After their parents’ divorce, the children and their mother move to nearby Gulfport, Mississippi, in search of an escape from the scrutiny of their small hometown. Their mother “felt smothered in DeLisle, where she knew everyone, and everyone knew her; worse, they were witness to my father’s faithlessness” (129). Ward is now 10 years old.

Ward reflects on the inequalities of her mother and father’s experiences as parents. While her father sees “a world of possibility outside the confines of the family,” her mother understands “that her vistas [are] the walls of her home, her children’s bony backs, their open mouths” (131). Her mother struggles to provide for the family with only a high school diploma. She seeks employment that will allow her to fulfill her commitment to be present as a parent. She finds work “as a housekeeper for a rich White family who [live] in an antebellum house on the beach in Pass Christian” (132). Ward explains her mother’s background as the eldest of seven children in a fatherless household who adopted the role of caretaker for her younger siblings. These experiences shaped her desire to raise her children in a two-parent household and her position as the disciplinarian in contrast to the playful antics of the children’s father.