Orphan Train(52)

Spruce Harbor, Maine, 2011


Vivian is waiting by the front door when Molly arrives. “Ready?” she says, turning to head up the stairs as soon as Molly crosses the threshold.

“Hang on.” Molly shrugs off her army jacket and hangs it on the black iron coatrack in the corner. “What about that cup of tea?”

“No time,” Vivian calls over her shoulder. “I’m old, you know. Could drop dead any minute. We’ve got to get going!”

“Really? No tea?” Molly grumbles, following behind her.

A curious thing is happening. The stories that Vivian began to tell only with prodding, in dutiful answer to specific questions, are spilling forth unprompted, one after another, so many that even Vivian seems surprised. “ ‘Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?’” she said after one session. “Macbeth, dear. Look it up.”

Vivian has never really talked about her experience on the train with anyone. It was shameful, she says. Too much to explain, too hard to believe. All those children sent on trains to the Midwest—collected off the streets of New York like refuse, garbage on a barge, to be sent as far away as possible, out of sight.

And anyway, how do you talk about losing everything?

“But what about your husband?” Molly asks. “You must have told him.”

“I told him some things,” Vivian says. “But so much of my experience was painful, and I didn’t want to burden him. Sometimes it’s easier to try to forget.”

Aspects of Vivian’s memory are triggered with each box they open. The sewing kit wrapped in cheesecloth evokes the Byrnes’ grim home. The mustard-colored coat with military buttons, the felt-lined knit gloves, the brown dress with pearl buttons, a carefully packed set of cabbage-rose china. Soon enough Molly is able to keep the cast of characters straight in her head: Niamh, Gram, Maisie, Mrs. Scatcherd, Dorothy, Mr. Sorenson, Miss Larsen. . . . One story circles back to another. Upright and do right make all right. As if joining scraps of fabric to make a quilt, Molly puts them in the right sequence and stitches them together, creating a pattern that was impossible to see when each piece was separate.

When Vivian describes how it felt to be at the mercy of strangers, Molly nods. She knows full well what it’s like to tamp down your natural inclinations, to force a smile when you feel numb. After a while you don’t know what your own needs are anymore. You’re grateful for the slightest hint of kindness, and then, as you get older, suspicious. Why would anyone do anything for you without expecting something in return? And anyway—most of the time they don’t. More often than not, you see the worst of people. You learn that most adults lie. That most people only look out for themselves. That you are only as interesting as you are useful to someone.

And so your personality is shaped. You know too much, and this knowledge makes you wary. You grow fearful and mistrustful. The expression of emotion does not come naturally, so you learn to fake it. To pretend. To display an empathy you don’t actually feel. And so it is that you learn how to pass, if you’re lucky, to look like everyone else, even though you’re broken inside.


“EH, I DON’T KNOW,” TYLER BALDWIN SAYS ONE DAY IN AMERICAN History after they watch a film about the Wabanakis. “What’s that saying again—‘to the victor go the spoils’?” I mean, it happens all the time, all over the world, right? One group wins, another loses.”

“Well, it’s true that humans have been dominating and oppressing each other since time began,” Mr. Reed says. “Do you think the oppressed groups should just stop their complaining?”

“Yeah. You lost. I kind of feel like saying ‘Deal with it,’” Tyler says.

The rage Molly feels is so overwhelming she sees spots before her eyes. For more than four hundred years Indians were deceived, corralled, forced onto small pieces of land and discriminated against, called dirty Indians, injuns, redskins, savages. They couldn’t get jobs or buy homes. Would it compromise her probationary status to strangle this imbecile? She takes a deep breath and tries to calm down. Then she raises her hand.

Mr. Reed looks at her with surprise. Molly rarely raises her hand. “Yes?”

“I’m an Indian.” She’s never told anyone this except Jack. To Tyler she knows she’s just . . . Goth, if he thinks of her at all. “Penobscot. I was born on Indian Island. And I just want to say that what happened to the Indians is exactly like what happened to the Irish under British rule. It wasn’t a fair fight. Their land was stolen, their religion was forbidden, they were forced to bend to foreign domination. It wasn’t okay for the Irish, and it’s not okay for the Indians.”

“Jeez, soapbox much?” Tyler mutters.

Megan McDonald, one seat ahead of Molly, raises her hand, and Mr. Reed nods. “She has a point,” she says. “My grandpa’s from Dublin. He’s always talking about what the Brits did.”

“Well, my granddad’s parents lost everything in the Great Depression. You don’t see me crying for handouts. Shit happens, excuse my French,” Tyler says.

“Tyler’s French aside,” Mr. Reed says, raising his eyebrows at the class as if to say he doesn’t approve but will deal with it later, “is that what they’re doing? Asking for handouts?”