Only the Beautiful

In February 1939, Mrs. Grissom, a social worker with County Human Services, comes to the Calverts’ vineyard in California to take young Rosanne Maras away. For the last year, the Calverts have served as Rosie’s guardians and employers following the death of her family in a car accident. Now, as Rosie packs her things, she recalls a conversation in which she promised her mother that she would always be careful and find a way to be happy in life. She gently packs her precious amaryllis bulb, which her old friend Helen once gave her. She bleakly assumes that she is being sent to “[a] home for unwed mothers” because “no one else will take [her] the way [she is]. Seventeen. Orphaned. Pregnant” (6).

However, Mrs. Grissom does not take her to a home for unwed mothers, but to a psychiatric institution in Sonoma, California. Once there, Rosie is roughly handled, sedated, and admitted as an unwell patient who is unable to care for herself due to her youth and (alleged) poor judgment. Rosie refuses to reveal the name of her baby’s father, and the doctor interrogating her asks her about the allegation that she sees colors in her vision, matched to shapes, which no one else can perceive.