Summary

Chapter 1 – In rambling first person narration, Bird contemplates the secrets and circumstances of her life, revealing several things. Among them: Snow is away at college, and Arturo (referred to as Dad) visits her every couple of weeks, bringing back gifts for Bird that he says are from Snow but which Bird tends to feel ambivalent about, at best. Bird’s narration also reveals that she is closer to her grandmother Agnes (Gee-ma) than she is to her grandmother Olivia (Grammy); that she (Bird) has a talent for imitating others, including Gee-ma; and that Grammy is very distant and unloving, resentful of the fact that Bird has brought colored-ness into her family. She also describes how Gee-Ma told her that she has an “enemy”, and how she (Bird) is always on the lookout to identify who that might be. In terms of...