At first I am horrified by the ghoulish skinned squirrels, as red and muscular as skinless human bodies in Miss Larsen’s science book. But hunger cures my qualms. Soon enough, squirrel stew tastes normal.
Out in back is a homely garden that, even now, in mid-April, has root vegetables waiting to be dug—blighted potatoes and yams and tough-skinned carrots and turnips. Mr. Grote takes me out there with a pick and teaches me how to pry them from the earth, then wash them off under the pump. But the ground is still partially frozen, and the vegetables are hard to extract. The two of us spend about four hours in the cold digging for those tough old vegetables, planted last summer, until we have a gnarled and ugly pile. The children wander in and out of the house, sit and watch us from the kitchen window. I am grateful for my fingerless gloves.
Mr. Grote shows me how he grows wild rice in the stream and collects the seeds. The rice is nutty and brown. He plants the seeds after harvest in late summer for the crop the following year. It’s an annual plant, he explains, which means that it dies in the autumn. Seeds that fall in autumn take root in spring underwater, and then the shoot grows above the surface. The stalks look like tall grass swaying in the water.
In the summer, he says, he grows herbs in a patch behind the house—mint, rosemary, and thyme—and hangs them to dry in the shed. Even now there’s a pot of lavender in the kitchen. It’s a strange sight in that squalid room, like a rose in a junkyard.
At school one late-April day Miss Larsen sends me out to the porch to get some firewood, and when I come back in, the entire class, led by Lucy Green, is standing, singing happy birthday to me.
Tears spring to my eyes. “How did you know?”
“The date was in your paperwork.” Miss Larsen smiles, handing me a slice of currant bread. “My landlady made this.”
I look at her, not sure I understand. “For me?”
“I mentioned that we had a new girl, and that your birthday was coming up. She likes to bake.”
The bread, dense and moist, tastes like Ireland. One bite and I am back in Gram’s cottage, in front of her warm Stanley range.
“Nine to ten is a big leap,” Mr. Post says. “One digit to two. You’ll be two digits now for the next ninety years.”
Unwrapping the leftover currant bread at the Grotes’ that evening, I tell them about my party. Mr. Grote snorts. “How ridiculous, celebrating a birth date. I don’t even know the day I was born, and I sure can’t remember any of theirs,” he says, swinging his hand toward his kids. “But let’s have that cake.”
Spruce Harbor, Maine, 2011
Looking closely at Molly’s file, Lori the social worker settles on a stool. “So you’ll be aging out of foster care in . . . let’s see . . . you turned seventeen in January, so nine months. Have you thought about what you’re going to do then?”
Molly shrugs. “Not really.”
Lori scribbles something on the file folder in front of her. With her bright button eyes and pointy snout nosing into Molly’s business, Lori reminds her of a ferret. They’re sitting at a lab table in an otherwise empty chemistry classroom at the high school during lunch period, as they do every other Wednesday.
“Any problems with the Thibodeaus?”
Molly shakes her head. Dina barely speaks to her; Ralph is pleasant enough—same as always.
Lori taps her nose with an index finger. “You’re not wearing this anymore.”
“Jack thought it might scare the old lady.” She did take the nose ring out for Jack, but the truth is, she hasn’t been in a hurry to put it back in. There are things about it she likes—the way it marks her as a rebel, for one thing. Multiple earrings don’t have the same punk appeal; every forty-something divorcée on the island has half a dozen hoops in her ears. But the ring takes a lot of maintenance; it’s always in danger of infection, and she has to be careful with it when she washes her face or puts on makeup. It’s kind of a relief to have a metal-free face.
Flipping slowly through the file, Lori says, “You’ve logged twenty-eight hours so far. Good for you. What’s it like?”
“Not bad. Better than I thought it would be.”
“How do you mean?”
Molly’s been surprised to find that she looks forward to it. Ninety-one years is a long time to live—there’s a lot of history in those boxes, and you never know what you’ll find. The other day, for example, they went through a box of Christmas ornaments from the 1930s that Vivian had forgotten she kept. Cardboard stars and snowflakes covered in gold and silver glitter; ornate glass balls, red and green and gold. Vivian told her stories about decorating the family store for the holidays, putting these ornaments on a real pine tree in the window.