Summary

This chapter picks up just after Ward’s father has left. Ward’s mother moves with her children to Orange Grove. The move helps Ward’s mother feel more free since the people in DeLisle all knew about her husband’s infidelities. Ward is ten years old at the time of the move. For the first time ever, Ward is without her extended family and it makes the world seem more dangerous.

Neither of Ward’s parents had wanted the children to be raised without a father, but husbands leaving their wives is almost a tradition, which Ward believes may stem back to the time of slavery when Black families were torn apart.

Ward’s mother takes a job as a housekeeper for a rich White family.

Ward is affected by her father’s leaving. She sees herself as an unattractive, poor...