Red at the Bone

Melody’s grandfather, Po’Boy, cries as Melody comes down the stairs. He is overwhelmed with emotion, wondering how the child who used to rest against his chest as he read to her became so grown up. His body aches, and he feels his age more acutely than usual. Above everything else, he describes Melody as the “the best thing that ever happened to [his] life” (46). But he knows she has so much more living to do, that there’s so much she isn’t ready to understand about life yet.

Po’Boy misses many things from time gone by: his son, Benjamin, who died as an infant; Chicago, where Sabe, his wife, is from; and the people he and Sabe were long ago. He knows, though, that if he’d had all that he’d lost, he wouldn’t have Melody now.

He remembers the night he came home to find Sabe curled around a pillow in bed. She never went back to bed once up, so Po’Boy knew something terrible had happened. He’d known deep down what it was; he’d seen Iris with Aubrey and knew they’d been together sexually.