Orphan Train

  coat and cap. The engine roars to life and the brakes screech as he maneuvers his truck down the steep drive.

  About an hour later, I hear the truck’s distinctive clatter and look out the window. I watch as it slowly makes its way up the steep drive, then comes to a stop. Mr. Post climbs out and comes in the porch door, and Miss Larsen excuses herself from the lesson and goes to the back. A few moments later she calls my name and I rise from my desk, all eyes on me, and make my way to the porch.

  Miss Larsen seems worried. She keeps touching her hair in the bun. “Dorothy, Mr. Sorenson is not convinced . . .” She stops and touches her neck, glances beseechingly at Mr. Post.

  “I think what Miss Larsen is trying to say,” he says slowly, “is that you will need to explain what happened in detail to Mr. Sorenson. Ideally, as you know, they want to make the placements work. Mr. Sorenson wonders if this might simply be a matter of—miscommunication.”

  I feel light-headed as I realize what Mr. Post is saying. “He doesn’t believe me?”

  A look passes between them. “It’s not a question of believing or not believing. He just needs to hear the story from you,” Miss Larsen says.

  For the first time in my life, I feel the wildness of revolt. Tears spring to my eyes. “I’m not going back there. I can’t.”

  Miss Larsen puts an arm around my shoulder. “Dorothy, don’t worry. You’ll tell Mr. Sorenson your story, and I’ll tell him what I know. I won’t let you go back there.”

  The next few hours are a blur. I mimic Lucy’s movements, pulling out the spelling primer when she does, lining up behind her to write on the board, but I barely register what’s going on around me. When she whispers, “Are you all right?” I shrug. She squeezes my hand but doesn’t probe further—and I don’t know if it’s because she senses I don’t want to talk about it or if she’s afraid of what I might say.

  After lunch, when we are back in our seats, I see a vehicle way off in the distance. The sound of the motor fills my head; the dark truck coming toward the school is the only thing I see. And here it is—puttering up the steep drive, screeching to a stop behind Mr. Post’s truck.

  I see Mr. Sorenson in the driver’s seat. He sits there for a moment. Takes off his black felt hat, strokes his black mustache. Then he opens the car door.

  “MY, MY, MY,” MR. SORENSON SAYS WHEN I’VE FINISHED MY STORY. We are sitting on hard chairs on the back porch, warmer now than it was earlier in the day from the sun and the heat of the stove. He reaches out to pat my leg, then seems to think better of it and rests his hand on his hip. With his other hand he strokes his mustache. “Such a long walk in the cold. You must have been very . . .” His voice trails off. “And yet. And yet. I wonder: the middle of the night. Might you perhaps have . . . ?”

  I look at him steadily, my heart pounding in my chest.

  “ . . . misconstrued?”

  He looks at Miss Larsen. “A ten-year-old girl . . . don’t you find, Miss Larsen, that there can be a certain—excitability? A tendency to overdramatize?”

  “It depends on the girl, Mr. Sorenson,” she says stiffly, lifting her chin. “I have never known Dorothy to lie.”

  Chuckling, he shakes his head. “Ah, Miss Larsen, that’s not at all what I’m saying, of course not! I merely meant that sometimes, particularly if one has been through distressing events in one’s young life, one might be inclined to jump to conclusions—to inadvertently blow things out of proportion. I saw with my own eyes that living conditions in the Grote household were, well, less than optimal. But we can’t all have storybook families, can we, Miss Larsen? The world is not a perfect place, and when we are dependent on the charity of others, we are not always in a position to complain.” He smiles at me. “My recommendation, Dorothy, is to give it another try. I can talk to the Grotes and impress upon them the need to improve conditions.”

  Miss Larsen’s eyes are glittering strangely, and a red rash has crept up her neck. “Did you hear the girl, Mr. Sorenson?” she says in a strained voice. “There was an attempted . . . violation. And Mrs. Grote, coming upon the appalling scene, cast her out. Surely you don’t expect Dorothy to return to that situation, now, do you? Frankly, I wonder why you don’t ask the police to go out there and take a look. It doesn’t sound like a healthy place for the other children there, either.”

  Mr. Sorenson is nodding slowly, as if to say Now, now, it was just a thought, don’t get shrill, let’s all calm down. But what he says is, “Well, then, you see, we’re in a bit of a pickle. There are no families that I know of at the moment seeking orphans. I could inquire farther afield, of course. Contact the Children’s Aid in New York. If it comes down to it, Dorothy could go back there, I suppose, on the next train that comes through.”

  “Surely we won’t need to resort to that,” Miss Larsen says.

  He gives a little shrug. “One would hope not. One doesn’t know.”

  She puts her hand on my shoulder and gives it a squeeze. “Let’s explore our options then, Mr. Sorenson, shall we? And in the meantime—for a day or two—Dorothy can come home with me.”

  I look up at her with surprise. “But I thought—”

  “It can’t be permanent,” she says quickly. “I live in a boardinghouse, Mr. Sorenson, where no children are allowed. But my landlady has a kind heart, and she knows I am a schoolteacher and that not all of my children are”—she appears to pick her words carefully—“housed advantageously. I think she will be sympathetic—as I say, for a day or two.”

  Mr. Sorenson strokes his mustache. “Very well, Miss Larsen. I will look into other possibilities, and leave you in charge of Dorothy for a few days. Young lady, I trust that you will be appropriately polite and well behaved.”

  “Yes, sir,” I say solemnly, but my heart is swelling with joy. Miss Larsen is taking me home with her! I can’t believe my good fortune.

  Hemingford, Minnesota, 1930

  The man who picks Miss Larsen and me up after school signals surprise at my presence with a lift of his eyebrow, but says nothing.

  “Mr. Yates, this is Dorothy,” she tells him, and he nods at me in the rearview mirror. “Dorothy, Mr. Yates works for my landlady, Mrs. Murphy, and is kind enough to take me to the schoolhouse each day, since I don’t drive myself.”

  “It’s a pleasure, miss,” he says, and I can see by his pink ears that he means it.

  Hemingford is much larger than Albans. Mr. Yates drives slowly down Main Street, and I gaze out at the signs: the Imperial Theatre (whose marquee trumpets NOW WITH THE TALKING, SINGING AND DANCING!); the Hemingford Ledger; Walla’s Recreational Parlor, advertising BILLIARDS, FOUNTAIN, CANDY, TOBACCO in its plate-glass window; Farmer’s State Bank; Shindler’s Hardware; and Nielsen’s General Store—EVERYTHING TO EAT AND WEAR.

  At the corner of Main and Park, several blocks from the town center, Mr. Yates pulls to a stop in front of a light-blue Victorian house with a wraparound porch. An oval placard by the front door announces, HEMINGFORD HOME FOR YOUNG LADIES.

  The bell tinkles when Miss Larsen opens the door. She ushers me in but holds a finger to her lips and whispers, “Wait here a moment,” before pulling off her gloves, unwrapping the scarf around her neck, and disappearing through a door at the end of the hall.

  The foyer is formal, with flocked burgundy wallpaper, a large gilt-framed mirror, and a dark, ornately carved chest of drawers. After looking around a bit, I perch on a slippery horsehair chair. In one corner an imposing grandfather clock ticks loudly, and when it chimes the hour, I nearly slide off in surprise.

  After a few minutes, Miss Larsen returns. “My landlady, Mrs. Murphy, would like to meet you,” she says. “I told her about your—predicament. I felt I needed to explain why I brought you here. I hope that’s all right.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Just be yourself, Dorothy,” she says. “All right, then. This way.”

  I follow her down the hall and through the door into a parlor, where a plump, bosomy woman with a ni
mbus of downy gray hair is sitting on a rose velvet sofa next to a glowing fire. She has long lines beside her nose like a marionette and a watchful, alert expression. “Well, my girl, it sounds as if you’ve had quite a time of it,” she says, motioning for me to sit across from her in one of two floral wingback chairs.

  I sit in one and Miss Larsen takes the other, smiling at me a little anxiously.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say to Mrs. Murphy.

  “Oh—you’re Irish, are you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She beams. “I thought so! But I had a Polish girl here a few years ago with hair redder than yours. And of course there are the Scottish, though not as commonly in these parts. Well, and I’m Irish too, if you couldn’t tell,” she adds. “Came over like you as a wee lass. My people are from Enniscorthy. And yours?”

  “Kinvara. In County Galway.”

  “Indeed, I know the place! My cousin married a Kinvara girl. Are you familiar with the Sweeney clan?”

  I’ve never heard of the Sweeney clan, but I nod just the same.

  “Well, then.” She looks pleased. “What’s your family name?”

  “Power.”

  “And you were christened . . . Dorothy?”

  “No, Niamh. My name was changed by the first family I came to.” My face reddens as I realize I’m confessing to having been thrown out of two homes.

  But she doesn’t seem to notice, or care. “I guessed as much! Dorothy is no Irish name.” Leaning toward me, she inspects my necklace. “A claddagh. I haven’t seen one of those in an elephant’s age. From home?”

  I nod. “My gram gave it to me.”

  “Yes, and see how she guards it,” she comments to Miss Larsen.

  I’m not aware until she says this that I’m holding it between my fingers. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Oh, lass, it’s all right,” she says, patting my knee. “It’s the only thing you’ve got to remind you of your people, now, isn’t it?”

  When Mrs. Murphy turns her attention to the cabbage-rose tea service on the table in front of her, Miss Larsen gives me a wink. I think we’re both surprised that Mrs. Murphy seems to be warming to me so quickly.

  MISS LARSEN’S ROOM IS TIDY AND BRIGHT, AND ABOUT THE SIZE OF a storage closet—barely big enough for a single bed, a tall oak dresser, and a narrow pine desk with a brass lamp. The bedspread has neatly tucked-in hospital corners; the pillowcase is clean and white. Several watercolors of flowers hang from hooks on the walls, and a black-and-white photograph of a stern-looking couple sits on the dresser in a gilt frame.

  “Are these your parents?” I ask, looking closely at the picture. A bearded man in a dark suit stands stiffly behind a thin woman seated in a straight-backed chair. The woman, wearing a plain black dress, looks like a sterner version of Miss Larsen.

  “Yes.” She comes closer and gazes at the picture. “They’re both dead now, so I suppose that makes me an orphan, too,” she says after a moment.

  “I’m not really an orphan,” I tell her.

  “Oh?”

  “At least I don’t know. There was a fire—my mother went to the hospital. I never saw her again.”

  “But you think she may be alive?”

  I nod.

  “Would you hope to find her?”

  I think of what the Schatzmans said about my mother after the fire—that she’d gone crazy, lost her mind after losing all those children. “It was a mental hospital. She wasn’t—well. Even before the fire.” This is the first time I’ve admitted this to anyone. It’s a relief to speak the words.

  “Oh, Dorothy.” Miss Larsen sighs. “You’ve been through a lot in your young life, haven’t you?”

  When we go down to the formal dining room at six o’clock, I am stunned at the bounty: a ham in the middle of the table, roasted potatoes, brussels sprouts glistening with butter, a basket of rolls. The dishes are real china in a pattern of purple forget-me-nots with silver trim. Even in Ireland I never saw a table like this, except on a holiday—and this is an ordinary Tuesday. Five boarders and Mrs. Murphy are standing behind chairs. I take the empty seat beside Miss Larsen.

  “Ladies,” Mrs. Murphy says, standing at the head of the table. “This is Miss Niamh Power, from County Galway, by way of New York. She came to Minnesota as a train rider—you may have heard about them in the papers. She will be with us for a few days. Let’s do our best to make her feel welcome.”

  The other women are all in their twenties. One works as a counter girl at Nielsen’s General Store, one at a bakery, another at the Hemingford Ledger as a receptionist. Under the watchful eye of Mrs. Murphy, all of them are polite, even rail-thin and sour-faced Miss Grund, a clerk in a shoe store. (“She’s not accustomed to children,” Miss Larsen whispers to me after Miss Grund shoots an icy look down the dinner table.) These women are a little afraid of Mrs. Murphy, I can see. Over the course of dinner I notice that she can be snappish and short-tempered, and she likes to be the boss. When one of them expresses an opinion she disagrees with, she looks around at the group and gathers allies for her position. But she is nothing but kind to me.

  Last night I barely slept on the cold porch of the school, and before that I was on a soiled mattress in a fetid room with three other children. But tonight I have my own room, the bed neatly made up with crisp white sheets and two clean quilts. When Mrs. Murphy bids me good night, she hands me a gown and undergarments, a towel and hand cloth and a brush for my teeth. She shows me to the bathroom down the hall, with running water in its sink and a WC that flushes and a large porcelain tub, and tells me to draw a bath and stay in it as long as I wish; the others can use a different powder room.

  When she leaves, I inspect my reflection in the mirror—the first time since arriving in Minnesota I’ve looked in a whole piece of mirror unclouded by spots and damage. A girl I barely recognize stares back. She is thin and pale, dull eyed, with sharp cheekbones and matted dark red hair, wind-chapped cheeks, and a red-rimmed nose. Her lips are scabbed, and her sweater is pilled and soiled with dirt. I swallow—she swallows. My throat hurts. I must be getting sick.

  When I shut my eyes in the warm bath, I feel as if I’m floating inside a cloud.

  Back in my room, warm and dry and dressed in my new gown, I shut the door and lock it. I stand with my back against it, savoring the feeling. I’ve never had a room of my own—not in Ireland, on Elizabeth Street, at the Children’s Aid Society, in the hallway at the Byrnes’, at the Grotes’. I pull back the covers, tucked tightly around the mattress, and slip between the sheets. Even the pillow, with its cotton casing smelling of washing soap, is a marvel. Lying on my back with the electric lamp on, I gaze at the small red and blue flowers in the off-white wallpaper, the white ceiling above, the oak dresser with its bacon pattern and smooth white knobs. I look down at the coiled rag rug and the shiny wood floor underneath. I turn off the light and lie in the dark. As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I can make out the shapes of each object in the room. Electric lamp. Dresser. Bed frame. My boots. For the first time since I stepped off the train in Minnesota more than a year ago, I feel safe.

  FOR THE NEXT WEEK, I BARELY LEAVE MY BED. THE WHITE-HAIRED doctor who comes to examine me puts a cold metal stethoscope to my chest, listens thoughtfully for a few moments, and announces that I have pneumonia. For days I live in a fever, with the covers pulled up and the shades drawn, the door to my bedroom open so that Mrs. Murphy can hear me call. She puts a small silver bell on the dresser and instructs me to shake it if I need anything. “I’m just downstairs,” she says. “I’ll come right up.” And though she bustles around, muttering about all the things she needs to do and how one girl or another—she calls them girls, though they are all working women—didn’t make her bed or left her dishes in the sink or neglected to bring the tea set to the kitchen when she left the parlor, she drops everything when I ring the bell.

  The first few days I slip in and out of sleep, opening my eyes to the soft glow of sunlight through my window shade, an
d then the room is dark; Mrs. Murphy leans over me with a cup of water, her yeasty breath on my face, the warm hennish bulk of her against my shoulder. Miss Larsen, hours later, placing a cool folded cloth on my forehead with careful fingers. Mrs. Murphy nursing me with chicken soup filled with carrots and celery and potatoes.

  In my moments of fevered consciousness I think I am dreaming. Am I really in this warm bed in this clean room? Am I really being taken care of ?

  And then I open my eyes in the light of a new day, and feel different. Mrs. Murphy takes my temperature and it is under one hundred degrees. Raising the shade, she says, “Look at what you’ve missed,” and I sit up and look outside at snow like swirling cotton, blanketing everything and still falling, the sky white and more white—trees, cars, the sidewalk, the house next door, transformed. My own awakening feels as momentous. I too am blanketed, my harsh edges obscured and transformed.

  When Mrs. Murphy learns that I have come with almost nothing, she sets about gathering clothes. In the hall is a large trunk filled with garments that boarders have left behind, chemises and stockings and dresses, sweater sets and skirts, and even a few pairs of shoes, and she lays them out on the double bed in her own large room for me to try on.

  Almost everything is too big, but a few pieces will work—a sky-blue cardigan embroidered with white flowers, a brown dress with pearl buttons, several sets of stockings, a pair of shoes. “Jenny Early,” Mrs. Murphy sighs, fingering a particularly pretty yellow floral dress. “A slip of a girl, she was, and lovely too. But when she found herself in the family way . . .” She looks at Miss Larsen, who shakes her head. “Water under the bridge. I heard that Jenny had a nice wedding and a healthy baby boy, so all’s well that ends well.”

  As my health improves I begin to worry: this won’t last. I will be sent away. I made it through this year because I had to, because I had no options. But now that I’ve experienced comfort and safety, how can I go back? These thoughts take me to the edge of despair, so I will myself—I force myself—not to have them.

  Spruce Harbor, Maine, 2011

  Vivian is waiting by the front door when Molly arrives. “Ready?” she says, turning to head up the stairs as soon as Molly crosses the threshold.

  “Hang on.” Molly shrugs off her army jacket and hangs it on the black iron coatrack in the corner. “What about that cup of tea?”

  “No time,” Vivian calls over her shoulder. “I’m old, you know. Could drop dead any minute. We’ve got to get going!”

  “Really? No tea?” Molly grumbles, following behind her.

  A curious thing is happening. The stories that Vivian began to tell only with prodding, in dutiful answer to specific questions, are spilling forth unprompted, one after another, so many that even Vivian seems surprised. “ ‘Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?’” she said after one session. “Macbeth, dear. Look it up.”

  Vivian has never really talked about her experience on the train with anyone. It was shameful, she says. Too much to explain, too hard to believe. All those children sent on trains to the Midwest—collected off the streets of New York like refuse, garbage on a barge, to be sent as far away as possible, out of sight.

  And anyway, how do you talk about losing everything?

  “But what about your husband?” Molly asks. “You must have told him.”

  “I told him some things,” Vivian says. “But so much of my experience was painful, and I didn’t want to burden him. Sometimes it’s easier to try to forget.”

  Aspects of Vivian’s memory are triggered with each box they open. The sewing kit wrapped in cheesecloth evokes the Byrnes’ grim home. The mustard-colored coat with military buttons, the felt-lined knit gloves, the brown dress with pearl buttons, a carefully packed set of cabbage-rose china. Soon enough Molly is able to keep the cast of characters straight in her head: Niamh, Gram, Maisie, Mrs. Scatcherd, Dorothy, Mr. Sorenson, Miss Larsen. . . . One story circles back to another. Upright and do right make all right. As if joining scraps of fabric to make a quilt, Molly puts them in the right sequence and stitches them together, creating a pattern that was impossible to see when each piece was separate.

  When Vivian describes how it felt to be at the mercy of strangers, Molly nods. She knows full well what it’s like to tamp down your natural inclinations, to force a smile when you feel numb. After a while you don’t know what your own needs are anymore. You’re grateful for the slightest hint of kindness, and then, as you get older, suspicious. Why would anyone do anything for you without expecting something in return? And anyway—most of the time they don’t. More often than not, you see the worst of people. You learn that most adults lie. That most people only look out for themselves. That you are only as interesting as you are useful to someone.

  And so your personality is shaped. You know too much, and this knowledge makes you wary. You grow fearful and mistrustful. The expression of emotion does not come naturally, so you learn to fake it. To pretend. To display an empathy you don’t actually feel. And so it is that you learn how to pass, if you’re lucky, to look like everyone else, even though you’re broken inside.

  “EH, I DON’T KNOW,” TYLER BALDWIN SAYS ONE DAY IN AMERICAN History after they watch a film about the Wabanakis. “What’s that saying again—‘to the victor go the spoils’?” I mean, it happens all the time, all over the world, right? One group wins, another loses.”

  “Well, it’s true that humans have been dominating and oppressing each other since time began,” Mr. Reed says. “Do you think the oppressed groups should just stop their complaining?”

  “Yeah. You lost. I kind of feel like saying ‘Deal with it,’” Tyler says.

  The rage Molly feels is so overwhelming she sees spots before her eyes. For more than four hundred years Indians were deceived, corralled, forced onto small pieces of land and discriminated against, called dirty Indians, injuns, redskins, savages. They couldn’t get jobs or buy homes. Would it compromise her probationary status to strangle this imbecile? She takes a deep breath and tries to calm down. Then she raises her hand.

  Mr. Reed looks at her with surprise. Molly rarely raises her hand. “Yes?”

  “I’m an Indian.” She’s never told anyone this except Jack. To Tyler she knows she’s just . . . Goth, if he thinks of her at all. “Penobscot. I was born on Indian Island. And I just want to say that what happened to the Indians is exactly like what happened to the Irish under British rule. It wasn’t a fair fight. Their land was stolen, their religion was forbidden, they were forced to bend to foreign domination. It wasn’t okay for the Irish, and it’s not okay for the Indians.”

  “Jeez, soapbox much?” Tyler mutters.

  Megan McDonald, one seat ahead of Molly, raises her hand, and Mr. Reed nods.