Welcome to Litsy!

Margaret Norman lives in a family with secrets, not the least of which is her own. Her family will not talk about her mother, an artist who died shortly after Margaret was born. Her father, a brooding attorney, is too obsessed with his own pain to share. Louisa, her older sister, is hostile toward Margaret and ignores her. Black housekeeper, Ida, who is helping to raise Margaret, does not think it her place to tell what others will not. When close friend Lily May suggests there may be stuff bout your momma folks oughtnt to know, Margaret rejects the notion. Finally, Ida shares what she knows, and Margaret must face painful truths concerning her mother. Set in the South during the 1930s and 1940s, this story takes place in a world where blacks and whites, although separated by custom and law, often thrive in personal relationships; where half a world away, a war disrupts lives of those close to home; and where little girls suspect that kissing causes babies.