After Lydia’s death, Marilyn is forced to reckon with the fact that she did not understand her daughter as well as she thought. Marilyn ultimately projects her obsession with becoming a doctor onto Lydia, aggressively encouraging her daughter to enroll in advanced science courses. However, in Toledo Marilyn discovers she is pregnant with Hannah, and she decides to return home. When Marilyn learns that her neighbor Janet Wolff is a doctor, Marilyn abandons her family to finish her undergraduate degree in Toledo, with the intention of finally realizing her dream of attending medical school. After giving birth to Nath and Lydia, Marilyn becomes increasingly restless and dissatisfied with her life. On discovering that she is pregnant with Nath, Marilyn and James quickly marry, and the family moves to Middlewood, Ohio, where James has been given a professorial position. She dreams of becoming a doctor and she excels in her studies at Radcliffe (the women’s college within Harvard University), where she meets James. Nath is so stunned by Fiske’s kindness that he begins to cry. It is in fact Officer Fiske, who tells Nath, Son, it’s time to go home. At first he thinks it might be James, but James has never spoken to him in this way. Growing up, Marilyn is disdainful of her mother’s perfect housewife performance and her vocation as a home economics teacher. Back in Middlewood, Nath feels a gentle hand on his shoulder, along with encouraging words. This quote from Chapter One occurs after a description of a racist encounter during which a woman pulls her eyelids sideways to mock the Lees' Chinese heritage. Marilyn is the daughter of Doris Walker and was born and raised in Virginia. But Lydia, defying genetics, somehow has her mother’s blue eyes, and they know this is one more reason she is their mother’s favorite.
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