Summary

Chapter 15 takes us very briefly into the future of young August as she started college in Rhode Island at Brown University. Her PSAT studies paid off and she escaped Brooklyn to study death and dying in college. She took a white boy as her first love, and began traveling. When she saw the Art Ensemble of Chicago and heard them play jazz, she heard for the first time a music that told the story of her childhood friendships. She spent her twenties "sleeping with white boys" and traveling for her work (161). All the while, she never shared the story of her childhood and her mother with any of the people she took as lovers.

In Chapter 16, the reader is returned to August's sixteenth year, the year after Gigi died and the year August began seeing Sister Sonja. The family returned back to SweetGrove...