Boy, Snow, Bird

Part 3 picks up immediately after Part 2 ends; however, the narrative duties shift back to Boy. Boy is feeling the passage of time; she doesn’t “know who or what anybody is anymore” (277). Arturo is balding but “lionlike”; Ted Murray has grown progressively cheaper, and Boy doesn’t understand how Webster could love Ted, but doesn’t want to ask. It bothers her that marriage means she must lose part of herself and wonders how “anybody [can] love anybody else for more than five minutes” (278).

Thanksgiving dinner is an awkward affair. Gerald eats heavily, in order to avoid talking; Vivian speaks platitudes at Clara; John drinks heavily, to avoid feeling unwelcome; Agnes keeps “Snow’s left hand prisoner” (279). Boy begrudgingly respects Olivia’s stubbornness, a trait she sees in herself.

John tells the family about his youthful antics, which included purposely following white women down deserted streets at night in order to scare them. He thought this was hilarious until one woman mistook him for a prostitute and asked him how much it would cost to sleep with him, which “took the thrill out of the game, and he stopped playing it” (280). Only Arturo, Clara, and Boy find it funny; the rest of the family appears to be distressed by the antics.