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I stared at the telegram, paralyzed. When I had agreed to this humbug, it was onstage only—or posing for photographs. I had never imagined that I might have to play the part of mother up close, where others could see how ill equipped, how terrified, I was.

“Minnie! Oh, Minnie, you must help me!” I ran to find my sister; Charles said she was in the child’s bedroom while the nursemaid was having her dinner. Then I had to ask him where the child’s bedroom was; he pointed down the hall, and I burst into the room. “Minnie, I need your—oh!”

Minnie, who was kneeling on the floor next to the cradle, rocking it gently with a beautiful smile upon her face, looked up. “What is it, Vinnie? What’s wrong?”

“I didn’t know—why, it’s so pretty in here! Who did all this?”

For this room, unlike the other stuffy rooms in our suite, was utterly lovely. Scattered around were dolls—several that I recognized as Minnie’s—and watercolors of animals and cherubs. Pastel scarves were draped over the lamps, softening the light. Simple vases of posies graced the tables and mantel, and a stuffed white lamb perched on a rocking chair. The whole effect was one of peace and security—exactly how a nursery should feel. It had never once occurred to me to make sure that the infant had appropriate surroundings; it had never occurred to me to buy any toys for it, or to check to make sure the nurse wasn’t harming it in some way.

“I did,” replied Minnie. “I hope you don’t mind, Vinnie, but Mrs. Bleeker took me shopping one afternoon when you were out, and I picked everything out for Cosette. That’s what we named her—Cosette—because the poor thing didn’t have a real name. And everyone deserves a name, don’t you think?”

Minnie looked at me so anxiously, wanting to be right. And, of course, she was. Everyone deserves a name.

Even a foundling child who was beginning life as a stage prop.

“Yes, darling, of course. And Cosette is a beautiful name. Now, could you help me, please, dear? I need to—that is, I want to—learn how to hold her better, how to care for her, just a little, just enough to pretend—I think it would be good for me to learn, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes, Vinnie! You do hold her awfully strangely. You never did play with dolls when you were little, did you?”

“No,” I admitted ruefully, gathering up my hoopskirt and joining Minnie on the floor. The fire in the hearth, just behind us, crackled and popped. The room was scented with lavender and powder. The child in the cradle was sleeping peacefully, her little eyes scrunched up; she had long black eyelashes and black curling hair. She could have easily passed for Minnie’s child, so identically sweet and untroubled were their countenances.

But that was absurd, of course. My baby sister could not have a baby. I suppressed a laugh at the very idea.

“Now, watch what I do,” Minnie instructed me, and then I did have to smile. She had never instructed me in anything before; it was such an odd reversal of roles. I led, she followed; that was the way it had always been. Since when had she become such a serious little grown-up?

Minnie reached into the cradle, placing one tiny hand—much tinier than mine; Minnie was so petite and delicate, her hoop-skirts often threatened to swallow her whole—beneath the child’s head, the other beneath her back. Then she gently scooped it—her—Cosette—up from the cradle, and clasped her, reverently, to her chest. The motion was so fluid, so instinctive, that it looked like part of a dance. The child, small as she was, really was too big for Minnie, but my sister did not appear to notice; she simply rocked the child, easily, naturally, against her chest. As if the weight of the child in her arms had triggered some hidden switch, Minnie began to sing softly, to murmur words and phrases that I could not completely understand, but they were soothing and melodious, like the echoing fragments of songs long after they were finished.

“How do you do that?” I whispered, truly in awe; it was almost as if