The Forgotten Home Child

by Genevieve Graham

  “It’s hot today,” Chrissie says, squinting up at me. “You sure you’re okay to be walking in this heat?”

  She’s wearing her mother’s favourite old straw hat, which takes me back. Until recently, she’s avoided dealing with Susan’s boxes, letting them gather dust in her basement rather than deal with her grief. I’m glad to see she’s finally going through them, though I can’t deny a pang of sorrow at the memory of a different face beneath that brim, a different smile.

  I recover quickly enough that she doesn’t notice. “I feel fine, sweetheart. Your garden is looking lovely.”

  She rises and sweeps the back of her hand across her brow. “Jamie loves green beans. It’s a good thing they’re easy to grow. I’d be in trouble if he liked artichokes or something.”

  “He’s fortunate to have them straight from the garden. People don’t grow their own as often these days.”

  “The world is a busier place. No time or space for gardens. But I like gardening.”

  “Me too,” I say softly. “It always took me away from less pleasant things.”

  Chrissie picks up her pot, brimming with beans for tonight’s dinner, and takes my arm as we turn toward the house. “I’ve been thinking about the stuff you told us last night,” she says carefully. “It must be difficult to talk about.”

  Difficult. Yes, that’s fair to say. Last night I’d watched Chrissie and Jamie’s eyes widen in disbelief as I told them about my childhood in England. Every time they asked a question, my memories were more than willing to chase down the particulars, and I’d felt as though I was reliving those moments: walking barefoot on the slick wet cobblestones in London, running into the rain to rinse dirt from my face, seeing the disdain in people’s eyes as they passed by me. Meeting Mary that first time, the way she’d been the one to take my hand, to rescue me. How I wish I could have done the same for her.

  “I suppose I had hoped it would all just go away,” I admit.

  “I feel bad that it took me this long to find out. I had no idea what you’d been through. Did Mom know?”

  “She knew what you knew. That I’d come here from England as a child. Not much more than that.” I give her a small smile. “I can be evasive when I want to be.”

  “So I’ve learned. You and Pop. He never said anything either.”

  “No. He had his own reasons.” I look away, not quite ready to explain that part yet.

  “It must have been hard to keep such a big secret.”

  “Not really. I’ve discovered that if you don’t want to talk about something, you just don’t.”

  Chrissie opens the door on the back porch, and I feel her eyes on my back as I hobble past. “So you’re all right talking about it now?”

  “It’s not that simple.” I stop and turn to face her. “My life is made up of secrets, and for a long time, I thought it was easier to keep them to myself than to share them. But I’m tired of carrying them around. I think when you accidentally dropped the trunk yesterday, it was a message to me that it’s time to let those secrets go.”

  Chrissie doesn’t reply, but she nods her head thoughtfully, and we go inside. The front door bangs shut, and I realize Jamie must be home from his soccer game.

  “Hi, Mom. Hi, Gran,” he says as he enters the kitchen and makes a beeline for the refrigerator.

  “Don’t eat anything,” Chrissie says. “Supper will be ready in no time if you help with the beans. Come and sit at the table, Gran. I’ll bring you lemonade while you wait.”

  “Should we clear this off the table to make room for supper?” I ask pointedly, looking at Chrissie. My trunk is taking up a good portion of the tabletop, and I’m certain it didn’t make its way from the living room into the kitchen on its own.

  “I thought it might provide food for thought.”

  “I think it looks cool there,” Jamie says. “Very retro.”

  Chrissie’s expression softens. “Unless you’d rather not talk about this tonight.”

  “I don’t mind,” I say, which is the truth. The revelations from the day before did weigh on me, though. They’d brought back dreams I have not had in many, many years, and I stayed in bed longer than usual this morning. But there is no reason to delay the story. The latches of my battered old trunk look like staring eyes, a silent witness to those days, holding me accountable. “It can stay.”

  I sip my lemonade as Jamie helps Chrissie with the beans, and I smell the meaty aroma of pork when she opens the oven. When all is prepared, they come and sit with me at the table.

  “This looks delicious,” I say.

  “Thanks, Gran,” Chrissie replies, placing a small pork chop on my plate. She turns to Jamie. “How was school?”

  He gives a vague shrug. When his phone lights up, he reaches for it, but Chrissie pries it from his hand.

  “Not at the table. Pass the beans to Gran, please.”

  He mutters something under his breath and passes me the steaming bowl. Only then does Chrissie hand the phone back and Jamie tucks it into his back pocket.

  The beans are fresh and delicious and I eat them as quickly as I can, which isn’t that fast anymore. Chrissie and Jamie’s plates are empty long before mine, but they wait for me to finish. As Jamie clears the dishes, Chrissie slides the trunk toward me, a question in her eyes. I hesitate just for a moment, then I unlatch it and pull out an old cotton frock, its white fabric long ago dulled to grey and speckled with stains. It’s been so many years since I last wore it, it feels foreign. Like it belonged to someone else entirely.

  Jamie, already done with the cleanup, is taking out his phone and heading towards the stairs, but he stops and lingers in the doorway. “You know, I still don’t understand why those policemen put you in an orphanage,” he says. “You weren’t an orphan.”

  “A lot of us weren’t,” I reply. “Not in the technical sense of the word. We might as well have been, though. You must understand that poverty in those days was rampant. When the Industrial Revolution started, families everywhere came from the farms to the city, hoping for work, but there wasn’t enough room for them all, and there certainly weren’t enough jobs. Most of the children I knew in the orphanage and at Barnardo’s had at least one parent still alive.”

  “Really?” Jamie says, inching back toward the table. “That seems wrong.”

  “Sometimes when parents were struggling to support their children, they brought them to the Home for a time. Many planned to take them back with them again when they were able, but sometimes the children had already been sent away by the time they returned.”

  “What was it like going to an orphanage? I mean, I’ve seen movies, like”—Jamie pulls up a chair beside his mother—“Annie? Was that it? Oh yeah. And Oliver Twist. Was it like in those movies? I don’t mean with all the singing and dancing, of course. But the rest?”

  “Not quite.” In a flash, I am back in a cold grey room with Mary on the day we’d arrived at the orphanage. I wince, remembering the sharp pain of the woman’s comb scraping and snagging in my tangled hair, and I press my hand against my soft grey curls.

  “The first thing they did was shave our heads.” Even now, I can still recall the coarse, unfamiliar terrain of my young scalp, like sandpaper against my fingertips. In that moment, I’d thought cutting my hair was the worst thing they could do to me. How naïve I had been. “Then they gave us matching dresses, tights, and shoes, then they sent us to the matron’s office and asked what our names were. When I told her, she informed me that Winny was no longer my name. She said no one would call me Winny for as long as I lived in the orphanage. She told me my name was now Four-Seventeen, and Mary was Two-Thirty-Seven.” I take a shaky breath. “She was right, too. Everyone there called us by those numbers, never our names. Everyone but Mary and me. I think I might have forgotten my name along the way if it weren’t for her. She always called me Winny. And I always called her Mary.”

  “Oh, Gran.” Chrissie’s gentle hand covers mine. “What a terrible thing to do to
a child.”

  I meet Jamie’s stunned gaze. “Not quite like the movies,” I say.

  Chrissie reaches for my old Bible and opens the cover. “Tell me about Dr. Barnardo. It seems unbelievable that he could just send children across the ocean like that. Did anything ever happen to him?”

  “Oh no,” I say quickly. “He died before I was born, but from everything I understand, Thomas Barnardo was a well-intentioned man with a good heart. He dedicated his life to helping destitute children get an education and improve themselves.” I take a moment to fold the frock. “There is a story we were told about Dr. Barnardo from the mid-1800s, just after he opened his first shelter for boys. One night the place was so full they had to turn some boys away. A couple of days later, one of them was found dead in the street from hunger and exposure. After that, Dr. Barnardo hung a sign over the door that said, ‘No Destitute Child Ever Refused Admission.’ I remember seeing that sign myself.” My fingertip absently follows a worn line of stitches on the old cotton. “I believe Dr. Barnardo was a good man. When I was at his Home for Girls, I got my name back, and I left that miserable Four-Seventeen behind. His plan to send children to Canada was supposed to be a good one. This country was young and it needed people, and England was overwhelmed by poor children with no foreseeable future. A win-win situation, you’d call it these days.” I falter, my gaze going to the trunk. Its presence makes me uneasy. As if I might need to carry it somewhere else, change my life again. “It’s just that things didn’t always go according to his plan.”

  Jamie points at two faded cards in the trunk. “What are those?”

  “Oh, dear.” I take the cards out, turn them over in my hands. “They’re from Barnardo’s. Before we left for Canada, every child was given two of these cards. One was to confirm that we’d arrived safely at our new home, and the second was for us to send an update later on, to show how we were progressing in our new life.” I tuck them back in the trunk. “It was a nice thought.”

  “Yours were never sent?” Chrissie asks.

  “No. Even if she’d known I had them, I’m sure my mistress would never have offered to mail them for me.”

  “Why not?” Jamie asks. “If this was such a good plan for all you kids, then why wouldn’t she mail them?”

  I swallow, tasting the bitterness of the question. They have no idea. “Yes, it was a good plan, in essence. The trouble was that they greatly underestimated what would be needed once we arrived here. There simply weren’t enough people to monitor all of us. Canada is much larger than England, and without proper checks in place…” I drop my gaze. “A lot of people took terrible advantage of the children in their care.”

  Chrissie and Jamie exchange a glance, but they don’t speak, and I’m grateful for that. I need a moment to let grief release its grip on my throat. When I am able, I lift my eyes and offer a small smile.

  “So you were all alone out there.” There’s a familiar loss in Chrissie’s face. She knows what it is to be alone, since her mother had died the same year her husband had left her. How far she’s come since then. “Did you… ever look for your friends?”

  “I tried to, but once we reached the farm, I couldn’t get off it. It’s not like today.” I look at Jamie. “There were no cellphones, of course. I couldn’t text an Uber, could I? I was in the middle of nowhere, and I had no way of finding out where any of them were.” I close my eyes briefly. “But at night, when I was all alone, I saw them.” I remember those nights so well. “Every night, I said their names, one by one, and I pictured their faces. I couldn’t ever let myself forget them.”

  eight WINNY

  — 1936 —

  Follow me, Home Girl.” Mistress Adams slammed the truck door behind her. “Leave your trunk here by the barn.”

  Winny climbed stiffly out of the back of the truck, taking in the world around her. A large, rundown barn towered above her at the side of the drive, and the earthy aroma of hay hung in the still air like laundry. Farther ahead, she spotted two more sheds. A flock of brown chickens surrounded the smaller one, and a massive garden flanked the other. In the distance stood the farmhouse, a two-storey, ramshackle place with grimy windows and a crooked chimney, and Helen swiftly disappeared within. Besides the buildings, just about everything else Winny saw was grass. And it went on forever.

  “You planning on standing around all day?” Mistress Adams called as she strode toward the chickens. “Because I did not pay for that.”

  Winny ran to catch up, ducking and squealing with terror when the chickens panicked and took flight, their wings drumming the air around her head. Ignoring her distress, Mistress Adams shoved a basket at Winny then opened the door to the coop. Winny followed her inside, catching her breath as a putrid smell hit her square in the face. She swallowed hard against bile and braced herself against a shelf, but when she drew her hand away, it was smeared with warm, wet chicken poop. Taking shallow breaths through her mouth, Winny tried to wipe the mess off her hand with a piece of straw.

  “Eggs must be collected twice a day,” Mistress Adams was saying. “In the winter, you’ll need to do it more often because you cannot allow the eggs to freeze and go to waste. Return the basket to the house when you’re done or else the raccoons will get them.”

  Raccoons? What’s a raccoon? But she was too afraid to ask.

  “Go on, then.” Mistress Adams glared pointedly at the empty basket then left Winny alone in the henhouse.

  Winny looked around the bleak hut, wondering what to do. Chickens wandered in and out of the filthy building through a hole in the wall while others sat in boxes, puffed like mushrooms on the straw. One nesting box was vacant, and inside it lay four eggs. Winny carefully placed each egg in her basket and stepped outside.

  “Four?” Mistress Adams balked. “What is the matter with you? Did you even look?”

  Back inside, Mistress Adams reached under a sitting hen and pulled out more eggs, paying no mind to the chicken’s indignant outburst, then she gestured toward the next one. Winny stared at the pointy beaks and sharp claws, daring herself to copy her mistress. As much as she feared the birds, she had a feeling Mistress Adams could be crueler. Bracing herself for an angry peck, Winny thrust her hand under a chicken and felt around within the bird’s soft, warm down. At first, she felt nothing but straw and feathers, then her fingers bumped against something hard. She closed them around two perfect ovals then pulled them out, quietly thrilled by the sight of the eggs in her palm. While Mistress Adams observed, Winny continued, visiting each of the ten nesting boxes and filling her basket to the top.

  “Come along,” Mistress Adams said, already on her way toward the house, “and don’t trip over yourself. We can’t have you breaking any of those.”

  Winny swore to herself she would never do that. She couldn’t imagine what her mistress might do.

  At the door to the house, Mistress Adams stopped short, and Winny instinctively placed her hand over the basket to keep the eggs in place.

  “Put the basket on this table, then leave. Understand? No looking around, no asking questions. You are never to come inside this house.”

  Winny blinked, baffled. “Where will I eat, Mistress? Where will I sleep?”

  “By the time we’re done with our meal, you should be done with the cows. Leave the milk here, then you can get your plate and bring it to the sheep barn. You will eat and sleep there.”

  Winny swayed, her knees suddenly weak. “The cows, Mistress?”

  Mistress Adams’s lips hardened to a thin line. “Have they sent me an idiot? Do you know how to do anything?”

  “I do,” Winny whispered, her chin quivering. “I’m happy to cook for you, or sew, or any number of things. It’s just—”

  “All of that is useless to me. I need someone who can do farm chores.”

  “I’m sorry, Mistress. It’s just that I’ve never seen a cow in my life.”

  “Helen!” Mistress Adams shouted. “Helen! Come here now!”

  Winny h
eard a thump from inside the farmhouse, then Helen appeared in the doorway. “Yes, Mum?”

  “Show the Home Girl how to milk a cow, would you?”

  Helen’s jaw dropped. “But I was reading.”

  “Just do it.” Mistress Adams turned to face Winny. “This will not happen again. You are here so Helen can plan her wedding. She is not to be disturbed. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes, Mistress,” Winny said.

  “Come on, Home Girl,” Helen said, storming past.

  “My name’s Winny.”

  “I don’t care.”

  When they entered the cow barn, Winny noticed a tall, thin boy just leaving one of the stalls. At the sight of her, he practically bolted outside.

  “Who was that?” Winny asked.

  “The Home Boy. He sleeps in here.”

  Winny’s jaw dropped. A Home Boy?

  “Stop standing there looking like a fool, and watch. I’m only going to show you once.”

  Winny turned her attention to the massive beasts before her and tried to slow the hammering of her pulse as Helen dragged out a stool. She watched as Helen’s long fingers wound around a teat then pulled and squeezed, spraying the bucket with a neat line of steaming milk. After a few minutes, she let go then stepped back and shoved Winny onto the stool. With shaking hands, Winny took ahold, but no matter how she tugged, she couldn’t coax out any milk. When she finally managed to pinch out a little, the cow kicked the bucket over.

  Helen huffed with exasperation. “Well, I’ve shown you how, haven’t I?” She headed toward the door. “Don’t come out until they’re all done.”

  In silence, Winny watched her leave, then she gazed up at the thick, crusted spiderwebs lining the rafters, seeking out the sky through holes in the roof. “What am I doing here?” she whispered.

  The cow slammed a back hoof on the floor and turned her sad eyes on Winny.