In the Dream House: 143. Dream House as L’esprit de L’escalier Summary & Analysis

Machado flies to Cuba with her brother to visit their ancestral home, Santa Clara. She realizes that Santa Clara is the sister city of Bloomington and wonders at the coincidence. While there, Machado wanders the streets, imagining that she’s wandering around the map of Bloomington. Her brother tells her the story of her grandfather telling an old, white Cuban man to “go fuck himself,” and she wishes she had used this phrase herself, years earlier.