Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual content, mental illness, and cursing.

Harvard students have five weeks off for winter break, and Catalina goes home to Queens to spend the time with her “grieving grandparents.” Nathanial travels to Peru with Dr. Murphy to conduct interviews for his thesis and, afterward, plans to spend a few weeks at the beach in San Marta, Colombia. Catalina knows that she couldn’t have joined him, but she is still annoyed that he didn’t think to invite her. Nathaniel shares numerous pictures from the trip, saved in a Facebook album titled La tierra del olvido. Catalina thinks that his Spanish has “the aesthetic appeal of raw chicken” (107).

Both Christmas and New Year’s pass “quietly,” and New York City is covered in snow. This means that Catalina’s grandfather’s construction jobs are closed, and the three of them spend a great deal of time inside, “driving each other crazy” (108). The women tiptoe around Francisco, worried about setting him off, but ugly fights are inevitable. When Francisco and Fernanda go to their Jehovah’s Witness meetings, Catalina has phone sex with strangers she finds on the “Casual Encounters” section of Craigslist.