Elisa is the third eldest daughter of a rich Havana family whose wealth is the result of participation in the sugar trade. At the start of the novel, Elisa is a sheltered 19-year-old who seems destined to marry a man of her class. Elisa eventually spends the remaining part of her life as a wealthy exile in Miami.

Elisa lives her life in a bubble that is only occasionally breached by news about the actions of revolutionaries. When Elisa is 19, she undergoes a series of radical changes that occur because she meets Pablo at a party to which Elisa goes as a small act of rebellion. Elisa falls in love and is forced to question her family’s place and complicity in the inequities of Cuban society. Elisa violates the values of her class and gender when she has sex with Pablo, gets pregnant, and is left to manage the consequences when he is apparently killed in battle. The defining trait of her identity—that she is an exile—occurs when her family leaves. From that point on, Elisa builds her identity around a never-to-be fulfilled desire to return home to Cuba.

Elisa marries Juan and lives a prosperous life with her son, Miguel.