A series of church burnings occur in the South, which reminds Pops of the 1964 burning of the Mt. Zion church in Mississippi. Pops goes outside to sit under the maple tree in the yard and listens to the crickets chirp, which he does when he feels overwhelmed. Marley learns from her mother that a church that Marley and Pops once attended in Alabama has also burned down. Momma looks like she wants to tell Marley something, but she stops herself. Marley thinks it is odd that her mother does not mention attending the church in Alabama herself.

The church burnings affect Marley, who states that she will feel the flames burning “long after the TV is turned off” (40). Butchy is afraid that someone could start burning churches in Heaven, and Momma wonders aloud why people are burning churches now. Marley resists asking her mother for an answer, thinking that she does not yet want to “know that much” (41) about the world yet.

The mail arrives and includes a letter addressed to someone named Monna Floyd, care of Marley’s parents and postmarked from Alabama. As Marley hands the mail to her mother, she thinks that she has never heard of someone named Monna Floyd.