Orphan Train(67)

Molly takes a deep breath. “It’s not about me. It’s about Maisie.”

Vivian gazes at her steadily, her hazel eyes clear and unblinking.

“I went online. I just wanted to see if I could find anything, and it was surprisingly easy; I found records from Ellis Island—”

“The Agnes Pauline?”

“Yeah, exactly. I found your parents’ names on the roster—and from there I got the death notices of your father and brothers. But not hers, not Maisie’s. And then I had the idea to try to find the Schatzmans. Well, there happened to be a family reunion blog . . . and . . . anyway, it said that they adopted a baby, Margaret, in 1929.”

Vivian is perfectly still. “Margaret.”

Molly nods.

“Maisie.”

“It has to be, right?”

“But—he told me she didn’t make it.”

“I know.”

Vivian seems to gather herself up, to grow taller in her chair. “He lied to me.” For a moment she looks off in the middle distance, somewhere above the bookcase. Then she says, “And they adopted her?”

“Apparently so. I don’t know anything else about them, though I’m sure there are ways to find out. But she lived a long time. In upstate New York. She only died six months ago. There’s a photo . . . She seemed really happy—children and grandchildren and all that.” God, I’m an idiot, Molly thinks. Why did I say that?

“How do you know she died?”

“There’s an obituary. I’ll show you. And—do you want to see the photo?” Without waiting for an answer, Molly gets up and retrieves her laptop from her backpack. She turns it on and brings it over to where Vivian is sitting. She opens the family reunion photos and the obituary, saved on her desktop, and places the laptop in Vivian’s lap.

Vivian peers at the picture on the screen. “That’s her.” Looking up at Molly, she says, “I can tell by the eyes. They’re exactly the same.”

“She looks like you,” Molly says, and they both stare silently for a moment at the beaming elderly woman with sharp blue eyes, surrounded by her family.

Vivian reaches out and touches the screen. “Look at how white her hair is. It used to be blond. Ringlets.” She twirls her index finger next to her own silver head. “All these years . . . she was alive,” she murmurs. “Maisie was alive. All these years, there were two of them.”





Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1939


It is late September of my nineteenth year and two new friends, Lillian Bart and Emily Reece, want me to go with them to see a new picture that’s playing at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis, The Wizard of Oz. It’s so long it has an intermission, and we’ve made plans to stay the night. Lillian’s fiancé lives there, and she goes almost every weekend, staying in a hotel for women. It’s a safe, clean place, she assures us, that doesn’t cost much money, and she has booked three single rooms. I’ve only been to the Twin Cities on day trips with the Nielsens—for a special birthday dinner, a shopping expedition, one afternoon at the art museum—but never with friends, and never overnight.

I’m not sure I want to go. For one thing, I haven’t known these girls for long—they’re both in my night class at St. Olaf. They live together in an apartment near the college. When they talk about drinks parties, I’m not even sure what they mean. Parties where you have only drinks? The only party the Nielsens host is an annual open-house buffet lunch on New Year’s Day for their vendors.

Lillian, with her friendly expression and golden blond hair, is easier to like than the arch and circumspect Emily, who has a funny half smile and severe dark bangs and is always making jokes I don’t get. Their racy humor, raucous laughter, and breezy, unearned intimacy with me make me a little nervous.

For another thing, a big shipment of fall fashions is coming into the store today or tomorrow, and I don’t want to return to find all of it in the wrong places. Mr. Nielsen has arthritis, and though he still comes in early every morning, he usually leaves around two to take an afternoon nap. Mrs. Nielsen is in and out; much of her time these days is taken up with bridge club and volunteering at the church.

But she encourages me to go with Lillian and Emily, saying, “A girl your age should get out now and then. There’s more to life than the store and your studies, Vivian. Sometimes I worry you forget that.”

When I graduated from high school, Mr. Nielsen bought me a car, a white Buick convertible, which I mainly drive to the store and St. Olaf in the evenings, and Mr. Nielsen says it’ll be good for the car to run it a little. “I’ll pay for parking,” he says.

As we drive out of town, the sky is the saccharine blue of a baby blanket, filled with puffy cottonball clouds. It’s clear before we’re ten miles down the road that Emily and Lillian’s plans are more ambitious than they’ve let on. Yes, we’ll go to The Wizard of Oz, but not the evening show that was the excuse for staying over. There’s a matinee at three o’clock that will leave plenty of time to return to our rooms and dress to go out.

“Wait a minute,” I say. “What do you mean, go out?”

Lillian, sitting beside me in the passenger seat, gives my knee a squeeze. “Come on, you didn’t think we’d drive all this way just to go to a silly picture show, did you?”