Summary

Chapter 12 is titled “Out Loud.” Bobi's father met a new woman, and his house became more like a home. Bobi referred to this group as “family” and to her father's girlfriend as her “stepmother.” Bobi's mother married a man named Frank who was a “tyrant,” but he did not hit them. Junior moved back home with their dad. When Bobi was 13, her father and his girlfriend took the children swimming. The outing came to an abrupt halt when an old man told Bobi's father that she had “a nice little body” (93). Her father was furious with Bobi, and that put an end to how happy she was with the free feeling of diving and swimming. She briefly had a friend until the girl's mother's boyfriend, a 32-year-old man named Louis, forced Bobi to sit by him and rubbed her hand on his crotch...