Part 2, Chapters 3–5 Summary and Analysis
Part 2, Chapter 3
After that day, Jay worked even harder, maintaining two and sometimes three jobs at once. He submitted his unopened pay envelope directly to Avey, which he had never done before. In his limited spare time, he began a correspondence course in accounting and business management, falling asleep with his books in his hands and reaching for them again as soon as he awakened the next morning. After spending four years completing the coursework, Jay spent another two years trying to find an entry-level position in accounting, all while continuing to work multiple jobs. Every business had a different reason for why they couldn’t hire him, and finally someone told him that a college degree would lead to better opportunities. At age thirty-two, he enrolled in college, attending evening and night classes after his shifts at a department store.
During the summers before the “fateful Tuesday,” Jay had taken his family to the old house Aunt Cuney had left to Avey. He had believed Aunt Cuney’s story about the Ibos, which Avey had shared with him during their first visit. After that night, however, the trips were abandoned, as were the trips to Harlem to visit old friends. Instead, Jay’s evenings were consumed with studying and working additional jobs.
Avey didn’t pause to consider the changes; she busied herself by returning to work soon after weaning Marion. Sis became almost another parental figure in their household, often rising at 5:30 a.m. to sit beside her father as he studied in the early mornings and then bathing and dressing her younger sisters. Annawilda was a demanding but intelligent child, learning to read alongside Sis, though she was years younger. Infant Marion seemed to understand the “state of things” in her home as soon as she was born and was quiet and well-behaved.
Within four years, Jay had finished his accounting degree and passed the CPA exam. After spending another year searching for someone to grant him a job that would provide the experience needed for licensure, he chose another course of action. Tirelessly, he visited small businesses in their neighborhood, offering to do their accounting work for less money than they were currently paying. Slowly he built a small clientele, which continued to grow over time through his persistent efforts.
Jay finally gave up his job in sales, and twelve years after the terrible fight on that winter evening, he moved his family to a house in the hamlet of North White Plains.
Part 2, Chapter 4
As Avey awaited the move to North White Plains, she found herself increasingly thinking of the years she and Jay had spent together on Halsey Street before the children were born. One fond memory was the way they had often danced together in the evenings, with records stacked high and the three-way lamp turned to low. Pretending they were guests in a ballroom, the two had danced to songs like “Flying Home,” “Take the A-Train,” and “Cottontail.”
Avey also recalled their Sunday morning rituals on Halsey Street, when Jay had risen early and bought coffee cake and newspapers. The two had enjoyed leisurely mornings together on the “one priceless day off for them both.” She also reminisced about the sweetness and sensuality of their lovemaking in those early years, when Jay’s body had spoken to her like a “kind of poetry.”
After moving to North White Plains, their relationship didn’t improve. Instead, Jay began saying things that seemed quite unlike himself, such as “That’s the trouble with half these Negroes you see out here. Always looking for the white man to...
(This entire section contains 1302 words.)
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give them something instead of getting out and doing for themselves.” Avey began thinking of this persona as Jerome Johnson, and eventually she stopped thinking of him as Jay altogether in the privacy of her own thoughts. When he died, she could barely recall that he was ever anyone other than Jerome Johnson.
Yet in his final hours, he once again asked the question that had changed the course of their relationship: “Do you know who you sound like? Who you even look like?”
Part 2, Chapter 5
Alone in her hotel room in Grenada, Avey is moved to tears for the first time since Jerome Johnson’s death four years earlier. She mourns the way he gave himself away for forty years. She mourns his constant struggle and the way life had been “uphill all the way” for him.
She also mourns the loss of Jay, who had been lost long before Jerome Johnson. His death had been marked with no ceremony; he had simply vanished during that fateful winter argument. She considers the night when her husband had paused mid-step, seemingly wanting to walk backward toward the door. Avey realizes that perhaps Jay had indeed left that night, and the man who emerged in his place had taken the responsibility for those tasks which Jay did not have the strength to accomplish. When Jay vanished, he had also taken away the playfulness, the private rituals, and the passions which had marked their early years. Avey realizes that those small rituals which had shaped the first years of their marriage had protected them and given them a source of strength.
Suddenly, Avey is overcome with grief. She repeatedly shouts “Too much!” into the darkness in Grenada, wondering if there could have been another way for their marriage to move forward after that winter night. She considers what it might have taken to reclaim the relationship she and her husband once shared and realizes that they would have needed to understand the worth of what they had once possessed. Avey realizes that over the years, she has lost her own sense of self, identifying herself as Avey Johnson in her mind, no longer simply “Avey” or even “Avatara.” She begins beating the dark and empty air as grief overtakes her, until finally she collapses to the floor.
After a while, Avey struggles to her feet and gropes her way toward her bed. She doesn’t search for a light, as she doesn’t want to see the old woman she has become. Deciding to sleep in her clothes, she recalls the last time she did so. It was New Year’s Eve, just after she and Jay had moved to Halsey Street. They had come home late and fallen exhausted across the bed. Again, her mind rages that it is all “Too much!” as she falls asleep.
Analysis
Jay and Avey were once more than emotionally estranged spouses. In fact, their relationship was once marked with incredible intimacy and touching moments of routine. In the years before having children, their home was filled with affection, passion, and joy. However, their marriage did not transition into parenthood well, particularly because Avey felt compelled to sacrifice her own goals and body in order to endure one pregnancy after another. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, women had few options available to prevent pregnancies; since it was also often frowned upon to discuss sex or reproductive health, women’s understanding of their own fertility was often inaccurate. In this way, Avey represents the frustration of many women during this era who simply wanted more control over their own lives and responsibilities. Avey began projecting her growing anger onto Jay and his seeming freedom to structure his life to suit his own desires. The anger Avey carried eroded all sense of intimacy in their relationship, and she begins to feel the true weight of this loss as she mourns Jay in Grenada. Though the two had remained committed to each other and to their growing daughters, Avey realizes that they had long ago sacrificed the couple they had once been. Suddenly, Avey realizes that this loss is “too much” to bear.
