I had learned where she had gone from an article covering her marriage, after she had left home without a word. She had married a Mississippi congressman, and they had relocated to the nation’s capital. She had never written to tell us where she had gone or that she was married. What kind of person did this, unless they were ashamed of their kin? But what reason had she to be ashamed? So she was passing light; so our parents had been enslaved before Emancipation. These were not reasons. These were the grossest of excuses.

How does one explain it to one such as her, how motherhood tugs at you? For nine months he had grown under her heart, and then he was supposed to have been hers, but instead he was gone. She did not reply.