Summary

Chapter 5 returns to Ava in 2017. She goes to her former home to retrieve the photograph of Josephine, then visits her mother. Gladys no longer practices law, she works as a doula, and when Ava arrives at she is meeting with a group of young soon-to-be mothers. Ava notes that her mother also has cancer and refuses to undergo chemotherapy. She tells Gladys about moving in with Martha, preparing herself for an angry reaction, but Gladys agrees that it is a good plan. She also tells Ava she thinks she would be a good doula and talks about seeing visions of her grandmother Lucille.

In Chapter 6, Ava worries about King's new best friends at school being white girls, but the girls' mothers are very friendly, so she dismisses her concerns. When Ava returns home from picking King up from school, she finds Martha in...