In 1909 Cuba, Camila is now a mere 15 years old and living with her father’s second family in exile. Right after Salomé’s death, Pancho married one of his wife’s former students, Tivisita. At this point in the story, everyone is preparing for Camila’s 15th birthday celebration. As a special treat, her mother’s sister, who everybody calls Mon, is arriving for a visit. Camila wants to return to the Dominican Republic to live with Mon. She feels entirely out of place in her father’s new family now that her own brothers have grown up and moved away. Camila also has a strained relationship with her stepmother. She can’t decide whether to dislike or pity the petite young woman.

Mon arrives with several trunks for Camila. They contain her mother’s papers. Many are poems in their original form before Pancho edited them. Mon hopes that Camila will publish Salomé’s complete body of work someday. She gives Camila the poetry medal her mother won as well as a black gown that Camila now wants to wear for her birthday celebration. When Camila appears downstairs wearing the gown, her father grows upset because she looks so much like her mother, which brings him painful memories.