In the epigraph, north is the direction of difficult lessons. It is “white, sharp, and bare” (55), but it also shows the way forward.

After the divorce, many men court Harjo’s mother, and she eventually marries an older man who at first captivates everyone. Then, however, they marry in a ceremony without Harjo, her sister, and her two brothers. They move out of their idyllic childhood home and into a new house, leaving Harjo depressed. The first night she has an intense nightmare, and her new stepfather harshly scolds her, dropping all pretense of his earlier kindness. The next morning he punishes her sister by holding her upside down and whipping her with his belt. Harjo tells her mother, and her stepfather denies it. He hates Harjo from that day forward and threatens to kill them all if Harjo’s mother divorces him.

The stepfather does not permit her mother to leave except to go to work or to buy groceries, and he isolates her from her friends: “He watched and marked her every step, every word” (60). No domestic abuse shelters exist at this time, and as a white man, his word would be accepted over theirs.