After the confrontation on McCormack Road, Gloria lies awake replaying the moment when Robert kicked Lyle McCormack and Red McCormack struck Robert across the ear. Gloria’s fear grows because she knows Red McCormack saw everything and because she has no parent nearby to protect them. As she struggles to calm herself, Gloria thinks about her mother’s death, her father’s absence in Chicago, and her own wavering faith in a God who seems to let terrible things happen.

Gloria then thinks through the larger danger surrounding her family. She remembers that her father was driven out of Gracetown after he tried to organize Black mill workers, which led to white violence, false accusations, and threats to lynch him. She recalls older histories of racial terror in Florida, including killings, disappearances, and her mother’s connection to Rosewood, and she understands Robert’s act against Lyle as something that could trigger another round of white retaliation rather than end a schoolyard dispute.

Her thoughts turn to the family’s ruined hopes. The small cabin now feels unsafe and joyless, especially compared with the new house her father had been building for them near the lake before the Ku Klux Klan burned it down. Gloria remembers how she and Robert had briefly stayed with elderly Miz Lottie after their father fled, then returned home when Gloria believed she was capable of protecting her brother. After Red McCormack’s attack, Gloria realizes that confidence was misplaced.

Unable to sleep, Gloria considers taking Robert north to Chicago herself, but she has no money and no practical means to do it. Instead, she writes a careful letter to her father at the false mailing address he left behind, plainly reporting that Robert kicked Lyle, Red McCormack beat him, and worse trouble is sure to follow if they remain in Gracetown. Gloria stays awake all night, and at dawn her fear is confirmed when a sheriff’s deputy comes to the door.