Orphan Train

me. Mrs. Scatcherd knows as little as
     we do about whether we’ll be chosen by people who will treat us with kindness. We
     are headed toward the unknown, and we have no choice but to sit quietly in our hard
     seats and let ourselves be taken there.

Spruce Harbor, Maine, 2011
    Walking back to the car, Molly sees Jack through the windshield, eyes closed, grooving out to a song she can’t hear.
    “Hey,” she says loudly, opening the passenger door.
    He opens his eyes and yanks the buds out of his ears. “How’d it go?”
    She shakes her head and climbs in. Hard to believe she was only in there for twenty
     minutes. “Vivian’s an odd one. Fifty hours! My God.”
    “But it’s going to work out?”
    “I guess so. We made a plan to start on Monday.”
    Jack pats her leg. “Awesome. You’ll knock out those hours in no time.”
    “Let’s not count our chickens.”
    She’s always doing this, crabbily countering his enthusiasm, but it’s become something
     of a routine. She’ll tell him, “I’m nothing like you, Jack. I’m bitchy and spiteful,”
     but is secretly relieved when he laughs it off. He has an optimistic certainty that
     she’s a good person at her core. And if he has this faith in her, then she must be
     all right, right?
    “Just keep telling yourself—better than juvie,” he says.
    “Are you sure about that? It’d probably be easier to serve my time and get it over
     with.”
    “Except for that small problem of having a record.”
    She shrugs. “That’d be kind of badass, though, don’t you think?”
    “Really, Moll?” he says with a sigh, turning the ignition key.
    She smiles to let him know she’s kidding. Sort of. “‘Better than juvie.’ That would
     make a good tattoo.” She points to her arm. “Right here across my bicep, in twenty-point
     script.”
    “Don’t even joke,” he says.
    D INA PLUNKS THE SKILLET OF H AMBURGER H ELPER ON THE TRIVET in the middle of the table and sits heavily in her chair. “Oof. I’m exhausted.”
    “Tough day at work, huh, babe?” Ralph says, as he always does, though Dina never asks
     him about his day. Maybe plumbing isn’t as exciting as being a police dispatcher in
     thrill-a-minute Spruce Harbor. “Molly, hand me your plate.”
    “My back is killing me from that crappy chair they make me sit in,” Dina says. “I
     swear if I went to a chiropractor, I’d have a lawsuit.”
    Molly gives her plate to Ralph and he drops some casserole on it. Molly has learned
     to pick around the meat—even in a dish like this, where you can hardly tell what’s
     what and it’s all mixed together—because Dina refuses to acknowledge that she’s a
     vegetarian.
    Dina listens to conservative talk radio, belongs to a fundamentalist Christian church,
     and has a “Guns don’t kill people—abortion clinics do” bumper sticker on her car.
     She and Molly are about as opposite as it is possible to be, which would be fine if
     Dina didn’t take Molly’s choices as a personal affront. Dina is constantly rolling
     her eyes, muttering under her breath about Molly’s various infractions—didn’t put
     away her laundry, left a bowl in the sink, can’t be bothered to make her bed—all of
     which are part and parcel of the liberal agenda that’s ruining this country. Molly
     knows she should ignore these comments—“water off a duck’s back,” Ralph says—but they
     irk her. She’s overly sensitive to them, like a tuning fork pitched too high. It’s
     all part of Dina’s unwavering message: Be grateful. Dress like a normal person. Don’t
     have opinions. Eat the food that’s put in front of you.
    Molly can’t quite figure out how Ralph fits into all of this. She knows he and Dina
     met in high school, followed a predictable football player/ cheerleader story arc,
     and have been together ever since, but she can’t tell if Ralph actually buys Dina’s
     party line or just toes it to make his life easier. Sometimes she sees a glimmer of
     independence—a raised eyebrow, a carefully worded, possibly ironic observation, like,
     “Well, we can’t make a decision on that till the boss gets home.”
    Still—all things considered, Molly knows she has it pretty good: her own room in a
     tidy house, employed and sober foster parents, a decent high school, a nice boyfriend.
     She isn’t expected to take care of a passel of kids, as she was at one of the places
     she lived, or clean up after fifteen dirty cats, as she was at another.