Orphan Train

hoping to determine who it is without being seen.
    “I got some fine piecework to barter, if you’re amenable,” I hear a man say to Mr.
     Nielsen, standing behind the counter.
    Every day people come into the store with reasons why they can’t pay, asking for credit
     or offering goods for trade. Every evening, it seems, Mr. Nielsen brings something
     home from a customer: a dozen eggs, soft Norwegian flatbread called lefse , a long knitted scarf. Mrs. Nielsen rolls her eyes and says, “Mercy,” but she doesn’t
     complain. I think she’s proud of him—for being kindhearted, and for having the means
     to be.
    “Dorothy?”
    I turn around, and with a little shock I realize it’s Mr. Byrne. His auburn hair is
     lank and unkempt, and his eyes are bloodshot. I wonder if he’s been drinking. What
     is he doing here, in the general store of a town thirty miles from his own?
    “Well, this is a surprise,” he says. “You work here?”
    I nod. “The owners—the Nielsens—took me in.”
    Despite the February cold, sweat is trickling down Mr. Byrne’s temple. He wipes it
     away with the back of his hand. “So you happy with them?”
    “Yes, sir.” I wonder why he’s acting so odd. “How’s Mrs. Byrne?” I ask, trying to
     steer the conversation to pleasantries.
    He blinks several times. “You haven’t heard.”
    “Pardon?”
    Shaking his head, he says, “She was not a strong woman, Dorothy. Couldn’t take the
     humiliation. Couldn’t bear to beg for favors. But what should I have done different?
     I think about it every day.” His face contorts. “When Fanny left, it was the—”
    “Fanny left?” I don’t know why I’m surprised, but I am.
    “A few weeks after you did. Came in one morning and said her daughter up in Park Rapids
     wanted her to live with them, and she’d decided to go. We’d lost everyone else, you
     know, and I think Lois just couldn’t bear the thought . . .” He wipes his hand across
     his whole face, as if trying to erase his features. “Remember the freak storm that
     blew through last spring? Late April it was. Well, Lois walked out into it and kept
     walking. They found her froze to death about four miles from the house.”
    I want to feel sympathy for Mr. Byrne. I want to feel something. But I cannot. “I’m
     sorry,” I tell him, and I suppose I am sorry—for him, for his tattered life. But I cannot muster any sorrow for Mrs. Byrne.
     I think of her cold eyes and perpetual scowl, her unwillingness to see me as anything
     more than a pair of hands, fingers holding a needle and thread. I am not glad she
     is dead, but I am not sorry she is gone.
    At dinner that evening I tell the Nielsens I will take their daughter’s name. And
     in that moment, my old life ends and a new one begins. Though I find it hard to trust
     that my good fortune will continue, I am under no illusions about what I’ve left behind.
     So when, after several years, the Nielsens tell me that they want to adopt me, I readily
     agree. I will become their daughter, though I never can bring myself to call them
     Mother and Father—our affiliation feels too formal for that. Even so, from now on
     it is clear that I belong to them; they are responsible for me and will take care
     of me.
    A S TIME PASSES , MY REAL FAMILY BECOMES HARDER AND HARDER to remember. I have no photographs or letters or even books from that former life,
     only the Irish cross from my gram. And though I rarely take the claddagh off, as I
     get older I can’t escape the realization that the only remaining piece of my blood
     family comes from a woman who pushed her only son and his family out to sea in a boat,
     knowing full well she’d probably never see them again.

Hemingford, Minnesota, 1935–1939
    I am fifteen when Mrs. Nielsen finds a pack of cigarettes in my purse.
    It’s clear when I walk into the kitchen that I’ve done something to displease her.
     She is quieter than usual, with an air of injured aggravation. I wonder if I’m imagining
     it; I try to remember if I said or did anything to upset her before I left for school.
     The pack of cigarettes, which my friend Judy Smith’s boyfriend bought for her at the
     Esso station outside of town, and which she passed along to me, doesn’t even register
     in my mind.
    After Mr. Nielsen comes in and we sit down to supper, Mrs. Nielsen slides the pack
     of Lucky Strikes toward me across the table. “I was looking for my green gloves and
     thought you might