Synopsis
It’s a summer morning in 1941, in the backroom of the U.S. Post Office of China
Grove. Sister 1, the postmistress, narrates her story, telling us that she had been
getting along fine with Mama, Papa-Daddy and Uncle Rondo, until her younger
sister, Stella-Rondo, came home. Stella-Rondo had recently stolen Sister’s beau,
Mr. Whitaker, married him, and gone off to live with him in Illinois.
The scene moves back in time to that fateful day, the Fourth of July, when Stella-
Rondo, separated from her husband, came back home. (In her retelling, Sister 1
shows us her idealized version of herself, Sister 2, living happily at home with her
family, an innocent, unsuspecting victim whose life is about to be upended.)
Stella-Rondo has brought with her a two-year-old child, Shirley-T., whom she
declares is adopted. Mama is overjoyed, but Sister is skeptical about the claim
that the child is adopted, noting that Shirley-T. looks just like a cross between Mr.
Whitaker and Papa-Daddy, the family patriarch (if he were to cut off his beard,
which of course he’d never do). Stella-Rondo is furious and immediately begins a
campaign of retaliation to turn her entire family against Sister.
At dinner, Stella-Rondo tells Papa-Daddy the deliberate falsehood that Sister
thinks he ought to cut off his beard. Papa-Daddy, who is inordinately proud of this
beard, is enraged. He calls Sister a hussy and storms off to lie in the hammock.
Uncle Rondo, the town pharmacist, who has just drunk a large dose of his
“prescription,” collides with Papa-Daddy in the hammock.
Papa-Daddy tries to turn Uncle Rondo against Sister, but doesn’t manage to,
since Uncle Rondo is too dizzy to get turned, for the time being.
Stella-Rondo is horrified to see that Uncle Rondo is wearing her kimono, part of
her trousseau, which she had just hung up on the bathroom door,
and tells Sister that he looks like a fool. Sister defends him, they fight,
and Sister storms off to make green tomato pickle.
Sister tells Mama that she fears Shirley-T may be simple since she hasn’t spoken a
word since she arrived. Mama, remembering that Mr. Whitaker drank like a fish,
is filled with dread and anxiously asks Stella-Rondo if her child can talk.
Indignant, Stella-Rondo coaxes a few words out of Shirley-T.
Mama is overwhelmed with relief and furious at Sister for suggesting such an ugly idea.
At supper, Stella-Rondo tells Uncle Rondo that Sister thinks he looks like a fool
wearing that kimono. (Remember who said that?) Uncle Rondo erupts in fury at
Sister and tears off the kimono.
Exhausted by the events of the day, Sister lies down to rest. Uncle Rondo sneaks
in and throws a string of firecrackers under the sofa.
They every one go off, not a bad one in the string.
Sister is absolutely undone by the noise and commotion. In a moment of clarity,
she realizes that she has a way to escape from her family’s escalating hostility: she
can move in at the P.O.!
She begins to gather up all her possessions in spite of her family’s loud
recriminations. When she triumphantly takes the radio, she is met with wails of
disbelief, and they each swear never to darken the door of the post office again.
Sister tells Stella-Rondo that in that case, she will have no way of communicating
with Mr. Whitaker. Stella-Rondo, defeated, bursts into tears and runs to her room.
Sister makes her way to the Post Office with her belongings piled in a wagon.
In the Post Office, Sister enumerates the joys of living alone, of being able to set
up everything in her life just the way she likes, and she wants us to know she is
happy. And if Stella-Rondo were to come to her on bended knee and attempt to
explain everything, she’d simply put her fingers in her ears and refuse to listen.