This text begins at the dawn of the 20th century. James Piper is a man in need of a home and so he elopes with Materia Mahmoud, inevitably enraging her conservative Lebanese parents.
He ultimately impregnates her at the tender age of 13. Both of them regret their relationship. Materia inevitably misses her family and wishes to go back. Materia feels that the love that James has for his daughter is unnatural and keeps him distracted. Soon Materia gives birth to three more girls, one of them who eventually dies.
James, realizing that he is sexually attracted to his oldest daughter, realizes that he must leave. He thus enlists. However, even after he returns, he is attracted to her, and decides to send her off. It turns out that when away from home, Kathleen had become pregnant, and she eventually dies in childbirth, though her children, a boy and a girl, are saved.
While Frances attempts to baptize her, James catches her, assuming that she is trying to drown them. The male twin perishes then and there, while the female contracts polio from the contaminated water. Soon, their mother and father successively die and the family is left to deal with this trauma. In the end, it is revealed that James was Lily’s real father.
