The author Louise Hannah is a black teenage girl growing up in the sixties. A lot of things were going on during the sixties: segregation, integration, even immigration. We were at war with Vietnam, a race-divided nation, and then there was the wrath of her daddy's rules. Louise felt like a prisoner in her own home. She needed to find herself, who she was and what she wanted to be. This is why she felt she had to escape the cruel and unfair demands of her daddy's rules.
In Louise's senior year in high school, she met Jay. He had been to Vietnam and was currently a student at Florida AM University. When Jay went home with Louise to get interrogated, even before he could take Louise on a date, his time in the army and in college was the only thing that got him through the doors. Jay returned home from college for the summer and for Christmas.
Louise found out that Jay was not coming because he had to go to Detroit to help his uncles run their nightclub. Louise was devastated; she was in love with Jay. He seemed to be life. She had gotten Jay's number from his sister and called him. They had a fight on the phone, but they made up.
After his job went on strike and closed down, Jay was at the club all the time, day and night. Jay was still living in Detroit; he traveled back to Miami long enough to make another baby and he was gone again. They had three kids and a rotten marriage. Things got so bad they went their own separate ways. Jay brought his girlfriend whenever he visited Miami to see the kids. Louise met someone while going back to nursing school. Their relationship got very serious .Louise later had a baby daughter for him. Even then Louise and Jay were still fussing and fighting whenever Jay visited the kids. They had a bittersweet love for each other, and no one wanted to say those two words: I'm sorry.