Angela Powers has always feared her aunt, Amanda Jane. Amanda Jane, a nonagenarian, refuses to die, and spends her days rocking back and forth in the same chair she's had since Angela's childhood. Angela struggles to finish writing a letter to her Amanda Jane. After she left Mississippi — with a college degree, at a time when Black women were not expected to do much other than docilely retreat into motherhood — Angela separated herself from her family. She reflects on the terribly complicated love she has for her family, especially for Amanda Jane, a woman both formidable and pitiable. Angela does not visit her aunt, even when she does go back to Mississippi, but she wants to write her a letter from her apartment in Philadelphia. Angela moved into this apartment when she and her daughter escaped her abusive, violent husband. Now, on her own, Angela attempts to overcome the daily, soul-leeching habits that consumer so many others like her who are sheltered in their gray city.