Summary

In Chapter 5, Sugar’s memories about the man who died on the dining room table in Merilee’s cottage took her back to 1934. She remembered she and her brother, Jimmy, were catching tadpoles in a Mason jar. Lamar, a black boy who was gentle despite his size, joined them to admire the tadpoles. They ran toward the barn when they heard noises that sounded like Harry and Will, Sugar and Jimmy’s older brothers, causing trouble.

Will was standing in the haymow, obviously drunk, threatening to jump. Rufus, Lamar’s father, ran up to the barn in an attempt to get Will to stop playing around. Instead, Curtis Brown, a neighborhood boy walked up behind Will and pretended to push him out of the haymow, catching him by the back of his shirt just in time. One time when Curtis pushed Will, however...