Summary

The Epilogue is subtitled “Summer.” “Ernestine stands in a spotlight wearing her white graduation gown, with the ragged lace border around the collar” and holding her diploma (84). She comments that at her graduation ceremony, the principal said that the world “is to be approached like a newborn, ‘handled with care’” but did not say anything about what to do “when the world doesn’t care for you” (84).

Lights then change to reveal the living room, decorated and with a white cake on the table. Godfrey brags about the cake, asks to take the diploma down to the bakery where he works, and suggests that if she wants, Ernestine can get a job there. Ernestine asks the audience to imagine a life with her at her father’s side “with no greater expectation than for the bread to rise” (85). She then tells Godfrey that she...