Orphan Train

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.
    M ISS L ARSEN ’ 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