The Child Who Favored Daughter Summary

The story begins with a young girl who is dropped off by a school bus and is walking the rest of the way home. She sees her father on the front porch and instantly knows that he has read the letter she has written to her white lover. She is terrified of her father's reaction but forces herself to appear calm. She briefly wonders who could have given her father the letter: her lover's mother in an attempt to "preserve the race?" the wife of her lover, perhaps discovering it among her husband things? perhaps her lover himself? The last idea, thought, she refuses to entertain, because she loves him.

The father sits on the porch with a shotgun nearby and the letter. He watches his daughter walking home and he knows that she knows...