The Quinceañera that Marguerite mentions is a girl’s 15th birthday party, an important celebration in Central and South American countries that marks the passage from girlhood to womanhood. Now that Marguerite is 16, it is indeed strange that marriage is not being discussed by her parents, and likely the reason she is being sent back to the States.

It’s harvesttime for Maude where she is an evacuee in Wales, but warm and tropical for Marguerite. She goes swimming with friends; this is a photo of them at Oja de Agua.

Here is my mother, Marguerite, shortly before leaving Hanover for Costa Rica, savouring a strawberry soda…