Part 2, Chapter 1

As Avey rests in a recliner in the hotel in Grenada, her deceased husband appears to her in a vision. Jay is irate, asking her if she knows what she’s “playing around with” and insisting that she must want to return to the place where the two of them began their lives together.

This period of time was spent on Halsey Street in Brooklyn, which was marked by the economic struggles the two faced for twelve years. Living through those struggles continued to affect Jay for the rest of his life, influencing the decisions he made in maintaining the family’s food reserves, in their insurance policies, and in the way Jay dedicated himself to earning money.

The night before his fatal stroke, Jay called out to Avey, “Do you know who you sound like, who you even look like?” He had first asked her this question during a particularly heated argument during the winter of 1947; Avey was pregnant with Marion, and their other two daughters were one and four. She felt trapped by a third pregnancy and resented having to quit her job again. In fact, she had tried various means of ending the pregnancy but had stopped short of scheduling an abortion; her friend Grace had died from a massive hemorrhage during her own abortion procedure.

Avey was also convinced during this time that Jay was having an affair with one of the white girls he worked with. At first, he met her accusations with calm reasoning, assuring her that he had enough ladies in his life, referring to Avey and their daughters. Avey was unrelenting in her suspicions, however, and eventually Jay met her questions with silence and avoidance. Jay’s hours were increasingly long at the small department store where he worked; he explained that the boss often asked him to work overtime, but Avey remained convinced that he was meeting a female coworker when his shift ended.

One “fateful Tuesday” in winter when she was eight months pregnant with Marion, the tension between Avey and Jay reached its peak. As she waited for him to come home, Avey became increasingly agitated. Pacing around their apartment, she was surprised by the sight of her own reflection, wearing a robe stained with baby food and sporting Jay’s slippers, which was the only footwear she could fit into at this point in her pregnancy. Her resentment increased when she saw her dresses hanging in the closet, as she knew that none of them would fit anymore. Avey began to worry that when she went into labor, Jay might not even be home, as she was convinced that he might at that moment be lying somewhere with another woman’s legs wrapped around him.

Part 2, Chapter 2 

Avey had worked herself into a rage by the time Jay appeared at the door that evening. His initial response was simply to stand and listen to his wife in silence, avoiding her eyes and her stomach. Avey asked him why he bothered coming home at all and told him she never should have married him. 

For the first time, Jay met her accusations with open frustration. He told Avey to take his job at the store so that she could see how it was to work for a “red-faced Irishman who . . . [laughs] to himself at the colored boy he’s got doing everything.” Hearing her father’s voice prompted Sis, their oldest child, to rise from bed; she begged her parents to stop fighting and finally started hitting both of them. Jay insisted that they were all miserable because of Avey’s...