Summary

North, the direction of difficult teachers and prophecy, opens to many men courting Harjo’s now single mother. Her mother marries a white man seventeen years her senior and she and her four children move in with him. Though charming in courtship, their new stepfather whips any child who misbehaves. When her mother confronts him, he denies touching the children. When she suggests leaving, he said he would kill her and children and make it look like an accident. Joy Harjo, the eldest child, was privy to the tortuous treatment of her mother by him until she leaves the house in her teenage years.

The events between late elementary school through adolescence are filled with chores, such as cleaning, laundry, ironing, dishes, and childcare, and dark times punctuated by bright moments. Early into the new marriage, her mother was invited to sing one...