“Checking his teeth, we assumed,” Daniel recounted, finding it hard to resist the waves of sadness that came over him whenever he talked about his long-lost younger siblings. “The woman in the blue dress was almost surely from the Children’s Aid Society, you see.”
Genevieve stiffened slightly on her side of the love seat. “The orphan trains?” she asked.
Daniel nodded at his glass. “Most likely. Even though Maggie was of an age to take care of us, to the Children’s Aid Society we were parentless, and could be snatched up and shipped away at will to Ohio or the like to work on a farm. If I hadn’t been swimming, I might have been taken as well—they often employed large men to take some of the older boys, like me. But children were fairly valuable, you see—good labor. It’s still going on, you know.” He glanced over at her. “They still take children.”
“Did you try to find them?” she asked.
“We did,” Daniel said, swallowing some more whiskey. “We tried. But who was going to listen to a pair of grubby street kids like us? To the authorities, the orphan trains were and are a godsend, getting unwanted children off the streets and into loving homes.”
“But these children weren’t unwanted,” Genevieve finished for him.
“No. No, they were very much wanted.” Another flash of memory, another pang: his little sister Mary, about one year old, toddling across the floor of their crowded apartment into his waiting arms as his parents and Maggie cheered. His father had been holding brand-new baby Connor. Irish twins, they’d called Mary and Connor, babies born within a year of each other. And little Stephen would follow about twelve months after that.
Daniel was distracted from his recollections as Genevieve grabbed his arm excitedly, almost knocking his glass out of his hand.
“We could find them,” she said. “I, or Polly Palmer, she could find them. As a journalist I could get access to records, discover where they were sent …” She stopped short at the sight of his shaking head.
“Thank you,” Daniel said, setting down his glass again. He should have known that Genevieve would pounce on this part of his tale like a dog on a juicy bone, that she would take it and worry it and try to fix it. It was part of her very nature, this desire to fix things, particularly any injustice. “Thank you,” he repeated, “for saying that. But I have tried. I have been trying. Those records are sealed very tightly. I have people working on it, though, and I feel I’ll have an answer soon.”
Genevieve looked at him sadly. “Oh, Daniel. I do hope so. I can’t imagine losing my brothers. I’m so sorry.”
“Are you wondering what all this has to do with Jacob and the money?”
“I assumed you were getting there.”
After the little ones were lost, Daniel continued, Maggie was utterly inconsolable. For days, she sat in the corner of their apartment, wrapped in an old dressing gown of their mother’s, staring sightlessly out the window into the street. She could not be persuaded to either eat or drink and remained impervious to Daniel’s pleas. Neighbor women would stop by and try to cajole her into taking a bite or sip or getting a few moments of sleep, but nothing roused her from her almost catatonic state. Daniel began to fear she would simply wither away and he would be left with no family at all. Word must have gotten out—it was a small, gossipy community—and even the gang leaders stopped by, standing in the doorway of their dim tenement rooms. Maggie was a great beauty, and her quick laugh and pretty ways, so similar to their mother’s, were much admired. Even these gruff men tried to tell her, in their own way, that it wasn’t her fault—children played alone in the streets all the time; the Children’s Aid Society matrons were no better than predators—to no avail. Finally, one unlucky man said the unthinkable. As the leaders were taking their leave, having been given tea and soup by a kindly neighbor, one of the younger men paused in the doorway and looked over his shoulder at the once-lovely young girl slowly wasting away by a window.
“There, lass, don’t take on so,” he said, his accent revealing he was recently arrived from the old country, as they called it. “The wee ones are probably better off, headed to a clean life in the country.” He had glanced around their two and a half rooms with distaste, Daniel remembered. Daniel also recalled the very unchildlike fury that rose within him, hot and bilious. He had wanted to fling himself at this stranger and rip out his throat for even daring to suggest that his siblings would be better off elsewhere. Adult Daniel understood better: the homesick, newly landed man had probably been thinking of the green pastures and open spaces he’d left behind in Ireland. All this man saw were the piles of unwashed dishes and clothes,
