Mom & Me & Mom

Angelou and Bailey do not remember their father, but Vivian thinks they should meet him. The siblings visit their father separately, with Bailey traveling to San Diego first. When he returns, he tells his mother that the visit went well—but when alone with Angelou, he suggests otherwise. However, their father’s new wife, Loretta, likes him. Later, Angelou visits her father for three weeks. She meets Loretta at the train station, and she is shorter and younger than Vivian. Angelou introduces herself but understands Loretta “would never accept [her]” as a daughter figure (41). Her father welcomes her and is surprised by how tall she is. For three weeks, Bailey and Loretta work without talking much. Angelou spends time in the library reading or going to the movies. She only learns that her father is a dietician in the Navy and that her stepmother was a graduate of a renowned Black university. She longs for her mother.

During one of her final days in San Diego, Angelou unwillingly joins her father on a drive to a Mexican village. Her father stops at a bar and greets a woman with two children whom she thinks resemble her and her brother. Her father gets drunk, and she has to drive back to San Diego.