Orphan Train

at ease. We
     work together on one quilt, a pattern and fabric that a member of the group has brought
     in; as soon as that one is finished, we’ll move to the next. Each quilt takes about
     four months to finish. This group, I learn, made the quilt on my bed in the pink bedroom.
     It’s called Irish Wreath, four purple irises with green stems meeting in the middle
     on a black background. “We’ll make a quilt for you someday, too, Dorothy,” Mrs. Nielsen
     tells me. She begins to save cuttings from the fabric station in the store; every
     scrap goes into a steamer trunk with my name on it. We talk about it at dinner: “A
     lady bought ten and a half yards of a beautiful blue calico, and I saved the extra
     half yard for you,” she’ll say. I’ve already decided on the pattern: a Double Wedding
     Ring, a series of interlocking circles made up of small rectangles of fabric.
    Once a month, on a Sunday afternoon, Mrs. Nielsen and I polish the silver. From a
     deep drawer in the cabinet in the dining room she takes out a heavy mahogany box that
     contains the cutlery she was given by her mother as a wedding present—her only inheritance,
     she tells me. Removing the pieces one by one, she lines them up on tea towels on the
     table, while I gather two small silver bowls from the living room mantel, four candlesticks
     and a serving platter from the sideboard, and a hinged box with her name, Viola, in spidery script across the top from her bedroom. We use a heavy, mud-colored paste
     in a jar, a few small, stiff brushes, water, and lots of rags.
    One day, as I am polishing an ornately decorated serving spoon, Mrs. Nielsen points
     at her clavicle and says, without looking at me, “We could clean that up for you,
     if you like.”
    I touch the chain around my neck, following it with my finger down to the claddagh.
     Reaching back with both hands, I unfasten the clasp.
    “Use the brush. Be gentle,” she says.
    “My gram gave this to me,” I tell her.
    She looks at me and smiles. “Warm water, too.”
    As I work the brush along the chain, it is transformed from a dull gray to the color
     of tinsel. The claddagh charm, its details obscured by tarnish, becomes three-dimensional
     again.
    “There,” Mrs. Nielsen says when I’ve rinsed and dried the necklace and put it on again,
     “much better,” and though she doesn’t ask anything about it, I know this is her way
     of acknowledging that she knows it holds meaning for me.
    O NE NIGHT AT DINNER , AFTER I HAVE BEEN LIVING IN THEIR HOUSE for several months, Mr. Nielsen says, “Dorothy, Mrs. Nielsen and I have something
     to discuss with you.”
    I think Mr. Nielsen is going to talk about the trip they’ve been planning to Mount
     Rushmore, but he looks at his wife, and she smiles at me, and I realize it’s something
     else, something bigger.
    “When you first came to Minnesota, you were given the name Dorothy,” she says. “Are
     you particularly fond of that name?”
    “Not particularly,” I say, unsure where this is going.
    “You know how much our Vivian meant to us, don’t you?” Mr. Nielsen says.
    I nod.
    “Well.” Mr. Nielsen’s hands are flat on the table. “It would mean a lot to us if you
     would take Vivian’s name. We consider you our daughter—not legally yet, but we are
     beginning to think of you that way. And we hope that you are beginning to think of
     us as your parents.”
    They look at me expectantly. I don’t know what to think. What I feel for the Nielsens—gratitude,
     respect, appreciation—isn’t the same as a child’s love for her parents, not quite;
     though what that love is, I’m not sure I can say. I am glad to be living with this
     kind couple, whose quiet, self-effacing manner I am coming to understand. I am grateful
     that they took me in. But I am also aware every day of how different I am from them.
     They are not my people, and never will be.
    I don’t know how I feel, either, about taking their daughter’s name. I don’t know
     if I can bear the weight of that burden.
    “Let’s not pressure her, Hank.” Turning to me, Mrs. Nielsen says, “Take the time you
     need, and let us know. You have a place in our home, whatever you decide.”
    Several days later, in the store stocking shelves in the canned food aisle, I hear
     a man’s voice I recognize but can’t place. I stack the remaining cans of corn and
     peas on the shelf in front of me, pick up the empty cardboard box, and stand up slowly,