Summary

A few weeks after his father’s visit, a new, upright piano is delivered to the house. His mother tells him it is a present from his father.

As he gets older, he becomes more interested in what he refers to as his and his mother’s “position” in, and relation to, the world. He starts reading books on U.S. history and newspapers, but nothing helps answer his questions except for Uncle Tom’s Cabin. His increasing interest in his cultural legacy spurs honest and telling conversations with his mother about the South, her background, and his father’s. He learns his father was about to be married to a young rich Southern woman when his mother and he moved to Connecticut. Even though the boy’s father kept his interracial affair with his mother and the birth of their son a secret...