Now she’d pried me open, like a mollusk. Now, the woman whose name was Sarabeth had me in her grip and would not release me. Extracted from me the information that my name was Violet—and that I lived with an aunt in Port Oriskany. That I was a senior in Port Oriskany High School where all of Sarabeth’s children had gone—“But they’re too old for you, Vi’let—you wouldn’t know them.” In turn Sarabeth embarked upon a complicated story of her mother’s mother who was born in Macon, Georgia, and married at fifteen, lost her first husband (“something bad done to him by bad people”), and remarried, and traveled north with the second husband in the 1930s—first to Cleveland, then to Erie, Pennsylvania, then to Buffalo, and Tonawanda where Sarabeth’s grandfather worked on the New York Central Railroad, and they had eleven children—“And those eleven children, they had children—lots of ’em!” Two of Sarabeth’s daughters were teachers and her youngest son was “some kind of expert in computers” in Rochester. “You got to be impressed, my grandma was the great-great-granddaughter of slaves. Makes me real happy to think how far we all come!”

Sarabeth spoke without rancor though with an air of incredulity. I could not help but share this incredulity. Slaves?

In my distracted state I hadn’t registered that Sarabeth was dark-skinned. Girls at school with whom I was friendly were mostly black and I had ceased to notice the color of their skin. The woman’s physical presence, her persistent friendliness had been overwhelming to me.

Worried about my parents not loving me! And this woman is descended from slaves . . .

Creasing her forehead Sarabeth said carefully: “Vi’let, why are you living with your aunt? Why aren’t you living with your family in South Niagara?”

This was the question I’d dreaded. But I had a reply prepared: “Because there wasn’t room for me there—in that house.”

“Not room for you? How many brothers and sisters do you have?”

“Six brothers and sisters. And my grandfather lived with us. But they don’t all live at home now . . . “My voice trailed off, Sarabeth was looking at me with such frank puzzlement.

“How is your momma, Vi’let? You still have your momma?”

“Yes.”

“You close to your momma?”

“Y-yes.”

“You got sisters, you said?”

“Two sisters.”

“Older or younger or—?”

“Both older.”

“You get along OK with them, do you?”

“Yes I do! When I see them.”

A sinking cadence in when I see them that alerted Sarabeth to the possibility of a wrongness.

Discreetly then, Sarabeth ceased her interrogation. Released me from the intensity of her sympathy. Relief flooded through me but also disappointment, regret.