Summary

In “Graft,” Hope visits the Harvard Peabody Museum with her husband Harold in May,1893. They are in the Blaschka Glass Plant exhibit when Hope encounters a child who resembles her first husband Sam. She wonders if the child is Sam’s from his other marriage. Alternatively, the boy could be her estranged son Eli who she left with her brother Davis and sister-in-law Annabelle 12 years ago. When Harold asks if she is ready to go, Hope recalls the start of their relationship. Harold was “her art teacher at Wellesley” and everyone said he “was a good man” (73). Even still, Hope never told him about her past.

At 20 years old, Hope left “her family’s orchard” on Cape Cod to start a new life (75). She found work at another orchard in Hatfield, where “she met Sam” (78). She and Sam started sleeping together...