Orphan Train Read Free Page B

with an ill-suited foster family), who seemed ancient in some ways and preternaturally young in others. Like the nuns, this woman has a slightly imperious air, as if she is used to getting her way. And why wouldn’t she? Molly thinks. She is used to getting her way.
    “All right, then. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me,” Terry says, and disappears through another door.
    The old woman leans toward Molly, a slight frown on her face. “How on earth do you achieve that effect? The skunk stripe,” she says, reaching up and brushing her own temple.
    “Umm . . .” Molly is surprised; no one has ever asked her this before. “It’s a combination of bleach and dye.”
    “How did you learn to do it?”
    “I saw a video on YouTube.”
    “YouTube?”
    “On the Internet.”
    “Ah.” She lifts her chin. “The computer. I’m too old to take up such fads.”
    “I don’t think you can call it a fad if it’s changed the way we live,” Molly says, then smiles contritely, aware that she’s already gotten herself into a disagreement with her potential boss.
    “Not the way I live,” the old woman says. “It must be quite time-consuming.”
    “What?”
    “Doing that to your hair.”
    “Oh. It’s not so bad. I’ve been doing it for a while now.”
    “What’s your natural color, if you don’t mind my asking?”
    “I don’t mind,” Molly says. “It’s dark brown.”
    “Well, my natural color is red.” It takes Molly a moment to realize she’s making a little joke about being gray.
    “I like what you’ve done with it,” she parries. “It suits you.”
    The old woman nods and settles back in her chair. She seems to approve. Molly feels some of the tension leave her shoulders. “Excuse my rudeness, but at my age there’s no point in beating around the bush. Your appearance is quite stylized. Are you one of those—what are they called, gothics?”
    Molly can’t help smiling. “Sort of.”
    “You borrowed that blouse, I presume.”
    “Uh . . .”
    “You needn’t have bothered. It doesn’t suit you.” She gestures for Molly to sit across from her. “You may call me Vivian. I never liked being called Mrs. Daly. My husband is no longer alive, you know.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “No need to be sorry. He died eight years ago. Anyway, I am ninety-one years old. Not many people I once knew are still alive.”
    Molly isn’t sure how to respond—isn’t it polite to tell people they don’t look as old as they are? She wouldn’t have guessed that this woman is ninety-one, but she doesn’t have much basis for comparison. Her father’s parents died when he was young; her mother’s parents never married, and she never met her grandfather. The one grandparent Molly remembers, her mother’s mother, died of cancer when she was three.
    “Terry tells me you’re in foster care,” Vivian says. “Are you an orphan?”
    “My mother’s alive, but—yes, I consider myself an orphan.”
    “Technically you’re not, though.”
    “I think if you don’t have parents who look after you, then you can call yourself whatever you want.”
    Vivian gives her a long look, as if she’s considering this idea. “Fair enough,” she says. “Tell me about yourself, then.”
    Molly has lived in Maine her entire life. She’s never even crossed the state line. She remembers bits and pieces of her childhood on Indian Island before she went into foster care: the gray-sided trailer she lived in with her parents, the community center with pickups parked all around, Sockalexis Bingo Palace, and St. Anne’s Church. She remembers an Indian corn-husk doll with black hair and a traditional native costume that she kept on a shelf in her room—though she preferred the Barbies donated by charities and doled out at the community center at Christmas. They were never the popular ones, of course—never Cinderella or Beauty Queen Barbie, but instead one-off oddities that bargain hunters could find on clearance: Hot Rod Barbie,