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Throughout the novel, Bri’s mother Jay tries her best to get her family out of poverty and to earn back the trust of her children. In order to cope with her grief after Lawless’s murder, Jay developed a drug habit and became addicted to crack, leaving Bri and Trey to stay with their grandparents. With Jay sober and returned to her family, both Bri and Trey struggle to trust their mother to take care of herself, much less take care of them, and Bri often worries that her mother is going to relapse. Jay wants Bri to experience the innocence of being a teenager without the burden of worrying about money, but no matter what Jay says, Bri considers it her duty to help her mother. Both Trey and Bri take on the role of caregivers, worrying about Jay’s sobriety and striving to earn money for the family. Though Jay wants her children to follow their own dreams, she also is often unsuccessful at providing a stable home for them to dream in.
The obstacles Jay faces on the path to stability, such as losing her job and struggling to find employment after her drug addiction, are made exponentially more difficult by an unjust, racially biased system. Jay and others in her recovery group acknowledge that white people who make the same mistakes that Jay made are often given only a slap on the wrist. For Jay, those mistakes make it nearly impossible to recover and build financial security. Jay speaks out forcefully against the systems and people that try to oppress her and Bri; in a defining moment, she stands up to the school’s white superintendent, which results in him offering her an apology and a job. Jay, like Bri, ultimately finds her path through speaking her truth. By the end of the novel, she regains Bri’s trust and reclaims her role as Bri’s mother and protector.
