Chapter 1 Summary

The chapter opens with the narrator telling the story of Violet in a gossipy way. It is about a woman, who lives on Lenox Avenue with cages full of birds and windows full of houseplants. Her husband, Joe, lives there too. He is the one who feels one of those "deep down spooky loves that made him so sad and happy he shot her just to keep the feeling going." When his wife, Violet finds out what he has done, she goes to the funeral parlor and tries to disfigure the dead girl's beautiful face, to slash it with a knife. The men at the funeral parlor wrestled her to the floor, and throw her out into the snow.

Violet goes home and releases her birds, letting them fly away, dark shapes against the white snow. She even releases the yellow and green...