Orphan Train

diamonds
     like Legion of Honor medals, as if they’ve accomplished something significant—which
     I guess they think they have, though all I can see is a future of washing some man’s
     clothes stretching ahead of them. I want nothing to do with marriage. Mrs. Nielsen
     agrees. “You’re young. There’ll be time for that,” she says.

Spruce Harbor, Maine, 2011
    “Buying all these fancy vegetables is eating up my whole salary,” Dina grumbles. “I don’t know if we can keep doing this.”
    Dina’s talking about a stir-fry that Molly has thrown together for the three of them
     after returning from the library in Bar Harbor: tofu, red and green peppers, black
     beans, and zucchini. Molly has been cooking quite a bit lately, reasoning that if
     Dina tries some dishes that don’t have animal protein front and center, she’ll see
     how many more options are available. So in the past week Molly has made cheese and
     mushroom quesadillas, vegetarian chili, and eggplant lasagna. Still Dina complains:
     it’s not filling enough, it’s weird. (She’d never tried eggplant in her life before
     Molly roasted one in the oven.) And now she complains that it costs too much.
    “I don’t think it’s that much more,” Ralph says.
    “Plus the extra cost in general,” Dina says under her breath.
    Let it go, Molly tells herself, but . . . fuck it. “Wait a minute. You get paid for
     having me, right?”
    Dina looks up in surprise, her fork in midair. Ralph raises his eyebrows. “I don’t
     know what that has to do with anything,” Dina says.
    “Doesn’t that money cover the cost of having an extra person?” Molly asks. “More than
     covers it, right? Honestly, isn’t that the reason you take in foster kids at all?”
    Dina stands abruptly. “Are you kidding me?” She turns to Ralph. “Is she really talking
     to me like this?”
    “Now, you two—” Ralph begins with a tremulous smile.
    “It’s not us two . Don’t you dare group me with her,” Dina says.
    “Well, okay, let’s just—”
    “No, Ralph, I’ve had it. Community service, my ass. If you ask me, this girl should
     be in juvie right now. She’s a thief, plain and simple. She steals from the library,
     who knows what she steals from us. Or from that old lady.” Dina marches over to Molly’s
     bedroom, opens the door, and disappears inside.
    “Hey,” Molly says, getting up.
    A moment later Dina emerges with a book in her hand. She holds it up like a protest
     sign. Anne of Green Gables. “Where’d you get this?” she demands.
    “You can’t just—”
    “Where’d you get this book?”
    Molly sits back in her chair. “Vivian gave it to me.”
    “Like hell.” Dina flips it open, jabs her finger at the inside cover. “Says right
     here it belongs to Dorothy Power. Who’s that?”
    Molly turns to Ralph and says slowly, “I did not steal that book.”
    “Yeah, I’m sure she just ‘borrowed’ it.” Dina points a long pink talon at her. “Listen,
     young lady. We have had nothing but trouble since you came into this house, and I
     am so over it. I mean it. I am so. Over. It.” She stands with her legs apart, breathing
     shallowly, tossing her blond frosted mane like a nervous pony.
    “Okay, okay, Dina, look.” Ralph has his hands out, patting the air like a conductor.
     “I think this has gone a little far. Can we just take a deep breath and calm down?”
    “Are you fucking kidding me?” Dina practically spits.
    Ralph looks at Molly, and in his expression she sees something new. He looks weary.
     He looks over it.
    “I want her out,” Dina says.
    “Deen—”
    “OUT.”
    Later that evening Ralph knocks on Molly’s bedroom door. “Hey, what’re you doing?”
     he says, looking around. The L.L.Bean duffel bags are splayed wide, and Molly’s small
     collection of books, including Anne of Green Gables, is piled on the floor.
    Stuffing socks into a plastic Food Mart bag, Molly says, “What does it look like I’m
     doing?” She’s not usually rude to Ralph, but now she figures, who cares? He wasn’t
     exactly watching her back out there.
    “You can’t leave yet. We have to contact Social Services and all that. It’ll be a
     couple of days, probably.”
    Molly crams the bag o’ socks into one end of a duffel, rounding it nicely. Then she
     starts lining up shoes: the Doc Martens she picked up at a Salvation Army store, black
     flip-flops, a dog-chewed pair of Birkenstocks that a previous foster mother