Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses racism, racist violence, suicide, and miscarriage.

Recently widowed architect Kayla meets in her office with an older woman named Ann Smith. The woman does not have an appointment, but Kayla meets with her anyway. The stranger wears a startling red wig and mirrored sunglasses so that her appearance is distorted, and she has a red birthmark on her wrist. As they speak, the woman reveals a lot of knowledge about Kayla: the death of her husband Jackson, her three-year-old daughter Rainie, and the home that Kayla will soon occupy. After making vague threats, the woman abruptly departs, leaving Kayla shaken.

During spring break from college classes, Ellie and her best friend Brenda come home to Round Hill. Brenda is pregnant and will soon marry her boyfriend, Garner. They sit with Pat, Ellie’s mother, looking at a bridal magazine. They hear Ellie’s father read a news article about SCOPE, the Summer Community Organization and Political Education project. Reverend Greg Filburn, whose church is in a nearby Black community, is among the pastors bringing young people from the North and West to register Black citizens to vote. They discuss the late Aunt Carol, a northern transplant who was quite liberal and served as a mentor to Ellie.