Orphan Train(20)

Maybe, I think, someone here will want me. Maybe I’ll have a life I’ve never dared to imagine, in a bright, snug house where there is plenty to eat—warm cake and milky tea with as much sugar as I please. But I am quaking as I make my way up the stairs to the stage.

We line up by height, smallest to tallest, some of us still holding babies. Though Dutchy is three years older than me, I’m tall for my age, and we’re only separated by one boy in the line.

Mr. Curran clears his throat and begins to make a speech. Looking over at him, I notice his flushed cheeks and rabbity eyes, his droopy brown mustache and bristly eyebrows, the stomach that protrudes from the bottom of his vest like a barely hidden balloon. “A simple matter of paperwork,” he tells the good people of Minnesota, “is all that stands between you and one of the children on this stage—strong, healthy, good for farm work and helping around the house. You have the chance to save a child from destitution, poverty, and I believe Mrs. Scatcherd would agree that it is not too great an exaggeration to add sin and depravity.”

Mrs. Scatcherd nods.

“So you have the opportunity both to do a good deed and get something in return,” he continues. “You will be expected to feed, clothe, and educate the child until the age of eighteen, and provide a religious education as well, of course, and it is our deepest hope that you will grow to feel not only fondness for your child, but to embrace him as your own.

“The child you select is yours for free,” he adds, “on a ninety-day trial. At which point, if you so choose, you may send him back.”

The girl beside me makes a low noise like a dog’s whine and slips her hand into mine. It’s as cold and damp as the back of a toad. “Don’t worry, we’ll be all right . . .” I begin, but she gives me a look of such desperation that my words trail off. As we watch people line up and begin to mount the steps to the stage, I feel like one of the cows in the agricultural show my granddad took me to in Kinvara.

In front of me now stands a young blond woman, slight and pale, and an earnest-looking man with a throbbing Adam’s apple and wearing a felt hat. The woman steps forward. “May I?”

“Excuse me?” I say, not understanding.

She holds out her arms. Oh. She wants Carmine.

He looks at the woman before hiding his face in the crook of my neck.

“He’s shy,” I tell her.

“Hello, little boy,” she says. “What’s your name?”

He refuses to lift his head. I jiggle him.

The woman turns to the man and says softly, “The eyes can be fixed, don’t you think?” and he says, “I don’t know. I would reckon so.”

Another man and woman are watching us. She’s heavyset, with a furrowed brow and a soiled apron, and he’s got thin strips of hair across his bony head.

“What about that one?” the man says, pointing at me.

“Don’t like the look of her,” the woman says with a grimace.

“She don’t like the look of you, neither,” Dutchy says, and all of us turn toward him in surprise. The boy between us shrinks back.

“What’d you say?” The man goes over and plants himself in front of Dutchy.

“Your wife’s got no call to talk like that.” Dutchy’s voice is low, but I can hear every word.

“You stay out of it,” the man says, lifting Dutchy’s chin with his index finger. “My wife can talk about you orphans any way she goddamn wants.”

There’s a rustling, a flash of black cape, and like a snake through the underbrush Mrs. Scatcherd is upon us. “What is the problem here?” Her voice is hushed and forceful.

“This boy talked back to my husband,” the wife says.

Mrs. Scatcherd looks at Dutchy and then at the couple. “Hans is—spirited,” she says. “He doesn’t always think before he speaks. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name—”

“Barney McCallum. And this here’s my wife, Eva.”

Mrs. Scatcherd nods. “What do you have to say to Mr. McCallum, then, Hans?”

Dutchy looks down at his feet. I know what he wants to say. I think we all do. “Apologize,” he mumbles without looking up.

While this is unfolding, the slim blond woman in front of me has been stroking Carmine’s arm with her finger, and now, still nestled against me, he is looking through his lashes at her. “Sweet thing, aren’t you?” She pokes him gently in his soft middle, and he gives her a tentative smile.

The woman looks at her husband. “I think he’s the one.”

I can feel Mrs. Scatcherd’s eyes on us. “Nice lady,” I whisper in Carmine’s ear. “She wants to be your mam.”

“Mam,” he says, his warm breath on my face. His eyes are round and shining.

“His name is Carmine.” Reaching up, I pry his monkey arms from around my neck, clasping them in my hand.

The woman smells of roses—like the lush white blooms along the lane at my gram’s house. She is as finely boned as a bird. She puts her hand on Carmine’s back and he clings to me tighter. “It’s all right,” I start, but the words crumble in my mouth.

“No, no, no,” Carmine says. I think I may faint.

“Do you need a girl to help with him?” I blurt. “I could”—I think wildly, trying to remember what I am good at—“mend clothes. And cook.”