The Color of Water

Growing up, Mameh often sends Ruth to New York for summers. Mameh’s siblings and mother are all wealthy, owning apartment buildings, delicatessens, and factories. Ruth’s aunts and uncles merely tolerate Ruth: “I was the daughter of their poor crippled sister. I was the poor cousin from the South” (130). In return for letting her stay for the summer, her Aunt Mary makes Ruth work in her leather factory. The only member of her extended family who truly loves Ruth is her grandmother, Bubeh. Nevertheless, Ruth loves New York because she thinks people there are “too busy to care about what race or religion you were” (130).

During the summer of Ruth’s pregnancy, her youngest adult relative, Aunt Betts, senses something is wrong. Without asking too many questions, Betts arranges for a Jewish doctor in Manhattan to perform an abortion for Ruth.

After Hunter’s death, James stops going to school and church. With new friends he meets after joining a soul band, James shoplifts, breaks into cars, and snatches purses. One time, he robs a weed dealer at gunpoint. He also spends most days in a haze of alcohol and marijuana. Rather than take care of his younger siblings, James cannot stand to be at home with his grieving mother.