Memphis

In this flashback, Miriam is pregnant with Mya and stays in her Memphis home while Jax is away at training. He will miss the birth of their second daughter. She sits on the front porch with August. They still grieve their mother’s death. She died before Joan was born and Miriam recalls how she kept seeing her in the delivery room.

Miriam is happy to be with her sister and nephew, who was born eight years before and was the first son of the North family. She recalls her wedding day when August was 15 years old and her mother told her that it is hard to be the wife of a Marine officer. Hazel told her daughters that they could always return home.

Miriam asks August about her studies at Rhodes College and if she is talking to God. August believes it is God’s fault their mother died. Suddenly, they hear the front door open and see three-year-old Joan naked from the waist down and with blood down her legs. Miriam rushes to her while August runs to Derek’s room and finds a hanger with blood on it.

Weeks later, Miriam and Jax are in a pediatrician’s office while August waits with Joan. Jax rushed to Memphis to be with Joan and for days he only spoke to her. Children’s services removed Derek, and Miriam fears they might take her daughter away, too. She tries to convince the doctor that they are good parents. He examined Joan and is cynical about the rape. Miriam asks him about her daughter’s trauma, and he tells her that a three-year-old will not remember her rape. Miriam realizes that this man does not care about “the life of a Black child” (64), which enrages her.

August drives Joan around while waiting for Miriam and Jax. She feels ashamed. She stops the car outside the hospital and waits for them. She sees Jax running out and Miriam trying to catch up. Jax speaks and gestures to Miriam with anger, while Joan starts screaming. August sees him squeezing Miriam’s neck and lifting her off the ground. August gets out of the car and runs to them. She throws herself onto Jax and both he and Miriam fall. August wonders why God made her sister choose a man like that.

Later, Miriam explains to her that Jax will get better and has never hit her before. She says that according to the doctor, Joan might not remember her rape or Derek, and they would all survive this. August only thinks she is fed up with men’s anger and with God. She keeps hearing Joan’s screams in her head. She resorts to drinking to soothe herself and vows to always be there for her niece.

Joan is with her mother and sister in the quilting room after their first dinner in their Memphis home. Joan vows to stay away from Derek. She observes the family quilts and her great-grandmother’s sewing machine. Joan sleeps underneath a quilt that features a pattern of the Tree of Life, which is their family tree. Miriam tells her that her middle name “Della” comes from her great-grandmother, who made this quilt. Her grandmother Hazel also made a few quilts.

At night, Joan and Mya hear Miriam and August talking in the kitchen, their laughter and silence in between drinking and crying. Joan describes her bond with Mya. Mya leans close to her as she is scared. They wonder if they are going to see their father again. Joan tries not to think of him, but she misses him. Mya asks Joan what Derek did to her. Joan does not tell her but warns her to stay away from him.

The next morning in the kitchen, alone with her sister, mother, and aunt, Joan feels at home. She observes Miriam and August and thinks about their color. Like August, Joan has darker skin, while Mya has Miriam’s skin, a color like “butter pecan ice-cream” (74). She is also taller and has curlier hair. Society always treated her differently due to her darker skin. However, she thinks her aunt is a “vision.” Joan admires August’s look and wants to draw her to show her beauty to the world.

Miriam sends Joan and Mya with a pie to give to Stanley. August tells her that Stanley died, the same month as their mother. While out in the neighborhood, Joan and Mya meet Miss Dawn, an old Black woman outside an old pink house picking up groceries. Joan is impressed by her hands. Miss Dawn recognizes them as Miriam’s daughters and Joan tells her she wants to draw her hands. Miss Dawn says she knows about “real magic.” She tells Joan to bury a comb of Derek’s at midnight.

Two years after Joan stole and buried Derek’s comb, Derek is in prison.

Joan and Mya are in August’s salon. August manages a beauty salon in the basement of the house. Its walls are decorated with record covers of African American artists like Diana Ross and Stevie Wonder. At the entrance, there is a sign that reads “August’s […], No Children, No Men, & We Eat White Folk Here” (81). August is a gifted hairstylist, and her salon is always full.

August wonders how she and her sister’s family are going to survive with her salary. August’s work at the salon enables her to provide for herself and her son. She abandoned her dreams of going to college to become a doctor to supervise Derek to satisfy the order from Children’s Protective Services. She is concerned about their future as a family as Joan becomes tense in Derek’s presence.

The salon is full of Black women. August’s favorite customer is Miss Dawn. Joan wants to show her sketches to her. Miss Jade is another old customer who was a friend of August’s mother. August’s least favorite is Mika, who she thinks sounds like a white woman. The women talk, tease one another, and laugh. Their laughter resounds from the salon like “[a] cacophony of Black female joy” (87).

August sees her portrait in one of Joan’s sketches and realizes that her niece has the gift of painting just as August has the gift of singing. When the laughter in the salon stops, August starts singing, and all the women join her. August is content that the North women are all together again and thinks her mother must be proud.