"Something important had happened to me and I didn't remember it." (Chap. 1, p. 8)

"He sat in the upholstered lady's chair in the corner, sunlight streaming in the windows on either side of him, bouncing off the drink in his hand. He took a sip and set glass on the bedside table with a clink that made me jump. My punishment was always worse when he was drinking." (Chap. 2, p. 22)

"Mary came to work for us when I was five, the first colored person I've ever known." (Chap. 3, p. 31)

"There was a time in my life before Mary, a time when Mama and Daddy weren't fighting, when they still called each other Pauly and Willie. Maybe if I'd known them happy, the trouble between them wouldn't have bothered me so much." (Chap. 4, p. 36)

"The portrait had been enlarged, tinted, and framed in mahogany to hang over the mantle. I...