Orphan Train(46)

It’s the promise of the warm schoolhouse, Miss Larsen’s friendly smile, and the distraction of other lives, other worlds on the pages of the books we read in class, that get me out the door. The walk to the corner is getting harder; with each snowfall I have to forge a new path. Mr. Grote tells me that when the heavy storms hit in a few weeks I might as well forget it.

At school Miss Larsen takes me aside. She holds my hand and looks into my eyes. “Are things all right at home, Dorothy?”

I nod.

“If there’s anything you want to tell me—”

“No, ma’am,” I say. “Everything is fine.”

“You haven’t been handing in your homework.”

There’s no time or place to read or do homework at the Grotes’, and after the sun goes down at five there’s no light, either. There are only two candle stubs in the house, and Mrs. Grote keeps one with her in the back room. But I don’t want Miss Larsen to feel sorry for me. I want to be treated like everyone else.

“I’ll try harder,” I say.

“You . . .” Her fingers flutter at her neck, then drop. “Is it difficult to keep clean?”

I shrug, feeling the heat of shame. My neck. I’ll have to be more thorough.

“Do you have running water?”

“No, ma’am.”

She bites her lip. “Well. Come and see me if you ever want to talk, you hear?”

“I’m fine, Miss Larsen,” I tell her. “Everything is fine.”


I AM ASLEEP ON A PILE OF BLANKETS, HAVING BEEN NUDGED OFF THE mattresses by a fitful child, when I feel a hand on my face. I open my eyes. Mr. Grote, bending over me, puts a finger to his lips, then motions for to me to come. Groggily I get up, wrapping a quilt around myself, and follow him to the living room. In the weak moonlight, filtered through clouds and the dirty windows, I see him sit on the gold sofa and pat the cushion beside him.

I pull the quilt tighter. He pats the cushion again. I go over to him, but I don’t sit.

“It’s cold tonight,” he says in a low voice. “I could use some company.”

“You should go back there with her,” I say.

“Don’t want to do that.”

“I’m tired,” I tell him. “I’m going to bed.”

He shakes his head. “You’re gonna stay here with me.”

I feel a flutter in my stomach and turn to leave.

He reaches out and grabs my arm. “I want you to stay, I said.”

I look at him in the gloom. Mr. Grote has never frightened me before, but something in his voice is different, and I know I need to be careful. His mouth is curled up at the edges into a funny smile.

He tugs the quilt. “We can warm each other up.”

I yank it tighter around my shoulders and turn away again, and then I am falling. I hit my elbow on the hard floor and feel a sharp pain as I land heavily on it, my nose to the floor. Twisting in the quilt, I look up to see what happened. I feel a rough hand on my head. I want to move, but am trapped in a cocoon.

“You do what I say.” I feel his stubbled face on my cheek, smell his gamy breath. I squirm again and he puts his foot on my back. “Be quiet.”

His big rough hand is inside the quilt, and then it’s under my sweater, under my dress. I try to pull away but I can’t. His hand roams up and down and I feel a jolt of shock as he probes the place between my legs, pushes at it with his fingers. His sandpaper face is still against mine, rubbing against my cheek, and his breathing is jagged.

“Yesss,” he gulps into my ear. He is hunched above me like a dog, one hand rubbing hard at my skin and the other unbuttoning his trousers. Hearing the rough snap of each button, I bend and squirm but am trapped in the quilt like a fly in a web. I see his pants open and low on his hips, the engorged penis between his legs, his hard white belly. I’ve seen enough animals in the yard to know what he’s trying to do. Though my arms are trapped, I rock my body to try to seal the quilt around me. He yanks at it roughly and I feel it giving way, and as it does he whispers in my ear, “Easy, now, you like this, don’t you,” and I start to whimper. When he sticks two fingers inside me, his jagged nails tear at my skin and I cry out. He slaps his other hand over my mouth and rams his fingers deeper, grinding against me, and I make noises like a horse, frantic guttural sounds from deep in my throat.

And then he lifts his hips and takes his hand off my mouth. I scream and feel the blinding shock of a slap across my face.

From the direction of the hallway comes a voice—“Gerald?”—and he freezes, just for a second, before slithering off me like a lizard, fumbling with his buttons, pulling himself off the floor.

“What in the name of Christ—” Mrs. Grote is leaning against the door frame, cupping her rounded stomach with one hand.

I yank my underpants up and my dress and sweater down, sit up and stumble to my feet, clutching the quilt around me.

“Not her!” she wails.

“Now, Wilma, it isn’t what it looks like—”

“You animal!” Her voice is deep and savage. She turns to me. “And you—you—I knew—” She points at the door. “Get out. Get out!”

It takes me a moment to understand what she means—that she wants me to leave, now, in the cold, in the middle of the night.