Content Warning: This section of the guide contains descriptions of child neglect, anti-gay bias, alcohol abuse, sexual abuse of a child, sexual assault, and murder.

As a child, Cora Lee loved baby dolls. Every year at Christmas, her parents gave her a new doll, which she would hug and kiss “reverently.” As Cora got older, her father began to worry, feeling uncomfortable at seeing his maturing daughter still cradling plastic dolls to her growing chest. When Cora’s sister caught her “doing nasty” with a boy, Cora’s mother explained that she had to be careful because her body was grown up enough to make babies. Instead of feeling fear, Cora responded with an “enlightened wonder” that worried her mother.

The novel returns to the narrative present. Cora Lee’s downstairs neighbor shouts up at her to keep her children from making such a racket on the neighbor’s ceiling. Cora looks up from her television show and makes a half-hearted attempt to calm the pack of children rushing around the living room. She wonders what her neighbors really expect her to do; there are too many children, and she can’t “be in a hundred places at one time” (110).