Summary

Part Three, titled “Return,” opens with a quotation from James Baldwin: “People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them” (157).

Opal drives her mail route, disturbed by her reflection’s new wrinkles. She remembers the first time she took Orvil shopping. He asked how they knew they were not just copying the things their reflections did. As he danced wildly to prove his self-control, Opal thought it looked like a powwow dance. Opal secretly lives by superstition; she loves the reliability of numbers. Even numbers are lucky, particularly four and eight. She delivers the mail on the odd side first. A woman impatiently stops her car to let Opal cross, and Opal hates herself for jogging. Opal regrets nothing she has done, only things that happened to her. She bore the weight of years with Ronald and in foster...