“’You’re going back with me!’ he yelled. ‘You never should have left me.’ It crossed my mind that he was no longer talking to me but to Deborah. Like his mind had snapped back ten year.” T Ray truly does not have a redeeming quality in the novel. The reader is left wondering, along with Lily, why Deborah had chosen to marry him. Then we meet August. Her wisdom is beyond the perspective of a young teen girl, so it is through her character that we realize there is something more to T Ray. “You know, Lily, people can start out one way, and by the time life gets through with them they end up completely different. I don’t doubt he started off loving your mother. In fact, I think her worshipped her. And your mother soaked it up. Like a lot of young women, she could get carried away with romance. But after six months or so it started wearing off.” There is a sense of frustration during this speech. We side with Lily. We don’t want to incriminate the perfect image we have of the mother we cannot remember. However, it must be recognized that there is truth in what August says, and suddenly T Ray becomes the lover that just wasn’t good enough to maintain the affection of the woman he would have given everything for.
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