Orphan Train

‘Polished Pebbles.’”
    They both look at me.
    “I like school,” I say.
    Mrs. Byrne gets up and starts to stack our dishes. She takes my plate even though
     I haven’t finished my toast. Her actions are jerky, and the silverware clanks against
     the china. She runs water in the sink and dumps the plates and utensils into it with
     a loud clatter. Then she turns around, wiping her hands on her apron. “You insolent
     girl. I don’t want to hear another word. We are the ones who decide what’s best for
     you. Is that clear?”
    And that’s the end of it. The subject of school doesn’t come up again.
    S EVERAL TIMES A DAY M RS . B YRNE MATERIALIZES IN THE SEWING room like a phantom, but she never picks up a needle. Her duties, as far as I can
     see, consist of keeping track of orders, handing out assignments to Fanny, who then
     doles them out to us, and collecting the finished garments. She asks Fanny for progress
     reports, all the while scanning the room to be sure the rest of us are hard at work.
    I am full of questions for the Byrnes that I’m afraid to ask. What is Mr. Byrne’s
     business, exactly? What does he do with the clothes the women make? (I could say we make, but the work I do, basting and hemming, is like peeling potatoes and calling
     yourself a cook.) Where does Mrs. Byrne go all day, and what does she do with her
     time? I can hear her upstairs now and then, but it’s impossible to know what she’s
     up to.
    Mrs. Byrne has many rules. She scolds me in front of the other girls for minor infractions
     and mistakes—not folding my bed linen as tightly as I should have or leaving the door
     to the kitchen ajar. All doors in the house are supposed to be shut at all times,
     unless you’re entering or leaving. The way the house is closed off—the door to the
     sewing room, the doors to the kitchen and dining room, even the door at the top of
     the stairs—makes it a forbidding and mysterious place. At night, on my pallet in that
     dark hall at the foot of the stairs, rubbing my feet together for warmth, I am frightened.
     I’ve never been alone like this. Even at the Children’s Aid Society, in my iron bed
     on the ward, I was surrounded by other girls.
    I’m not allowed to help in the kitchen—I think Mrs. Byrne is afraid I might steal
     food. And, indeed, like Fanny, I have taken to slipping a slice of bread or an apple
     into my pocket. The food Mrs. Byrne makes is bland and unappealing—soft gray peas
     from a can, starchy boiled potatoes, watery stews—and there’s never enough of it.
     I can’t tell if Mr. Byrne really doesn’t notice how dreadful the food is, or whether
     he doesn’t care—or if his mind is simply elsewhere.
    When Mrs. Byrne isn’t around, Mr. Byrne is friendly. He likes to talk with me about
     Ireland. His own family, he tells me, is from Sallybrook, near the east coast. His
     uncle and cousins were Republicans in the War of Independence; they fought with Michael
     Collins and were there at the Four Courts building in Dublin in April of 1922, when
     the Brits stormed the building and killed the insurgents, and they were there when
     Collins was assassinated a few months later, near Cork. Collins was the greatest hero
     Ireland ever had, don’t you know?
    Yes, I nod. I know. But I’m skeptical his cousins were there. My da used to say every
     Irishman you meet in America swears to have a relative who fought alongside Michael
     Collins.
    My da loved Michael Collins. He sang all the revolutionary songs, usually loudly and
     out of tune, until Mam would tell him to be quiet, that the babies were sleeping.
     He told me lots of dramatic stories—about the Kilmainham jail in Dublin, for instance,
     where one of the leaders of the 1916 uprising, Joseph Plunkett, married his sweetheart
     Grace Gifford in the tiny chapel just hours before being executed by firing squad.
     Fifteen were executed in all that day, even James Connolly, who was too ill to stand,
     so they strapped him to a chair and carried him out into the courtyard and riddled
     his body with bullets. “Riddled his body with bullets”—my da talked like that. Mam
     was always shushing him, but he waved her off. “It’s important they know this,” he
     said. “It’s their history! We might be over here now, but by God, our people are over
     there.”
    Mam had her reasons for wanting to forget. It was the 1922 treaty, leading to the
     formation of the Free State, that pushed us out of