Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses domestic violence, abuse, incarceration, and enslavement.

The narrator reflects on his life at the age of seven. He defines this age as when he understands “the meaning of ‘bad’ and ‘good’” because he recognizes hatred as “bad,” although he’s still unsure about “good.” (1). His father marries three women, the last of whom is the narrator’s mother. His father’s first two wives had only daughters, but his mother gave birth to two sons: the narrator and his brother. He claims the other wives hate him, his brother, and his mother, who works in the local market as a trader. The narrator calls this time in his life the “unknown year” because he is too young to remember what year it is. Several wars are happening, including slave wars, which put community members at risk of being kidnapped and sold into slavery.

One morning, his mother goes to the local market a couple of miles away from their village, and the other two wives leave the village with their daughters. According to the narrator, the wives are aware of incoming slave traders, and they leave before the threat arrives. The narrator and his brother eat their breakfast as gunshots are “reverberating into the room” (3).