Celie and Shug settle in Shug’s house in Memphis as companions and lovers. She fills her days with making custom pants for her household and turns her crafting into a business, Folkspants Unlimited, at Shug’s suggestion. Celie returns to Georgia to attend the funeral of Sofia’s mother, and all of her circle are surprised by how stylish and confident she is. Celie visits with Albert and is shocked to see that, in some ways, he has reformed. After a deep depression when the women left for Tennessee, Albert started to recover with help from Harpo, who nurtured his father back to health. Sofia tells Celie that seeing Harpo care for his father allowed her to fall back in love with her husband. Harpo also convinced Albert to send all of Celie’s letters from Nettie to Tennessee.

Celie resumes reading these letters from Nettie. The situation continues to worsen for the Olinka once the rubber company relocates them to land with no water and gives them hot tin roofs since all the roofleaf is gone. Many villagers begin to flee to forest communities called mbeles.