Orphan Train(60)

“When she was six, she developed a fever. We thought it was a cold. Put her to bed, called the doctor. He said we should let her rest, give her plenty of fluids, the usual advice. But she didn’t get better. And next thing we knew it was the middle of the night and she was delirious, out of her mind, really, and we called the doctor again and he looked down her throat and saw the telltale spots. We didn’t know what it was, but he did.

“We took her to St. Mary’s Hospital in Rochester, and they quarantined her. When they told us there was nothing they could do, we didn’t believe them. But it was just a matter of time.” She shakes her head, as if to clear the thought.

I think about how hard it must have been for her, losing a daughter. And I think of my brothers and Maisie. We have a lot of sadness inside us, Mrs. Nielsen and I. I feel sorry for the both of us.


ON CHRISTMAS EVE, IN A SOFT SNOWFALL, THE THREE OF US WALK to church. We light candles on the twenty-foot tree to the right of the altar, all the fair-haired Lutheran children and parents and grandparents singing with songbooks open, the reverend preaching a sermon as elemental as a story in a child’s picture book, a lesson about charity and empathy. “People are in dire need,” he tells the congregation. “If you have something to give, give. Rise to your best selves.”

He talks about some families in crisis: hog farmer John Slattery lost his right arm in a threshing accident; they need canned goods and any manpower you can spare while they try to salvage the farm . . . Mrs. Abel, eighty-seven years old, blind now in both eyes and all alone; if you can see it in your heart to spare a few hours a week it would be greatly appreciated . . . a family of seven, the Grotes, in dire straits; the father out of work, four young children and another born prematurely a month ago, now sickly, the mother unable to get out of bed . . .

“How sad,” Mrs. Nielsen murmurs. “Let’s put together a package for that poor family.”

She doesn’t know my history with them. They’re just another distant calamity.

After the service we walk back through quiet streets. The snow has stopped and it’s a clear, cold night; the gas lamps cast circles of light. As the three of us approach the house I see it as if for the first time—the porch light shining, an evergreen wreath on the door, the black iron railing and neatly shoveled walkway. Inside, behind a curtain, a lamp in the living room glows. It’s a pleasant place to return to. A home.

EVERY OTHER THURSDAY AFTER SUPPER, MRS. NIELSEN AND I JOIN Mrs. Murphy and six other ladies at a quilting group. We meet in the spacious parlor room of the wealthiest lady in the group, who lives in a grand Victorian on the outskirts of town. I am the only child in a room full of women and am immediately at ease. We work together on one quilt, a pattern and fabric that a member of the group has brought in; as soon as that one is finished, we’ll move to the next. Each quilt takes about four months to finish. This group, I learn, made the quilt on my bed in the pink bedroom. It’s called Irish Wreath, four purple irises with green stems meeting in the middle on a black background. “We’ll make a quilt for you someday, too, Dorothy,” Mrs. Nielsen tells me. She begins to save cuttings from the fabric station in the store; every scrap goes into a steamer trunk with my name on it. We talk about it at dinner: “A lady bought ten and a half yards of a beautiful blue calico, and I saved the extra half yard for you,” she’ll say. I’ve already decided on the pattern: a Double Wedding Ring, a series of interlocking circles made up of small rectangles of fabric.

Once a month, on a Sunday afternoon, Mrs. Nielsen and I polish the silver. From a deep drawer in the cabinet in the dining room she takes out a heavy mahogany box that contains the cutlery she was given by her mother as a wedding present—her only inheritance, she tells me. Removing the pieces one by one, she lines them up on tea towels on the table, while I gather two small silver bowls from the living room mantel, four candlesticks and a serving platter from the sideboard, and a hinged box with her name, Viola, in spidery script across the top from her bedroom. We use a heavy, mud-colored paste in a jar, a few small, stiff brushes, water, and lots of rags.

One day, as I am polishing an ornately decorated serving spoon, Mrs. Nielsen points at her clavicle and says, without looking at me, “We could clean that up for you, if you like.”

I touch the chain around my neck, following it with my finger down to the claddagh. Reaching back with both hands, I unfasten the clasp.

“Use the brush. Be gentle,” she says.

“My gram gave this to me,” I tell her.

She looks at me and smiles. “Warm water, too.”

As I work the brush along the chain, it is transformed from a dull gray to the color of tinsel. The claddagh charm, its details obscured by tarnish, becomes three-dimensional again.

“There,” Mrs. Nielsen says when I’ve rinsed and dried the necklace and put it on again, “much better,” and though she doesn’t ask anything about it, I know this is her way of acknowledging that she knows it holds meaning for me.


ONE NIGHT AT DINNER, AFTER I HAVE BEEN LIVING IN THEIR HOUSE for several months, Mr. Nielsen says, “Dorothy, Mrs. Nielsen and I have something to discuss with you.”

I think Mr. Nielsen is going to talk about the trip they’ve been planning to Mount Rushmore, but he looks at his wife, and she smiles at me, and I realize it’s something else, something bigger.