Gayle interacts with Cookie and quickly despises her, thinking that Cookie is a “goody-goody,” a virgin, and a well-behaved daughter. Gayle is also told that she must contribute to the housework, which includes helping with Great, her great-grandmother, who is bedridden and dying in an upstairs bedroom. Miss Auntie lectures Gayle about Jose, telling her that the baby is no one else’s responsibility and that Gayle is never to leave the house without him, because Miss Auntie will not babysit. Gayle also has no shame about her sex drive, and openly complains about not being able to have sex with Troy. Gayle makes it clear that she hates living in their house, as it is located in a very rural area and there is nothing to do. A reverend, Luther, makes it clear to Gayle that he disapproves of her situation and her promiscuity. They live outside Columbus in a large house that was once a plantation. Gayle travels to Georgia and is met by Luther, his wife, Miss Auntie, and his daughter, Cookie. Gayle’s son, Jose, was fathered by a Puerto Rican man who wants her to put Jose up for adoption, but Gayle refuses. She has never met her mother’s family and wants nothing to do with them. Gayle is unhappy about this, likening the prospect of being forced to move to Georgia to being sold into slavery. When she is finished, Mama tells her that as she can’t be trusted, she will be leaving Jamaica, Queens, to go live with Mama’s brother Luther and his family in Georgia. Ignoring attempts by others to convince her to make a different choice, Gayle undergoes the procedure without much emotion. Mama informs Gayle that she is taking her to the Women’s Clinic to get an abortion. Believing the father is a boy named Troy, Gayle’s brother vows to hurt him. Gayle asks where, but Mama doesn’t answer. Mama slaps Gayle in anger and then instructs her to dress her baby and come with her. The story opens as Mama walks in on her fourteen-year-old daughter Gayle vomiting in the bathroom, realizing that Gayle is pregnant for the second time. Combining a streetwise and authentic teenage voice, Rita Williams-Garcia’s children’s novel Like Sisters on the Homefront (1995) explores the role of family roots, religion, and simple love in elevating a young woman beyond the limitations of her circumstances.
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