Orphan Train(90)

“I’ve invited Molly to stay,” Vivian announces. “And she has graciously accepted.”

“So she’s not . . .” Terry starts, looking back and forth between them. “Why aren’t you at the Thibodeaus’?” she asks Molly.

“It’s a little complicated there right now,” Molly says.

“What does that mean?”

“Things are—unsettled,” Vivian says. “And I’m perfectly happy to let her bunk in a spare room for the moment.”

“What about school?”

“Of course she’ll go to school. Why wouldn’t she?”

“This is very . . . charitable of you, Vivi, but I imagine the authorities—”

“It’s all worked out. She’s staying with me,” Vivian says firmly. “What else am I going to do with all these rooms? Open a bed-and-breakfast?”

Molly’s room is on the second floor, facing the ocean, down a long hall at the opposite side of the house from Vivian’s. In the window in Molly’s bathroom, also on the ocean side, a light cotton curtain dances constantly in the breeze, sucked toward the screen and out again, billowing toward the sink, an amiable ghostly presence.

How long has it been since anyone slept in this room? Molly wonders. Years and years and years.

Her belongings, all that she brought with her from the Thibodeaus’, fill a scant three shelves in the closet. Vivian insists that she take an antique rolltop desk from the parlor and set it up in the bedroom across the hall from hers so she can study for finals. No sense in confining yourself to one room when there are all these options, is there?

Options. She can sleep with the door open, wander around freely, come and go without someone watching her every move. She hadn’t realized how much of a toll the years of judgment and criticism, implied and expressed, have taken on her. It’s as if she’s been walking on a wire, trying to keep her balance, and now, for the first time, she is on solid ground.





Spruce Harbor, Maine, 2011


“You’re looking remarkably normal,” Lori the social worker says when Molly shows up at the chemistry lab for their usual biweekly meeting. “First the nose ring disappears. Now you’ve lost the skunk stripe. What’s next, an Abercrombie hoodie?”

“Ugh, I’d kill myself first.”

Lori smiles her ferrety smile.

“Don’t get too excited,” Molly says. “You haven’t seen my new tramp stamp.”

“You didn’t.”

It’s kind of fun to keep Lori guessing, so Molly just lifts her shoulders in a shrug. Maybe, maybe not.

Lori shakes her head. “Let’s have a look at those papers.”

Molly hands over the community service forms, dutifully filled out and dated, along with the spreadsheet with the record of her hours and the required signatures.

Scanning the forms, Lori says, “Impressive. Who did the spreadsheet?”

“Who do you think?”

“Huh.” Lori juts out her bottom lip and scribbles something at the top of the form. “So did you finish?”

“Finish what?”

Lori gives her a quizzical smile. “Cleaning out the attic. Isn’t that what you were supposed to be doing?”

Right. Cleaning out the attic.

The attic actually is cleaned out. Every single item has been removed from every single box and discussed. Some things have been brought downstairs, and some unsalvageable pieces thrown away. True, most of the stuff got put back in the boxes and is still in the attic. But now the linens are neatly folded; breakables are carefully wrapped. Molly got rid of boxes that were oddly sized or misshapen or in bad shape and replaced them with new thick cardboard boxes, uniformly rectangular. Everything is clearly labeled by place and date with a black Sharpie and neatly stacked in chronological sequence under the eaves. You can even walk around up there.

“Yeah, it’s finished.”

“You can get a lot done in fifty hours, huh?”

Molly nods. You have no idea, she thinks.

Lori opens the file on the table in front of her. “So look at this—a teacher put a note in here.”

Suddenly alert, Molly sits forward. Oh shit—what now?

Lori lifts the paper slightly, reading it. “A Mr. Reed. Social studies. Says you did an assignment for his class . . . a ‘portaging’ project. What’s that?”

“Just a paper,” she says cautiously.

“Hmm . . . you interviewed a ninety-one-year-old widow . . . that’s the lady you did your hours with, right?”

“She just told me some stuff. It wasn’t that big a deal.”

“Well, Mr. Reed thinks it is. Says you went above and beyond. He’s nominating you for some kind of prize.”