A Black ten-year-old girl lives in a house in Boston with her grandfather, father, mother, aunts, and cousins in the 1930s. Although they are crowded, they live happily together, and their house serves as a focal point for other relatives near and far. One day, the girl's mother says that in a few days there will be two babies for the children to look after. The girl and her cousins are excited. After her Saturday dance class, the girl comes home to find her cousins in a room with a white three-year-old boy and a Black infant girl. While her cousins thought the boy was more interesting, the girl was immediately drawn to the infant. Over the next several months, the ten-year-old and the baby girl become inseparable. The ten-year-old learns that the baby's mother was her own mother's niece by marriage, and that the baby's mother had taken care of the ten-year-old when they were younger. The babies' mother visits them once a week when she gets a day off from work. Through the winter, the baby boy and girl grow bigger and stronger. But, in the spring, the baby girl contracts an unknown illness. The ten-year-old's mother takes the infant to the hospital, and the ten-year-old follows from a distance, where he watches through a window. A few days later, the baby passes away. At the funeral, the ten-year-old finally realizes the gravity of death, though she doesn't cry. The baby's mother quits her job, and she and her son move somewhere far away. Once, a man comes looking for them, but the ten-year-old's mother sends him away. She also tells the children to pretend that the mother and her babies never existed at all. About six months later, the ten-year-old cries gravely for the dead baby. One night, while she cries under her bed, her mother and her aunts meet in her room, not knowing she is in there, and her mother reads a letter from the babies' mother. The letter says something about getting married and starting a new life, which makes the ten-year-old cry even more.