Authors: Christina Baker Kline
After replacing the brush in its case, Gram opened her jewelry box, an off-white faux-leather one with gilt trim and a gold clasp, plush red velvet inside, revealing a trove of treasures—sparkling earrings, heavy necklaces in onyx and pearl, gold bracelets. (My mam later said spitefully that these were cheap costume jewelry from a Galway five-and-dime, but at the time they seemed impossibly luxurious to me.) She picked out a pair of clustered pearl earrings with padded back clasps, clipping first one and then the other to her low-hanging lobes.
In the bottom of the box was the claddagh cross. I’d never seen her wear it. She told me that her da, now long dead, had given it to her for her First Holy Communion when she was thirteen. She’d planned to give it to her daughter, my auntie Brigid, but Brigid wanted a gold birthstone ring instead.
“You are my only granddaughter, and I want you to have it,” Gram declared, fastening the chain around my neck. “See the interlaced strands?” She touched the raised pattern with a knobby finger. “These trace a never-ending path, leading away from home and circling back. When you wear this, you’ll never be far from the place you started.”
Several weeks after Gram gave me the claddagh, she and Mam got into one of their arguments. As their voices rose I took the twins into a bedroom down the hall.
“You tricked him into it; he wasn’t ready,” I heard Gram shout. And then Mam’s retort, as clear as day: “A man whose mother won’t let him lift a finger is ruined for a wife.”
The front door banged; it was Granddad, I knew, stomping out in disgust. And then I heard a crash, a shriek, a cry, and I ran to the parlor to find Gram’s whalebone brush shattered in pieces against the hearth, and Mam with a look of triumph on her face.
Not a month later, we found ourselves bound for Ellis Island on the
Agnes Pauline.
M
RS
. M
URPHY
’
S HUSBAND DIED A DECADE AGO
, I
LEARN
,
LEAVING
her with this big old house and little money. Making the most of the situation, she began to take in boarders. The women have a schedule that rotates once a week: cooking, laundry, cleaning, washing the floors. Soon enough I am helping too: I set the table for breakfast, clear the plates, sweep the hall, wash the dishes after dinner. Mrs. Murphy is the hardest working of all, up early to make scones and biscuits and porridge, last to bed when she shuts off the lights.
At night, in the living room, the women gather to talk about the stockings they wear, whether the best ones have a seam up the back or are smooth, which brands last longest, which are scratchy; the most desirable shade of lipstick (by consensus, Ritz Bonfire Red); and their favorite brands of face powder. I sit silently by the fireplace, listening. Miss Larsen rarely participates; she is busy in the evenings creating lesson plans and studying. She wears small gold glasses when she reads, which seems to be whenever she isn’t doing chores. She always has a book or a dishrag in her hand, and sometimes both.
I am beginning to feel at home here. But as much as I hope that Mrs. Murphy has forgotten I don’t belong, of course she hasn’t. One afternoon, when I come in from the car with Miss Larsen after school, Mr. Sorenson is standing in the foyer, holding his black felt hat in his hands like a steering wheel. My stomach flops.
“Ah, here she is!” Mrs. Murphy exclaims. “Come, Niamh, into the parlor. Join us, please, Miss Larsen. Shut that door, we’ll catch our death of cold. Tea, Mr. Sorenson?”
“That would be lovely, Mrs. Murphy,” Mr. Sorenson says, lumbering after her through the double doors.
Mrs. Murphy gestures toward the rose velvet sofa and he sits down heavily, like an elephant I once saw in a picture book, his large stomach protruding from rounded thighs. Miss Larsen and I sit in the wingback chairs. When Mrs. Murphy disappears into the kitchen, he leans forward and smirks. “Niamh again, are you?”
“I don’t know.” I glance out the window at the street dusted with snow and Mr. Sorenson’s dark green truck that I somehow hadn’t noticed earlier parked in front of the house. The vehicle, more than his presence, makes me shudder. It’s the same one I rode in to the Grotes’, with Mr. Sorenson gabbing cheerfully the whole way.
“Let’s go back to Dorothy, shall we?” he says. “Easier.”
Miss Larsen looks as me, and I shrug. “All right.”
He clears his throat. “Why don’t we get to it.” He pulls his small glasses out of his breast pocket, puts them on, and holds a paper out at arm’s length. “There have been two failed attempts at placing out. The Byrnes and the Grotes. Trouble with the woman of the house in both places.” He looks at me over the top of his silver rims. “I must tell you, Dorothy, it’s beginning to appear that there’s some kind of . . . problem with you.”
“But I didn’t—”
He waves his sausage fingers at me. “The predicament, you must understand, is that you are an orphan, and that whatever the reality, it looks as if there may be an issue with . . . insubordination. Now, there are several ways to proceed. First, of course, we can send you back to New York. Or we can attempt to find another home.” He sighs heavily. “Which, to be frank, may prove difficult.”
Mrs. Murphy, who has been in and out of the room with her cabbage-rose tea service and is now pouring tea into delicate, thin-rimmed cups, sets the teapot on a trivet in the middle of the polished coffee table. She hands Mr. Sorenson a cup and offers him the sugar bowl. “Marvelous, Mrs. Murphy,” he says, and dumps four spoons of sugar into his cup. He adds milk, stirs it noisily, rests the small silver spoon on the rim of his saucer, and takes a long slurp.
“Mr. Sorenson,” Mrs. Murphy says when his cup is back in its resting place. “A thought occurs. May I speak with you in the foyer?”
“Why certainly.” He wipes his mouth with a pink napkin and gets up to follow her into the hall.
When the door closes behind them, Miss Larsen takes a sip of tea and places her cup back on its saucer with a little rattle. The brass lamp on the round table between us emits an amber glow. “I’m sorry you have to go through this. But I’m sure you understand that Mrs. Murphy, generous hearted as she is, can’t take you in indefinitely. You
do
understand, don’t you?”
“Yes.” There’s a lump in my throat. I don’t trust myself to say more.
When Mrs. Murphy and Mr. Sorenson come back into the room, she fixes her steady gaze on him and smiles.
“You are quite a fortunate girl,” he tells me. “This extraordinary woman!” He beams at Mrs. Murphy, and she lowers her eyes. “Mrs. Murphy has brought to my attention that a couple named the Nielsens, friends of hers, own the general store on Center Street. Five years ago they lost their only child.”
“Diphtheria, I believe it was, poor thing,” Mrs. Murphy adds.
“Yes, yes, tragedy,” Mr. Sorenson says. “Well, apparently they’ve been looking for help with the shop. Mrs. Nielsen contacted Mrs. Murphy several weeks ago, asking whether any young woman in residence was seeking employment. And then, when you washed up on her doorstep . . .” Perhaps sensing that this characterization of how I got here might be perceived as insensitive, he chuckles. “Forgive me, Mrs. Murphy! A figure of speech!”
“Quite all right, Mr. Sorenson, we understand you meant no harm by it.” Mrs. Murphy pours more tea into his cup and hands it to him, then turns to me. “After speaking with Miss Larsen about your situation, I told Mrs. Nielsen about you. I said that you are a sober-minded and mature almost-eleven-year-old girl, that you have impressed me with your ability to sew and clean, and that I have no doubt you could be of use to her. I explained that while adoption may be the most desirous eventual result, it is not expected.” She clasps her hands together. “And so Mr. and Mrs. Nielsen have agreed to meet with you.”
I know I am expected to respond, to express gratitude, but it takes a conscious effort to smile, and several moments to form the words. I am not grateful; I am bitterly disappointed. I don’t understand why I need to leave, why Mrs. Murphy can’t keep me if she thinks I am so well mannered. I don’t want to go into another home where I’m treated like a servant, tolerated only for the labor I can provide.
“How kind of you, Mrs. Murphy!” Miss Larsen exclaims, plunging into the silence. “That’s wonderful news, isn’t it, Dorothy?”
“Yes. Thank you, Mrs. Murphy,” I say, choking out the words.
“You’re quite welcome, child. Quite welcome.” She beams proudly. “Now, Mr. Sorenson. Perhaps you and I should attend this meeting as well?”
Mr. Sorenson drains his teacup and sets it in its saucer. “Indeed, Mrs. Murphy. I am also thinking that the two of us should meet separately to discuss the . . . finer points of this transaction. What would you say to that?”
Mrs. Murphy blushes and blinks; she shifts in her chair, picks up her teacup, and then puts it down without taking a sip. “Yes, that’s probably wise,” she says, and Miss Larsen looks over and gives me a smile.
Over the next few days, every time I see her Mrs. Murphy has another suggestion
for how I should comport myself on meeting the Nielsens. “A firm handshake, but not a squeeze,” she says, passing me on the stairs. “You must be ladylike. They need to know that you can be trusted behind the counter,” she lectures at dinner.
The other women chime in. “Don’t ask questions,” one advises.
“But answer them without hesitation,” another adds.
“Make sure your fingernails are clipped and groomed.”
“Clean your teeth just before with baking soda.”
“Your hair must be”—Miss Grund grimaces and reaches up to her own head, as if patting down soap bubbles—“tamed. You never know how they might feel about a redhead. Especially that tinny shade.”
“Now, now,” Miss Larsen says. “We’re going to scare the poor girl so much she won’t know how to act.”
On the morning of the meeting, a Saturday in mid-December, there is a light knock on my bedroom door. It’s Mrs. Murphy, holding a navy blue velvet dress on a hanger. “Let’s see if this fits,” she says, handing it to me. I’m not sure whether to invite her in or close the door while I change, but she solves this dilemma by bustling in and sitting on the bed.
Mrs. Murphy is so matter-of-fact that I am not ashamed to take my clothes off and stand there in my knickers. She removes the dress from the hanger, unzips a seam at the side that I hadn’t realized was a zipper, and lifts it over my head, helping me with the long sleeves, pulling down the gathered skirt, zipping it up again. She steps back in the small space to inspect me, yanks at one side and then the other. Tugs at a sleeve. “Let’s see about that hair,” she says, instructing me to turn around so she can take a look. Fishing in her apron pocket, she pulls out bobby pins and a hair clip. For the next few minutes she pokes and prods, pulling the hair back from my face and smoothing it into submission. When she’s finished to her satisfaction, she turns me around to look at my reflection in the glass.
Despite my trepidation about meeting the Nielsens, I can’t help smiling. For the first time since Mr. Grote butchered my hair months ago, I look almost pretty. I have never worn a velvet dress before. It is heavy and a little stiff, with a full skirt that falls in a lush drape to my midcalf. It gives off a faint scent of mothballs whenever I move. I think it’s beautiful, but Mrs. Murphy isn’t satisfied. Narrowing her eyes at me and clicking her tongue, she pinches the material. “Wait a minute, I’ll be right back,” she says, hurrying out and returning a few moments later with a wide black ribbon. “Turn around,” she instructs, and when I do, she loops the sash around my waist and ties it in the back with a wide bow. We both inspect her handiwork in the mirror.
“There we are. You look like a princess, my dear,” Mrs. Murphy declares. “Are your black stockings clean?”
I nod.
“Put them on, then. And your black shoes will be fine.” She laughs, her hands on my waist. “A redheaded Irish princess you are, right here in Minnesota!”
A
T THREE O
’
CLOCK THAT AFTERNOON
,
IN THE EARLY HOURS OF THE
first heavy snowstorm of the season, I greet Mr. and Mrs. Nielsen in Mrs. Murphy’s parlor, with Mr. Sorenson and Miss Larsen standing by.
Mr. Nielsen resembles a large gray mouse, complete with twitching whiskers, pink-tinged ears, and a tiny mouth. He is wearing a gray three-piece suit and a silk striped bow tie, and he walks with a black cane. Mrs. Nielsen is thin, almost frail. Her dark head of hair, streaked with silver, is pulled back in a bun. She has dark eyebrows and eyelashes and deep-set brown eyes, and her lips are stained a dark red. She wears no powder or rouge on her olive skin.
Mrs. Murphy puts the Nielsens at ease, plying them with tea and biscuits and inquiring about their short trip across town in the snow and then remarking generally on the weather: how the temperature dipped in the past few days and snow clouds gathered slowly to the west, how the storm finally began today, as everyone knew it would. They speculate about how much snow we are bound to get tonight, how long it will stay on the ground, when we might expect more snow, and what kind of winter it will be. Surely it won’t rival the winter of 1922, when ice storms were followed by blizzards and nobody could get any relief? Or the black-dust blizzard of 1923—remember that?—when dirty snow blew down from North Dakota, seven-foot snowdrifts covered entire sections of the city, and people didn’t leave their houses for weeks? On the other hand, there’s little chance that it will be as mild as 1921, the warmest December on record.
The Nielsens are politely curious about me, and I do my best to answer their questions without sounding either desperate or apathetic. The other three adults watch us with a quivering intensity. I sense them urging me to do well, to sit up straight and answer in complete sentences.
Finally, as one conversational theme after another runs its course, Mr. Sorenson says, “All right then. I believe we all know why we are here—to determine whether the Nielsens might be willing to provide Dorothy with a home, and whether Dorothy is suitable to their needs. To that end, Dorothy—can you tell the Nielsens why you wish to become part of their household, and what you might bring to it yourself ?”