Tucson is the setting of a late reconnection in Shug Avery’s life: she and Germaine arrive in the Arizona city to find Shug’s children and stay with one son, James. His adobe home and family life make the place a point of contact between Shug’s present and the children from whom she had long been separated.

Setting and Arrival

Shug writes that she and Germaine ended up in Tucson, where one of her children lives. The son’s home is a small adobe house, a familiar-looking dwelling to Shug, who says it makes her feel at home. The city is not presented through a broad portrait of its landscape; instead, its character comes through the household Shug joins and the relationships renewed there.

Finding Shug’s Son

Germaine suggests looking up Shug’s children because knowing how they are doing might help her feel better. In Tucson, Shug and Germaine stay with James, the child who wants to see his mother despite what the other two have heard about her. The other children are alive and have done well, but do not want to meet her; someone has told them that she lives wickedly. James’s welcome therefore marks a meaningful contrast within the family’s response to Shug.

James and His Household

James is a schoolteacher who also works on an Indian reservation. He tells Shug that people there call him a black white man, a label that bothers him, but that they do not seem to care when he explains his feelings. He describes a community in which outsiders are unwelcome, giving his life in Tucson a tension between his work and the rejection he experiences.

James lives with his wife, Cora Mae, and their children, Davis and Cantrell. He recalls that his mother and big daddy were old, strict, and set in their ways, yet says he felt much love from them. Shug agrees that they had love to give, while distinguishing love from understanding: she needed both. James adds that they have been dead for nine or ten years and sent the children to school as far as they could. In this way, the Tucson household brings family affection, old grievances, and the limits of what one generation could provide into the same conversation.