Ragtime

Back in New Rochelle, Mother is fretting over Brother’s extended absence. She even searches his room, though she finds nothing out of place except a strange, tiny seashell. She worries about him, but there’s no one she can turn to for advice.

Mother thinks back to her childhood. Grandfather taught Greek and Latin at an Episcopal seminar in Ohio, where she and Younger Brother grew up on a charming farm. She met Father during her last year of boarding school while he was on a business trip to Cleveland, peddling his patriotic wares. After they married, he brought her (and the rest of her family) back east to New York.

Now, Mother feels abandoned. Grandfather is too old, and Little Boy is too young. Mother’s charmed youth is lost, and Father is half a world away. Agitated, she retreats to her flower-filled garden. Little Boy watches her pacing there from an upstairs window. Then, she seems to hear something, and she drops to her knees and starts digging in the dirt. By the time Little Boy has made it downstairs and into the garden, Mother has freed a tiny Black newborn from the dirt of one of her flowerbeds. She rushes the baby inside and calls the doctor.

The police arrive at the house soon after the doctor does. Mother explains how she found the baby, and they fan out to search the neighborhood for the mother. Within an hour, they’ve located her and brought her to the house by ambulance. The girl (later identified as Sarah) is painfully young, and terribly upset. When Mother asks what will happen to her, the doctor answers that she will likely stand trial for attempted infanticide. In an instant, Mother offers to take responsibility for mother and child. She gives them a room on the third floor. And then she worries if she’s made the right decision. She angrily wishes Father were there to advise her lest she invite “chaos,” “misfortune,” or “contamination” into their lives.