Orphan Train

by Christina Baker Kline

“Turtles carry their homes on their backs.” Running her finger over the tattoo, she tells him what her dad told her: “They’re exposed and hidden at the same time. They’re a symbol of strength and perseverance.”

So I am learning to pretend, to smile and nod, to display empathy I do not feel. I am learning to pass, to look like everyone else, even though I feel broken inside.

And so your personality is shaped. You know too much, and this knowledge makes you wary. You grow fearful and mistrustful. The expression of emotion does not come naturally, so you learn to fake it. To pretend. To display an empathy you don’t actually feel. And so it is that you learn how to pass, if you’re lucky, to look like everyone else, even though you’re broken inside.

Time constricts and flattens, you know. It’s not evenly weighted. Certain moments linger in the mind and others disappear. The

people who matter in our lives stay with us, haunting our most ordinary moments. They’re with us in the grocery store, as we turn a corner, chat with a friend. They rise up through the pavement; we absorb them through our soles.

My entire life has felt like chance. Random moments of loss and connection. This is the first one that feels, instead, like fate.

I learned long ago that loss is not only probable but inevitable. I know what it means to lose everything, to let go of one life and find another. And now I feel, with a strange, deep certainty, that it must be my lot in life to be taught that lesson over and over again.

Options. She can sleep with the door open, wander around freely, come and go without someone watching her every move. She hadn’t realized how much of a toll the years of judgment and criticism, implied and expressed, have taken on her. It’s as if she’s been walking on a wire, trying to keep her balance. Now, for the first time, she feels like she’s on solid ground.

There’s a National Orphan Train Complex based in Concordia, Kansas, with a website that includes riders’ testimonies and photographs and a link to FAQs. (“Frequently asked questions?” Vivian