Summary

In “Going Back to Briarwood,” Ruthie was appalled when she helped her father get ready to return to Briarwood and discovered he was still wearing the plaid coat she had asked him to throw away. Ruthie tried to get her father to stay with her instead of returning to Briarwood, but he refused. As soon as Ruthie arrived back at her house she received a phone call from her mother-in-law. Martha Lee informed Ruthie that her father’s behavior had been an embarrassment. She also criticized Ruthie for leaving the stove on when she left home.

In “Jessie Ray Scroggins,” set in 1978, the narrator describes the life of Jessie Ray Scroggins, the son of the Reverend Robert A. Scroggins, who was the pastor of the Whistle Stop Baptist Church. Jessie Ray had been given his first alcoholic...