Fair and Tender Ladies

Part 4 covers the time period spanning between 1927 and 1940, once Ivy moves back to Sugar Fork with her now-husband Oakley. Ivy’s writing continues to improve and she includes dates much more often on her letters, providing a greater sense of the passage of time. Ivy’s writings during this period include shorter letters to a variety of recipients, including her siblings, Miss Torrington, and her family, as well as several extremely long letters to Silvaney in which Ivy pours out her innermost thoughts and feelings. Ivy writes to Silvaney even though Silvaney has died in the flu epidemic. As the time span of each part of the book increases and Ivy’s number of letters does not, Smith suggests that as she ages, Ivy writes less and less frequently.

Victor and Ethel help Ivy and Oakley get resettled in Sugar Fork. Violet’s daughter, Martha, lives with Ivy for the time being while Violet works organizing a union in the coal company and leading strikes against the mine. Beulah no longer responds to Ivy’s letters or speaks to her. Oakley brings Ivy to church regularly, but Ivy still does not believe in God and has no desire to change that. Ivy observes that Sugar Fork seems “smaller than I thought, or remembered, or immagined” (214) when she was a child.

Around three or four years later, Miss Torrington sends books and clothes to Ivy for her family. Ivy admits to Miss Torrington that “I do not read much any more” (218), mostly because she now has more children—twins—and lacks the time. Miss Torrington continues sending boxes of presents for many more years, and Ivy gives birth to two more children over the course of several years. Ten years after moving back to Sugar Fork, Ivy writes to Silvaney for the first time since learning of her death. Progress arrives in rural Virginia in the form of electricity, though it doesn’t yet reach all the way to Sugar Fork. Ivy feels that she has lost something of herself and isn’t sure what. She admits that she never goes out anymore nor reads at all because she is exhausted from caring for children.

Granny Rowe dies, and her sister, Tennessee, vanishes shortly after, never to be seen again. Ivy sends Joli away from Sugar Fork to get an education. Over the years, Ivy miscarries two children. Martha continues living with Ivy while Violet continues her efforts with the union. Ivy also feels that Oakley has “turn[ed] his face away” (234) from her, such that they no longer share the same connection as they once did. Ivy observes of Oakley: “If he’s not working, he’s going to church” (235). Since Ivy is nonreligious and has no desire to go to church, she doesn’t see Oakley very often.

Joli graduates school and goes away to college. Ivy has a mid-life crisis, feeling as though she is “wearing down” (238), and in response, she becomes deeply attracted to Honey Breeding, a man who comes to help Oakley set up beehives. Ivy knows that she will have an affair with Honey and feels that there is nothing she can do to stop herself. Honey goes to Ivy’s place to get a beehive, and his interactions with her are sexually charged and flirtatious. Ivy becomes distracted from the rest of her life.

Ivy writes Oakley a note and disappears with Honey Breeding. They tell each other about their lives; Ivy asks Honey to tell her stories. Ivy tells Honey that she loves him, and he tells her, “Don’t love me” (264) because he’s a “back door man.” Ivy stays for an unspecified amount of time—at least three days—in a cave with Breeding, until she gets sick and must return home. Ivy “would of stayed with him until I starved to death and died” (272), but Breeding grows tired of her and wants to leave.

Honey finds someone to take Ivy back towards town, where Ethel and Victor pick her up and bring her home. At home, Ivy finds Oakley’s family gathered along with a number of other people. She learns that in her absence, one of her children, LuIda, has died.