The foyer is formal, with flocked burgundy wallpaper, a large gilt-framed mirror, and a dark, ornately carved chest of drawers. After looking around a bit, I perch on a slippery horsehair chair. In one corner an imposing grandfather clock ticks loudly, and when it chimes the hour, I nearly slide off in surprise.
After a few minutes, Miss Larsen returns. “My landlady, Mrs. Murphy, would like to meet you,” she says. “I told her about your—predicament. I felt I needed to explain why I brought you here. I hope that’s all right.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Just be yourself, Dorothy,” she says. “All right, then. This way.”
I follow her down the hall and through the door into a parlor, where a plump, bosomy woman with a nimbus of downy gray hair is sitting on a rose velvet sofa next to a glowing fire. She has long lines beside her nose like a marionette and a watchful, alert expression. “Well, my girl, it sounds as if you’ve had quite a time of it,” she says, motioning for me to sit across from her in one of two floral wingback chairs.
I sit in one and Miss Larsen takes the other, smiling at me a little anxiously.
“Yes, ma’am,” I say to Mrs. Murphy.
“Oh—you’re Irish, are you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She beams. “I thought so! But I had a Polish girl here a few years ago with hair redder than yours. And of course there are the Scottish, though not as commonly in these parts. Well, and I’m Irish too, if you couldn’t tell,” she adds. “Came over like you as a wee lass. My people are from Enniscorthy. And yours?”
“Kinvara. In County Galway.”
“Indeed, I know the place! My cousin married a Kinvara girl. Are you familiar with the Sweeney clan?”
I’ve never heard of the Sweeney clan, but I nod just the same.
“Well, then.” She looks pleased. “What’s your family name?”
“Power.”
“And you were christened . . . Dorothy?”
“No, Niamh. My name was changed by the first family I came to.” My face reddens as I realize I’m confessing to having been thrown out of two homes.
But she doesn’t seem to notice, or care. “I guessed as much! Dorothy is no Irish name.” Leaning toward me, she inspects my necklace. “A claddagh. I haven’t seen one of those in an elephant’s age. From home?”
I nod. “My gram gave it to me.”
“Yes, and see how she guards it,” she comments to Miss Larsen.
I’m not aware until she says this that I’m holding it between my fingers. “I didn’t mean—”
“Oh, lass, it’s all right,” she says, patting my knee. “It’s the only thing you’ve got to remind you of your people, now, isn’t it?”
When Mrs. Murphy turns her attention to the cabbage-rose tea service on the table in front of her, Miss Larsen gives me a wink. I think we’re both surprised that Mrs. Murphy seems to be warming to me so quickly.
MISS LARSEN’S ROOM IS TIDY AND BRIGHT, AND ABOUT THE SIZE OF a storage closet—barely big enough for a single bed, a tall oak dresser, and a narrow pine desk with a brass lamp. The bedspread has neatly tucked-in hospital corners; the pillowcase is clean and white. Several watercolors of flowers hang from hooks on the walls, and a black-and-white photograph of a stern-looking couple sits on the dresser in a gilt frame.
“Are these your parents?” I ask, looking closely at the picture. A bearded man in a dark suit stands stiffly behind a thin woman seated in a straight-backed chair. The woman, wearing a plain black dress, looks like a sterner version of Miss Larsen.
“Yes.” She comes closer and gazes at the picture. “They’re both dead now, so I suppose that makes me an orphan, too,” she says after a moment.
“I’m not really an orphan,” I tell her.
“Oh?”
“At least I don’t know. There was a fire—my mother went to the hospital. I never saw her again.”
“But you think she may be alive?”
I nod.
“Would you hope to find her?”
I think of what the Schatzmans said about my mother after the fire—that she’d gone crazy, lost her mind after losing all those children. “It was a mental hospital. She wasn’t—well. Even before the fire.” This is the first time I’ve admitted this to anyone. It’s a relief to speak the words.
“Oh, Dorothy.” Miss Larsen sighs. “You’ve been through a lot in your young life, haven’t you?”
When we go down to the formal dining room at six o’clock, I am stunned at the bounty: a ham in the middle of the table, roasted potatoes, brussels sprouts glistening with butter, a basket of rolls. The dishes are real china in a pattern of purple forget-me-nots with silver trim. Even in Ireland I never saw a table like this, except on a holiday—and this is an ordinary Tuesday. Five boarders and Mrs. Murphy are standing behind chairs. I take the empty seat beside Miss Larsen.