The Reckoning

At the hospital, Liza is doing better, but Joel has lost hope that she will ever fully recover. Even if she does, there is very little chance she will have a home to come back to. Jackie Bell’s lawyer has filed a lawsuit demanding foreclosure of the Banning land. The lawyers try to negotiate a settlement but Jackie’s lawyer refuses anything less than the full value of the property.

At the hospital, Liza has improved enough that she’s allowed to go with several other patients to a movie in downtown Jackson. Shortly after the movie begins, she excuses herself for the ladies’ room and walks out of the theater. She purchases a train ticket for Clanton.

Liza makes her way home to the Banning farm. Inside the house, she feels the ghosts of her life there with Pete and their children, with Nineva and Amos. Contacting Florry, Liza tells Florry the whole story behind her breakdown and the murder. Florry will keep the story to herself until shortly before her death. Liza goes out to Old Sycamore, the family burial plot where Pete is buried. She curls up against his headstone and takes an overdose of pills.

The death of their mother devastates Joel and Stella. All their happy memories of their home are shattered. It’s all they can do to remember the good times. The house and land are turned over to Jackie Bell and her new husband, Errol McLeish, in a judicial ruling.

Florry moves to New Orleans. Joel asks her what she knows about why Pete killed Pastor Bell. Florry insists that Pete never told her his reasons, but Joel feels sure she is lying.

The Bannings’s land is finally transferred to Jackie Bell and her new husband. Errol McLeish is pompous and vain. He fires Nineva and Amos and evicts them from the house they lived in all their lives. The field hands have been living on the Banning land rent free for generations. McLeish announces he is cutting the field hands’ wages and charging them rent.

Joel goes to Old Sycamore. Standing over his parents' graves, he wonders how the family came to this point and how many other Bannings were buried with dark secrets. Joel is eager to put the past behind him and get on with his new life. He and Mary Ann are planning to get married.

Florry has developed a degenerative heart disease. It becomes evident that she is unlikely to live much longer, and she doesn’t want to die carrying all the family secrets. She finally tells Joel and Stella the full story of their parents’ deaths.

According to Florry, when Pete recovered from his war wounds, he was eager to resume his formerly enthusiastic relations with Liza, but she was uninterested. At first, she told Pete she’d had a miscarriage shortly after he left for the Philippines, and she had lingering problems as a result. Pete soon realized the timing of the supposed miscarriage was wrong. She couldn’t have already been pregnant when he left.

Pete questioned Nineva, who claimed to know nothing about a pregnancy but mentioned that Liza had spent a lot of time with Pastor Bell. Pete always suspected Bell of having a roving eye. He hired a detective and learned that Bell had taken Liza to an abortionist. Pete confronted Liza, who had a mental health crisis. She begged Pete to forgive her, but Pete was unable to do so. After she went to the hospital, Pete tried to get on with life, but he simply couldn’t.

After the report of Pete’s death, Liza engaged in an affair with Nineva and Amos’s grandson, Jupe. When Liza realized she was pregnant, she made up her mind to accuse Jupe of rape. Jupe would be lynched in a heartbeat. Fortunately, by that time, Nineva and Amos got wind of the affair and sent Jupe north to Chicago.

Dexter Bell persuaded Liza not to follow through with the rape story. He took her to Memphis and helped her get the abortion that resulted in the infection that left her unable to be intimate with her husband when he returned. After a long, stunned pause, Joel says, “So, I guess Pete killed the wrong man” (415).

Florry says yes, but Liza had to make a dreadful decision in a moment of extreme stress and confusion. She allowed Pete to continue believing Dexter Bell was the guilty party.

Stella asks Joel what their father would have done if Liza had told him the whole truth. Joel is sure Pete would have divorced Liza and driven her out of the county and probably wanted to kill Jupe. Stella points out that at least their mother would still be alive, and so would her father, and Dexter Bell, and Joel and Stella would still have their land. The whole thing seems sad and pointless to her. “How did we get here?” she asks (417). Joel can only reply, “What a family” (417).