recipes.

Cara gives Lissette examples of her skills as an inventor, organizer, and pragmatist (77). She has “many talents,” including smelling diseases (78). The first discovered this skill with her brother Rafa. After Miguelina threw him out for drinking, Cara let him stay with her. She did not want to enable him, but could not let him sleep “in the streets” (81). During his stay, Cara...