Toward the end of March, in St. Louis, slush fills the gutters, and dirty snow lies heaped alongside porch steps, and everything seems to be suffocating in the embrace of a season that lasts too long. Radiators hiss mournfully, no one manages to be patient, the wind draws tears from your eyes, the clouds are filled with sadness. Women with scarves around their heads and their feet encased in fur-lined boots pick their way carefully over patches of melting ice. It seems that winter will last forever, that this is the decision of nature and nothing can be done about it.

"Mother, do you know what Ceil Johnson said to me today? She said that Beryl Feringhaus—you know, the real-estate people—was heartbroken because she thought Sonny Bruster was going to get engaged to her.” My sister giggled. Her long hair was tangled, and my mother yanked a comb through it.

“Maybe you ought to cut your hair,” my mother said, trying to hide her own excitement and to stay practical. During this period, my mother was living in the imminence of wealth. Whenever she stopped what she was doing and looked up, her face would be bright with visions.

“Sonny’s a very intelligent boy,” my mother said. “He comes from a good family.”

“I don’t care,” my sister said. “I don’t want to waste myself on him.”

“Waste yourself ?” My mother laughed derisively. I got up and went to the door of my sister’s room. My sister was sitting at her dressing table, her hair shining like glass and her eyes closed. My mother was walking back and forth, gesturing with the hairbrush. “He ’s the one who’s throwing himself away,” she said. “Who do you think we are, anyway? We ’re nobodies.”

“I’m pretty!” my sister objected angrily.

My mother shrugged. “The woods are full of pretty girls. What ’s more, they’re full of pretty, rich girls. Now, Sonny’s a very nice boy—”

“Leave me alone!” My sister pulled her hair up from her shoulders and held it in a soft mop on the top of her head. “Sonny’s a jerk! A jerk!”

“He ’s nice-looking!” my mother cried.

“Oh, what do you know about it?” my sister cried. “You’re old, for God ’s sake!”

When I came out again, an hour later, my mother was in bed reading a magazine; she looked as if she had been wounded in a dozen places. My sister sat in her room, in front of the mirror. Her hair streamed down the back of her neck and lay in touching, defenseless little curls on the towel she had over her shoulders. She was studying her reflection thoughtfully. (Are flowers vain? Are trees? Are they consumed with vanity during those days when they are in bloom?) She raised her finger and pressed it against her lower lip to see, I think, if she would be prettier if her lip, instead of being so smooth, had a slight break in the center as some girls’ did.

[...] It occurred to me that she didn’t know what she was doing; she was not really as sure of everything as she seemed. It was a painfully difficult thought to arrive at, and it clung to me. Why hadn’t I realized it before? Also, she sort of hated me, it seemed to me. I had never noticed that before, either. How could I have been so wrong, I wondered. Knowing how wrong I had been about this, I felt that no idea I had ever held was safe. For instance, we were not necessarily a happy family, with the most wonderful destinies waiting for my sister and me. We might make mistakes and choose wrong. Unhappiness was real. It was even likely. . . . How tired I became of studying my sister’s face. I got so I would do anything to keep from joining the two women on the porch.