Cedar Hawk Songmaker is pregnant, and the doctor thinks the baby may have inherited a serious genetic disease. For some expectant mothers, finding out about genetic conditions that run in the family is the matter of a simple phone call. But for Cedar, a Native American woman adopted into a white liberal family and estranged from her birth mother, things aren’t so simple. Reestablishing contact with her family of origin means dealing with the lifetime of resentment she’s felt towards her birth mother.
The story begins with Cedar in the doctor’s office for her first ultrasound. There, through her first-person narration, Cedar reveals to the readers that she is isolated from both her adoptive family and her birth family. She comments that most other women come to their ultrasound with a romantic partner or friends, but she’s come alone, citing as a justification for that the fact that she has disappointed Alan and Sera Songmaker, her adoptive parents. Plus, all of her friends are in jail or dead. When the nurse asks her about history of family disease, Cedar reveals that she is adopted. Although she lies to the nurse and says that she is in contact with her birth family, she reveals to readers that in fact she has in her life only received one letter from her birth mother, which she never returned.
Cedar returns to her adoptive parents’ home, where she hasn’t been in months, in order to find the letter on which her birth mother wrote her phone number. This causes her to feel nostalgic about Alan and Sera, from whom she has recently become estranged. When she speaks to her birth mother on the phone, she feels anxious, and is hurt when someone asks her birth mother who she’s talking to on the phone and she replies “No one!” Already, Cedar’s feelings of resentment are triggered, but she resolves to go anyhow.
When she arrives at her birth mother’s house on the reservation where she lives, Cedar is stunned by her birth mother, who has introduced herself as Mary Potts Almost Senior, or “Sweetie.” She finds her birth mother beautiful and younger than she expected, but reacts negatively to being told that they look alike. Cedar enters the house and meets her grandmother, lovingly referred to as Mary Potts the Very Senior. Cedar then asks why she was given up, and whether there are genetic disease that run in the family. Mary Potts Almost Senior responds hesitatingly and awkwardly to the first question, and Cedar reacts with hostility. The discussion is interrupted by the arrival of Little Mary, the younger daughter Mary Potts Almost Senior didn’t give up. Although Mary Potts Almost Senior insists that Little Mary doesn’t “fuck or do drugs,” Cedar immediately notices that her younger sister is extremely high, and feels grateful that she was raised with her adoptive parents instead of in her birth family.
When Little Mary and Mary Potts Almost Senior leave the room, Cedar has time to speak with her grandmother, who at that point is the only member of her birth family that she’s warmed up to. It is the grandmother who reveals not the specifics of any genetic diseases, but the fact that miscarriages are common in the family. After speaking with her grandmother, Cedar tucks her into bed, marveling at the woman’s old age. Cedar then has a hostile discussion with Little Mary, who clearly resents and feels threatened by her. After they fight, Little Mary retreats into her room. Cedar then hears her adoptive father, Alan’s voice. Realizing that Mary Potts Almost Senior must have called her adoptive parents to support her through the difficult process of meeting her birth family, Cedar feels overwhelmed to have so much family in one space, and to see her two worlds intersecting. She retreats into Little Mary’s room, as she has nowhere else to run.
There, Little Mary, rather than meeting her with hostility, asks Cedar to help her clean her messy bedroom. This gesture of vulnerability touches Cedar, who resolves to help her younger sister. As they clean the room together, the two sisters speak amicably with one another. When Little Mary wraps Cedar into an unexpected hug, Cedar begins to cry, knowing that she’s entering uncharted territory by reconnecting with both of her families.
