Renata's efforts to cross the Mexican desert with their son to reunite with her husband in Chicago lead to tragedy. Back in present-day Chicago, Mark tries to reunite Laurentino with the latter's estranged son, whose own child bears an uncanny resemblance to Renata. The poetic metaphor throughout is the Monarch butterflies whose migrations between the U.S. and Laurentino's childhood home in Mexico reflect journeys real and imagined undertaken by him and those close to him.