The chapter opens with the narrator wondering if it is possible that her father will treat her the way he treats her. He wonders if he will not treat her as he treats his own children. He realizes that he "selfishly left behind" his mother whom he loved and feared. He feels that he is not his father's son, and he is ashamed of his mother. He tells her that he does not want to play basketball with her, and she tells him to get out of the house. She tells him that she has had a miscarriage and that it is the "most regrettable thing" she has ever done in her life. She asks him to leave the house, but he refuses, saying that he has come to "disgust" her. She scolds him for hitting her, calling him a "b*staaahrd" . She says that he should rot in the slums like her father.