How we cite our quotes: ("Abbreviated chapter name," page)
Quote #4
"When Lourdes was a child in Cuba, she used to wait anxiously for her father to return from his trips selling small fans and electric brooms in distant provinces. He would call her every evening...and she would cry, 'When are you coming home, Papi? When are you coming home?' Lourdes would welcome her father in her party dress and search his suitcase for rag dolls and oranges." ("Grove," 68)
It's possible that Lourdes' love for her father was intensified by her fear of her mother's indifference and manic behavior. Or perhaps this is genuine love shared by two compatible souls. We expect that it's a combination of the two.
Quote #5
"Felicia approaches the bleached, crumpled heap that will be her husband. He looks like a colorless worm, writhing on his stomach in a synthetic tan suit with precisely matching socks, his steel glasses smashed against the pavement. Felicia is smitten." ("Baskets," 149)
We're not sure if Felicia's emotions are the sign of her desperation or if she really is just a highly charitable person, able to love the unlovable. She desperately wants a second husband, despite the dire predictions of the santero who told her she wouldn't be able to keep what she desired. Perhaps their intense passion burned itself up too quickly?
Quote #6
"Could her son, Celia wonders, have inherited her habit of ruinous passion? Or is passion indiscriminate, incubating haphazardly like a cancer?" ("Baskets," 157)
When Javier returns from Czechoslovakia a broken man, Celia can't help but recall her own brush with death after Gustavo left her. In this world where the unexplained and unusual happens all the time, it's not out of the question that emotional lives can be transmitted via DNA.