Orphan Train

When Mrs. Byrne isn’t around, Mr. Byrne is friendly. He likes to talk with me about Ireland. His own family, he tells me, is from Sallybrook, near the east coast. His uncle and cousins were Republicans in the War of Independence; they fought with Michael Collins and were there at the Four Courts building in Dublin in April of 1922, when the Brits stormed the building and killed the insurgents, and they were there when Collins was assassinated a few months later, near Cork. Collins was the greatest hero Ireland ever had, don’t you know?

Yes, I nod. I know. But I’m skeptical his cousins were there. My da used to say every Irishman you meet in America swears to have a relative who fought alongside Michael Collins.

My da loved Michael Collins. He sang all the revolutionary songs, usually loudly and out of tune, until Mam would tell him to be quiet, that the babies were sleeping. He told me lots of dramatic stories—about the Kilmainham jail in Dublin, for instance, where one of the leaders of the 1916 uprising, Joseph Plunkett, married his sweetheart Grace Gifford in the tiny chapel just hours before being executed by firing squad. Fifteen were executed in all that day, even James Co

Mam had her reasons for wanting to forget. It was the 1922 treaty, leading to the formation of the Free State, that pushed us out of Kinvara, she said. The Crown Forces, determined to crush the rebels, raided towns in County Galway and blew up railway lines. The economy was in ruins. Little work was to be had. My da couldn’t find a job.

Well, it was that, she said, and the drink.

“You could be my daughter, you know,” Mr. Byrne tells me. “Your name—Dorothy . . . we always said we’d give to our own child someday, but alas it didn’t come to pass. And here you are, red hair and all.”

I keep forgetting to answer to Dorothy. But in a way I’m glad to have a new identity. It makes it easier to let go of so much else. I’m not the same Niamh who left her gram and aunties and uncles in Kinvara and came across the ocean on the Agnes Pauline, who lived with her family on Elizabeth Street. No, I am Dorothy now.

“DOROTHY, WE NEED TO TALK,” MRS. BYRNE SAYS AT DINNER ONE evening. I glance at Mr. Byrne, who is studiously buttering a baked potato.

“Mary says that you are not—how should I put this?—a particularly quick learner. She says that you seem—resistant? Defiant? She’s not sure which.”

“It’s not true.”

Mrs. Byrne’s eyes blaze. “Listen closely. If it were up to me, I would contact the committee immediately and return you for a replacement. But Mr. Byrne convinced me to give you a second chance. However—if I hear one more complaint about your behavior or comportment, you will be returned.”

She pauses and takes a sip of water. “I am tempted to attribute this behavior to your Irish blood. Yes, it is true that Mr. Byrne is Irish—indeed, that’s why we gave you a chance at all—but I would also point out that Mr. Byrne did not, as he might have, marry an Irish girl, for good reason.”

The next day Mrs. Byrne comes into the sewing room and says she needs me to go on an errand into the center of town, a mile’s walk. “It’s not complicated,” she says testily when I ask for directions. “Weren’t you paying attention when we drove you here?”

“I can go with her this first time, ma’am,” Fa

Mrs. Byrne does not look happy about this. “Don’t you have work to do, Fa

“I just finished this pile,” Fa

“All right, then. This once,” Mrs. Byrne says.

We walk slowly, on account of Fa

“I can’t imagine why you didn’t memorize this route on the drive home,” Fa

The general store on Main Street is dimly lit and very warm. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. When I look up, I see cured hams hanging from the ceiling and shelves and shelves of dry goods. Fa

The jars of hard candy sticks lined up on a shelf hold dazzling combinations of colors and flavors. After deliberating for a long moment, I choose a swirl of pink watermelon and green apple.

I unwrap my candy stick and offer to break off a piece, but Fa

“I didn’t know you could outgrow that.”

“It’s for you,” she says.

On the way back we walk slowly. Neither of us, I think, is eager to get there. The hard, grooved candy stick is both sweet and sour, a jolt of flavor so intense I almost swoon. I suck it so that it tapers to a point, savoring each taste. “You’ll have to get rid of that before we reach the house,” Fa

“Why does Mary hate me?” I ask when we’re nearly there.

“Pish. She doesn’t hate you, child. She’s scared.”

“Of what?”

“What do you think?”

I don’t know. Why would Mary be scared of me?

“She’s sure you’re going to take her job,” Fa

I try not to betray any emotion, but Fa

She smiles kindly. “You must know that already. Any girl who can hold a needle and thread would’ve sufficed. Free labor is free labor.” As we climb the steps to the house, she says, “You can’t blame Mary for being afraid.”

From then on, instead of worrying about Mary, I concentrate on the work. I focus on making my stitches identically sized and spaced. I carefully iron each garment until it’s smooth and crisp. Each piece of clothing that moves from my basket to Mary’s—or one of the other women’s—gives me a feeling of accomplishment.

But my relationship with her doesn’t improve. If anything, as my own work gets better, she becomes harsher and more exacting. I place a basted skirt in my basket and Mary snatches it, looks at it closely, rips the stitches out, and tosses it at me again.

THE LEAVES TURN FROM ROSE-TINGED TO CANDY-APPLE RED TO A dull brown, and I walk to the outhouse on a spongy, sweet-smelling carpet. One day Mrs. Byrne looks me up and down and asks if I have any other clothes. I’ve been alternating between the two dresses I came with, one blue-and-white checked and one gingham.

“No,” I say.

“Well, then,” she says, “you will make yourself some.”

Later that afternoon she drives me to town, one foot hesitantly on the gas pedal and the other, at erratic intervals, on the brake. Proceeding forward in a jerky fashion we end up eventually in front of the general store.