For me, the sea was a great comfort, Pilar. But it made my children restless. It exists now so we can call and wave from opposite shores.

Frustrated, El Líder went home, rested his pitching arm, and started a revolution in the mountains.

In Cuba, everything seemed temporal, distorted by the sun.

The war that killed my grandfather and great-uncles and thousands of other blacks is only a footnote in our history books.