Hazel is carefully raised by her mother, Gaybrella, who intends to preserve every piece of her innocence and childhood for as long as she can. That is why Gaybrella halves her peas well past infanthood, and why she hides all the news of death that comes traipsing through the house. When news that Hazel's beloved uncle has died, her mother shushes the messenger, lest Hazel overhear, and she quietly prepares herself to visit the mourning family. Hazel is lightskinned, as is her mother, and the two take great pride in differentiating themselves from whom they believe to be the less superior family members: those with darker features. Thus, Gaybrella gave each of her three children 'proper' names, refusing to call them by anything other than that which was written on their legal documents—she hated how Black people would nickname their children. Gaybrella bestowed her two sons—both older than Hazel—with classy names, and that is what she vowed to call them until her dying breath. One day, when Hazel is roughhousing with her brother, Fauntleroy, he gets a bit too aggressive, not realizing how much stronger he is than Hazel. Pushing her, she is sent tumbling down a rickety flight of stairs that Gaybrella was always suspicious of. Taking laborious breaths, Hazel slowly dies at the bottom of those steps. Following that day, Fauntleroy's name would never be uttered by his mother again—she annulled his identity as intently as she had bequeathed it. Years down the line, the family's cousin hears that Fauntleroy is gravely sick. Visiting him, she realizes that she is the last bit of family he has—everyone else having already abandoned him in the world.