Did you suspect the family secret? When did you figure it out?

Did you suspect the family secret? When did you figure it out?

I didn't know initially but began to wonder when I realized that Constance talked about her father abandoning them when she was young and in fact before Fleurette was born. In addition, there was an awfully big age gap there.

I didn't suspect that Constance was the mother but I did feel that Fleurette was their sister. There were hints throughout and they were over protective of her. I think I didn't realize it until I learned Constance's story.

I am usually pretty good at figuring these little mysteries out but I didn't have a clue until the relationship of Constance and the traveling salesman (Singer Sewing machine salesperson) was explained. As soon as Constance ran away it was obvious that she was pregnant and then once Norma went to get her at the Woman's home, I figured out that Fleurette was Constance's daughter. It is a small twist but I liked it and found it very believable especially considering how sheltered their mother kept them. Constance was naive until this happened to her. I liked to evolution from naive girl to Strong, assertive woman

My suspicions were first aroused on page 58 when Fleurette is teasing to go to Paterson and watch the filming of the car accident, and Constance thinks, "The girl was unbearably pretty and knew it. Sometimes I wanted to pick her up and squeeze her until she could hardly breathe..." That just didn't sound like a sisterly emotion. Then the next week, at the filming, when they run into Lucy Blake and learn of her child's disappearance, Constance seems to have a very profound reaction, to the point that all the way home she keeps imagining that she sees a stolen baby: "Whose child is that? Where are you taking it?" That made me feel she was, indeed, a mother. A few pages later she starts to tell her story of "the Singer man," and it clicked.

This took me immediately off guard. I was so surprised. It changed the way I looked at everything, especially the dead mother.

I did not, and I thought the whole episode with the Singer machine man to be totally out of character with Constance...

I didn't suspect the secret until Constance's story was told. I worried when she told how the Singer salesman was getting too intimate with no one else at home. Perhaps that was part of the reason Mother Kopp wanted to keep them isolated. Very sad.

Not until she seemed to blush at the Singer man's attention to her on his demonstration visits and then when she opened the door to him the day she was alone, it wasn't hard to realize what was coming. The large age difference didn't bother me--my sister is 20 years older than I. With that age difference, there were times when she was more like a mother to me than a sister, which I think is normal when there is such an age span.

I did not suspect the family secret. The author does a great job of leaving crumbs along the way, but I did not put the pieces together. I thought the Singer man was despicable, but realistic.

It was not apparent to me at all. At first, I wondered what was going on with the Singer man until she described going away...I confess to being very slow on the uptake. (Not a new trait, alas).

I did suspect because the issue with Lucy Blake stuck with her so much. I knew it was more than just a morbid curiosity that kept her looking into the disappearance of that child.

I agree with others... it was the lucy Blake incident that made me feel that Constance had known the emotional ties of a mother. But I do think it was consistent with her character... something had to make her so strong and bold, and there's nothing like being a mother to bring out the Lioness! T'hat it was kept a secret is absolutely no surprise... Sadly, I knew girls "in trouble' in the sixties and seventies who became Mothers in secret.

I didn't suspect that Constance was Flourette's mother until the Singer Sewing man began visiting. Then I knew what was coming. I'm glad this wasn't revealed earlier in the story as it renewed my interest in the book and the sisters' interactions.

Once the Singer man returned, then I knew. Plus I did some simple math! It also explained why Constance was so interested in the factory girl's story of her missing baby, and why she was so concerned. I also understood her violent reaction to Kaufman's threats against Fleurette. And the book took a much more interesting turn for me at this point.

When the Singer man came to the home and she was alone, I figured that something was happening.

I began building the suspicion when the Singer Man first appeared in the story, but it still took me by surprise when it was revealed. And how sad for Constance - to feel she had to run away and then to be accepted back home with her baby, but only on condition that she not acknowledge their relationship. It led to the very melancholy undertone of the book.

Interestingly, this going away and bringing back baby --passing it off as a sister or brother was not that unusual. It happened to Jack Nicholson and Bobby Darren both. Their sisters were actually their mothers

I suspected it when Constance went away, however it took we awhile to connect the sewing machine salesman

I found the first hint of a secret relationship between Constance and her "sister" in a flashback scene Constance tells us happened on the evening of their mother's funeral. She is alone with Francis discussing where the sisters should live now that their mother was no longer with them. Francis extends one of his many invitations for them to move in with him and his family and Constance wants them to stay on the farm. Frustrated, Frances starts to say, "Well the only reason you were out there in the first place--," when Constance hushes him because Fleurette might hear. That got me thinking about the age difference and Constance's almost maternal care and affection for the girl.
All of the hints were subtle and inconclusive, but once the idea was planted, everything seemed to confirm it, so that by the time Constance tells of her unexpected pregnancy, I was gleefully announcing, "I KNEW it!"

I was very surprised by this twist in the story and it made it all the more interesting. The incidence with the Singer Sewing Machine man was really not that surprising; in fact, Constance was a vulnerable young woman at the time, one whose mother had kept her sheltered from the situations most young women take for granted. I agree with Katherine that in by-gone days it often happened that an out-of-wedlock child was raised by another family member. In fact, in my own family, some 60 years ago, my aunt and uncle adopted and raised a niece as their own. And I am just now making a connection to Fleurette's love of sewing to her unknown connection to the Singer Sewing Machine man.

Yes. I suspected something from the first mention of the traveling salesman. I knew he would play into the story later on. Otherwise he wouldn't have shown his face so early in a story that essentially had little-to-nothing to do with him.

No, I didn't suspect anything. Although I knew something was afoot when the Singer salesman kept coming back. The salesman/unwed mother business made Constance stand out as much more human and vulnerable than one would have expected from the rest of the story. Her story and that of Lucy Blake's were all too typical of the rigidity and social mores of the era.

I suspected it when the Singer salesman came back without the mother being there. Oh no, trouble is coming.

I admit I thought there was something different about the relationship so I was not surprised. I did like the way we, the reader learned about it, but wonder about the family reaction.