Melody sits at the “Black Breakfast Table” (119) between friends as they laugh loudly, ignoring the glances from the White kids nearby. She spends every morning like this, but that morning in September is different; every eye is on the television as they learn about the attack on the World Trade Center. Across the room, students cry out that their loved ones are in that building. Melody can only think of her father. 

When Melody is 3 years old, the family debates taking a road trip together to drop Iris off at Oberlin. They decide against it for Melody’s sake, and Aubrey needles Iris about why she chose Oberlin. But he knows that “the house felt small with him and Melody in it” (125), that she wasn’t interested in motherhood. He hates that he’ll be away from her for four years but recognizes that if she asked him to jump, he’d do it before thinking to ask why.

Iris calls him in the middle of the night after she dreams of his mother on fire. As she begins talking about other things, Aubrey begins to grow erect and tells her, hoping to initiate phone sex.