Summary

Sissy, a second grader in Chicago in the 1960s, has many names she goes by including a Christian name, but the family left the faith after her mother told a priest in Confession that Jesus should have made his own Sun Dance, and the priest told her she is beyond penance. Sissy got her Dakhóta name from her grandmother in a ceremony. Sissy knows enough to protect herself when her mother’s eyes go red and she gets angry. She hides under her bed for protection during these times with her doll, Ethel.

Sissy’s father’s name is Cornelius. Lillian, Sissy’s mother, was supposed to marry Cornelius’s brother, Luther, but he died in the Korean war. Lillian went to Indian boarding schools as a child and was always a very smart girl. One of the nuns...