The news leaked first by word of mouth, then rippled out quickly across Havana yesterday, as Cubans quietly rejoiced over the return of Elian Gonzalez, who was given the green light by US authorities to return home to Cuba yesterday.
Crowds of people huddled around radio sets, tuning in to Radio Reloj, the round-the-clock Cuban news station which formally announced the US supreme court decision yesterday afternoon.
"I'm afraid they'll pull some last-minute trick out of the bag" commented Nancy Gonzalez, a middle-aged Havana housewife who participated in all the mass rallies held over the past seven months, to pressure the US justice system to rule in favour of the boy's return.
The last rally was held a week ago, in Camaguey town, where 300,000 people, led by Vice-President and Defence Minister Raul Castro, loudly demanded an end to the controversial case.
The Cuban government expressed fears that the Elian case would be dragged out until a new US government was elected, fears since proved groundless.
Dr Castro has consistently maintained that Elian's homecoming, when it occurs, would be a low-key affair, without massive celebrations, to protect the family's privacy and the child's psychological health.
In the six-year-old boy's home town of Cardenas there were no signs of any special preparations for a homecoming party, although the city will celebrate its annual carnival from July 6th to 9th.
"The whole town is anxious and desperate for him to return to Cuba," social club administrator Cristobal Biart told reporters, speaking from the port city of about 90,000 people which has been the focus of a patriotic crusade by President Castro to bring home the city's most famous inhabitant.
"When he (Elian) comes home, we will wait for precise instructions. We can't just run out into the street to celebrate," added Mr Biart.
Another Cardenas resident, 71-year-old retired port worker Mario Marcelino Hernandez said he did not mind if there was no public homecoming party.
"All Cubans will celebrate a party in their own hearts," he said.
Over the past seven months Cuban leader Fidel Castro accused the "Miami Mafia" of kidnapping the boy, comparing the case to the Bay of Pigs in 1961, when a Cuban-American invasion force landed in Cuba, but was quickly routed.
The Elian case strained US-Cuban relations, although opinion on the island shifted after the dramatic and risky dawn raid by US federal Marshals last April, which reunited Elian with his father, stepmother and stepbrother, who have been staying as guests of supporters in the Washington DC, area until court appeals by the Miami relatives were exhausted.
Dr Castro yesterday promised "a suitable, low-key atmosphere" for the boy's reintegration into Cuban society. The Gonzalez family is expected to take a holiday before Elian returns to school. The Cuban government announced that they would take down the billboards and posters which festoon the island, demanding the return of the boy.
"Elian This is Your Land" read one billboard in central Havana yesterday, while others have pictured him in an angelic halo of light, or even compared him to epic guerrilla Che Guevara.
The return of Elian coincides with the likely US congressional approval permitting the slight easing of the trade embargo, allowing medicines to be sold to Cuba.
The custody battle has been accompanied by an emotion-sapping war of words between Castro and his Cuban foes in Miami.
Cuban TV commentator Arleen Rodriguez described the efforts of Elian's Miami relatives to keep the boy in the United States over the past seven months as a "collection of absurd, illogical and irrational actions against laws and against the human rights of a family".
These words reflected the carefully orchestrated campaign for the boy's return, in which the government has promoted and organised almost daily marches, first by grandmothers, then mothers, schoolchildren and workers, with a precision bordering on military discipline. The campaign was launched by Castro soon after Elian was taken in by his Miami relatives in November after surviving a tragic migrants' voyage in which his mother and 10 others drowned.