Memphis

August wakes up to the sound of the piano. Bird and Jax have been in the house for three days, “the first time in years the house had been full of men” (204).

August struggles after Derek’s trial. Sorrow overcomes her and she drags herself out of bed every day. She keeps thinking she is going to die alone in the garden like her mother. She cannot find a point in life.

The melody of the piano hypnotizes August, and she goes to the parlor. She sees Bird playing and wishes that the song would continue forever. Bird looks exactly like Jax, but August always liked him. She takes him into her salon to give him a haircut. Bird sees the barber’s red chair and recalls the night that Jax killed a man. Bird relaxes and tells the story while August does his hair. When they were young, Jax shot a Black man, who was his rival, inside a barbershop. He recalls the criminality in Chicago streets where Black bodies were everywhere. He remembers Jax screaming in his sleep that night. Following that, Jax enlisted in the Marines. Bird tells August that the only person Jax ever loved apart from his brother was Miriam. He recalls Jax talking with tenderness about Joan as a baby.

August admires her work on Bird’s hair. She unties her kimono and straddles Bird in the chair.

Hazel’s house has become a hub for anti-segregation activists and demonstrators. She hopes that Myron can see and is proud of her. After his death, Hazel was angry with God and demanded that he protect her beloved. She continues speaking to Myron as if he were alive. Hazel had brief relationships with men even though she never loved another man like Myron.

Hazel never revealed her pregnancy to August’s father. He was an important leader of the civil rights movement, and she did not want to distract him from his cause. When August questioned her, she told her that her father was doing “God’s work” and that her family was just the three of them.

A week after Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination and while at Stanley’s store, Hazel hears that white people killed another civil rights leader in Memphis. She feels paralyzed when she sees the face of August’s father on TV. Even though she loved God, she cursed him for taking people from her.

Hazel is back home with Miss Dawn, drinking and smoking. She tells Miss Dawn that she never told the man about his daughter. She wonders what she is going to tell August so she can respond to people who ask her where her father is. Miss Dawn tells her to say that he is dead.

Miriam is watching Jax wash the car outside the house. She asks him why he came, and he says he wanted to see his daughters. Miriam says they are her daughters because she raised them alone for six years. She tells him she had to save herself because he was “hell.” Jax understands he was not the best husband and says “The Gulf took the better of [him]” (223). Miriam realizes that Jax is a tormented man, but his words do not move her. She had succeeded in raising her daughters alone and made them realize they must not depend on any man. She warns Jax not to hurt Mya as he has hurt Joan. All her life Miriam longed for “[s]imple, Black love” and wonders why her marriage was not like her parents’ (224).

Jax departs the next day, leaving a note to Joan to treat her mother better than he has.

Hazel is in her garden, planting. She thinks of her daughters. Derek is five years old, and Miriam is pregnant with her first child. Hazel never liked Derek’s father and feels that Jax married her daughter too hastily. She only sees Miriam during the Christmas and Easter holidays. She has asked Miriam to come to Memphis to give birth and expects her at the end of the month. Hazel wonders if Myron still loves her. She says aloud that she misses him.

Suddenly, she feels a pain in her arm. After a bit, she feels her chest burning and her heart beating rapidly. She realizes that she is having a heart attack but feels unafraid. She lets herself fall on the ground and her mind keeps drifting. She wonders about the name of her granddaughter. She thinks about her “battle” with God and whispers Myron’s name before dying.

August finds her an hour later and sees a smile on her face. She runs to get a doctor but Hazel is gone. August feels that “a queen” has died and calms herself thinking that many people loved her mother. She informs Miriam on the phone, screaming. Miriam is devastated and announces to Jax that their daughter will be born in Memphis.

Miriam returns home exhausted after a day working at the hospital. August meets her at the door saying she wants to show her something. Miriam follows August to Derek’s room. Miriam hesitates to enter but August insists. Miriam opens the door. The beauty within astounds her. Joan’s paintings fill the room. For the first time, she looks carefully at Joan’s art. Her daughter has painted all the women of the neighborhood. Miriam notices a sketch of her sleeping.

August tells Miriam to let Joan be the first successful Black artist. She announces to Miriam that Joan is going to go to art school and will “paint this world” (232). Miriam stays in the room until morning looking at the portraits.

Joan and Mya drive toward the prison. Jax taught Joan how to drive before he left. Even if she could not forgive him, she loved being with her father driving around Memphis.

Mya cannot go into the visitor’s center due to her age. Joan tells Mya to wait in the car and enters alone. As Joan observes the imprisoned men, she feels scared. When Derek comes in, Joan notices he has aged. She tells him he looks like August. Derek asks her if she is still drawing. He says having a “passion” is important. Joan wants to leave but Derek pleads with her to stay. Joan notices another prisoner, a large Black man looking at her and then at Derek. She sees “true malevolence” in his eyes, and he blows Derek a kiss. Joan realizes that both she and Derek “live among demons” (241). She sees that prison has broken Derek. She understands that Derek’s trauma and her hatred for him cannot heal her trauma. She feels sorry for trying to take revenge by burying his comb. Derek tells her it was nice to see her.

Back in the car, Joan finally explains to her sister what happened. Mya is furious and holds her as she cries. When Joan explains what she saw in prison, Mya tells her she did well. Joan agreed to send drawings to Derek.

Joan and Mya return home and find Miriam and August waiting. Miriam holds the envelope with Joan’s acceptance to college and weeps. When Joan realizes what this means, she feels “freedom” and sees “glory” in the faces of her mother, aunt, and sister. Joan laughs and cries when her mother says they must make a quilt before leaving for London.