The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson: A Novel

Prologue

Madeline

November 1924

Chicago

Joe Teague said he would marry her, but he didn’t want some other man’s brat hanging around.

Though Joe Teague would love Cecily, Madeline just knew!

He’d refused even to meet her. This is a whirlwind, darling, he’d told Madeline. Get caught up in it or get tossed.

Now Cecily’s little hand was hot and sticky in hers, as Madeline—clutching in her other hand a small suitcase packed with Cecily’s extra dress, three little pairs of clean underwear; let anyone say Cecily didn’t come from people who loved her!—led her up the walk toward the imposing brick mansion. It had taken an hour and a half and four buses to get here, but the place looked as nice as Rosie from the dance hall had promised. Four stories, rows and rows of windows. That was good. There would be light. Which window would be Cecily’s?

Madeline didn’t want to cry. She didn’t want to upset Cecily.

Only three weeks ago, it was, when Joe Teague had pressed up too close, dance after ten-cent dance, then invited Madeline out for a late, late supper. He was wearing gold cuff links and six-dollar shoes. She’d ordered the pork chops with mashed potatoes, sopping up the last of the gravy with a thick hunk of white bread, and he’d said he liked to see a girl with an appetite. Only three weeks ago, and now her life was about to change. I’ll buy you a house in Oak Park, all right? he’d promised. I’ll take you to see the Grand Canyon.

Madeline was twenty-two years old, and every day she was aware: her looks wouldn’t last forever.

She crouched in the icy gravel drive and looked into the deep blue eyes of her daughter. Tommy’s eyes; Madeline loved them. She caught one of Cecily’s dark curls and twirled it around her finger. Her gloves were new, from Joe Teague. It wouldn’t do for his wife-to-be to have holes in her gloves, he’d said. Don’t you want to leave this whole sad chapter of your life behind?

She straightened her daughter’s wool cap. Tugged at the front of the little hand-me-down coat. Oh, Joe Teague would see his mistake! Madeline would make him see. This was only temporary, today! He wasn’t heartless. He was just a man. Men thought differently about things, but there were ways to set them straight. It just took a little time! And then he would welcome Cecily into their Oak Park home, they would be a family—

A thin woman with gray curls poked her head out the front door of the mansion. May I help you?

Madeline stood, alarmed, though she shouldn’t have been. She rested her hand on the back of Cecily’s head. Yes! My—my daughter.

The woman’s face softened in sympathy. Come in out of the cold.

Madeline led Cecily forward. There were big pillars on either side of the door, tiny octagons of tile forming a pretty pattern on the stoop, a stained-glass fleur-de-lis window in the door. A classy place, Madeline thought with satisfaction, though tears streamed down her face.

The woman, in a brown sack of a suit, asked Cecily what her name was, and Cecily told her.

My—my husband died, Madeline said. She had never been in such a soaring room before: marble columns, a wide staircase that started in the middle of the room and split at a landing to go up in two directions. She had never felt so small. I can’t—can’t afford—

We see all sorts of women in your position, ma’am. The woman did not seem unkind. She picked up a clipboard and asked Madeline for some information, which Madeline, voice trembling, gave. Don’t worry, ma’am, the woman said. We’ll take good care of her.

Cecily tugged Madeline’s coat. Mama?

Oh, Sissy! Madeline knelt down and hugged her like she was dying. Maybe she was. Cecily felt so sturdy, so terrifically alive, hot, in her little coat, while Madeline was brittle, cold, drifting away. You be a good girl like Mama taught you, all right? I’ll be back for you before a mare could shake her tail. I’ll be back. Don’t forget me, Sissy. I’m going to get us everything. It’s just going to take a little time. Don’t forget me!

Cecily had started to cry, though Madeline knew it was only because she was crying; that Cecily didn’t really understand.

Here. Madeline stripped off her new gloves and fumbled to open the clasps of the suitcase. Look, I tucked in something from your daddy. She pulled out the prayer card, on which was written Hope begins with Saint Jude. Tommy had brought it home one night early on in their time in Chicago—Madeline had no idea why, or where it was from—and leaned it up against the lamp on the dresser. More than once, she’d caught him gazing at it while he fastened his collar, as if he might actually believe praying to the saint could do some good. Madeline had scoffed every time, made terrible fun of him, in fact, and, after he’d died, she’d pressed the card to her chest and told the saint how sorry she was, and deep down she wondered if she’d prayed a little harder, to someone or something or anything, Tommy might’ve not got killed.

She didn’t think Joe Teague would like the card one bit. Remember how I told you, Sissy? How this was one of your daddy’s favorite things? She held the card out to Cecily, who took it in her chubby fingers and frowned down at it.

A gentle hand on Madeline’s shoulder. It’s best if you go now, ma’am.

Madeline’s heart pounded. Her things—her other things are here! She snatched the card from Cecily and dropped it into the suitcase’s inside pocket, then latched the whole thing up and stood with it in her hand, clutching her new gloves in the other. She didn’t want to give the suitcase over. You can see how much I love her!

The woman reached for the suitcase, took hold of the handle gently. I know, ma’am. You’ll be back just as soon as you can. We can hold her for up to a year before she’s put up for adoption. Would you like me to check that option on the form?

Madeline finally let go. Yes, yes! I’ll be back. She was putting on her gloves. A year? Don’t be insane. I’ll be back long before a year goes by.

Cecily was really crying now, though surely she didn’t know what a year meant—did she?

It’s best if you go now, ma’am.

Madeline knelt before Cecily again. This nice lady’s going to look after you awhile, all right, Sissy? I know it’s always been just the two of us against the world, but now you’re going to have so many nice friends to play with!

Mama! Cecily shouted, an objection, as if she understood now, and Madeline grabbed her into a hug again, but the woman was yanking her arm, pulling her up, ushering her out the door with gentle force.

I’ll be back, Sissy! Madeline yelled, then the door shut behind her, and she was out in the cold. A light snow had started to fall.

Madeline screamed into the gray of the sky. She screamed again.

A crow cawed.

Snow drifted down, settling on evergreen boughs.

And Madeline set out walking, wiping the tears from her face before they could freeze.

Part One

Firecracker

Chapter 1

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Itasca, Minnesota

It was a Tuesday morning when Liz got the call she’d been dreading. It’s your mom. You’d better get over here. It was her mother’s next-door neighbor Harold, who checked every morning to make sure Cecily had raised the blinds in the kitchen of the big old Victorian by 7 A.M. If not, he went straight over to check on her. She fell, Harold said. She’s unconscious. I called the ambulance.

Liz tossed her phone onto the bed, shucked off her flannel pajamas, grabbed a sweater and jeans and wrestled into them. Alarm had numbed her limbs, made them hard to manage. As happened most mornings lately, she’d been sipping coffee and staring at the row of Dean’s golf shirts still hanging on his side of the closet, telling herself this would be the day she’d box them up and take them to Goodwill. People said time slowed after a death, but, for Liz, whole days, weeks, even months, had zipped by in a blur. She could not account for the more than three years that had passed since the day—also a Tuesday—she’d woken up beside him and he simply had not. An aneurysm; there’d been no predicting it. Nor did she understand how the pain could seem to grow worse with time, not better. The initial shock that had shifted to a dull ache for a couple years was now, from time to time, a screaming pain.

And now her mother! A fall. The first slip toward the end, as everyone knew, especially at Cecily’s age. Liz yanked on wool socks, grabbed her phone, and ran to the mudroom. She shoved her feet into her SORELs, pulled on her parka and leather gloves.

Car keys, car keys, where?

On the hook where they always were, thank God. And her purse beside them. She dropped her phone into its pocket and hurried out into the cement-cold of the garage, pressing the button for the opener, the door whirring up (thank you, Dean; her birthday present, seven years ago). Into the cold Grand Cherokee. She fired it up, then jumped out to grab the shovel and hack away at the six-inch-high drift that had formed after last night’s snow. Frozen solid. She tossed the shovel into a much bigger drift against the garage, hopped back into the car, and gunned it in reverse. A big galumph over the bump, but she made it! Out onto the frozen gravel road, sheltered by tall pines. The road was slick, and she was driving too fast.

Slow down, slow down, she heard her own voice, as if she were talking to her daughter, Molly, who always drove way too fast, in Liz’s opinion, but now it was Liz herself who only pressed harder on the gas. It was eight miles to town—thirteen minutes, minimum, in even the best of weather—and she was half cursing Dean for insisting fifteen years ago that this was their dream lake house, where they’d retire, and half thinking how she’d been trying and trying (hadn’t she?) on her twice-weekly visits to tell Cecily that it was simply time to leave the old Victorian where Cecily had lived for nearly seventy years; where Liz had grown up, and Liz’s father, Sam, too. Heartbreaking, yes, but a woman at ninety-four couldn’t expect to still live alone, and, if it was independence Cecily wanted—she’d refused even to consider having Molly and Caden move in, saying flatly, "They are not invited"—surely an apartment up at the Senior Village would be nice, wouldn’t it, when so many of her friends were there?

The same people I’ve had to answer to all my life, you mean? Cecily would say, with a dismissive laugh. And Liz, inwardly fuming—she’d always felt herself the more adult of the two of them, even when she was a small child—would turn to chores that seemed more immediately pressing: the garbage needed taking out, the steps another sprinkling of Ice Melt, and so on. Honestly, Liz just hated to argue, especially with Cecily, who never failed to win. And, yes, there’d surely been a part of Liz that had been happy to deny that disaster was on their doorstep (just the bare facts: ninety-four; that big old house), happy to let Cecily continue blithely on—or else it had been Liz herself who’d been blithe, pretending this call wouldn’t come, when she must have known it would. But—she supposed; and not that this was an excuse—she’d been caught up in her grief, unable to handle things with the practical efficiency she’d always handled most everything before.

Before.

And now see where they were. Knowing Cecily, she’d probably been out shoveling the back steps after last night’s snow, even though she’d been told a thousand times to wait for Harold to do it.

Chapter 2

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Itasca, Minnesota

When Cecily woke up, she was in her kitchen being strapped to a gurney, and she recognized the paramedic from church. Roger, I was hoping not to see you until Sunday, she said.

He smiled, tightening a strap. I could say the same about you, Mrs. Larson. Now, it seems you may have broken your hip. We’re going to get you to the hospital.

That’s impossible. I have so much to do today. But she remembered. She’d simply missed the bottom step of the back stairs that led from the upstairs hall into the kitchen. The stairs she’d climbed up and down at least ten times daily for more than sixty-five years. The ones that her daughter had said recently were too steep for her, telling her she ought to use the wide front stairs and always hold the railing. And Cecily had thought, Ha. I have excellent balance, she’d told Liz. Nothing to worry about.

But Liz had been right to worry, after all. Cecily had missed the bottom step; had probably hit her head, too, or else why the lost consciousness? She wished Sam were here—he would be able to explain—but he hadn’t been here in twenty years.

She reached for Roger’s wrist; he stopped adjusting the second strap and looked at her with placid blue eyes. He was suited for this work. So calm. She would write a letter to the department in praise. If she recovered. That was really what was on her mind. The if. Is this the beginning of the end? she asked.

Roger gave a slight smile and shook his head. Let’s just get you to the hospital, Mrs. Larson. You’re in shock now, but it’s going to start to hurt.

Oh, yes. I understand about that, she said, and he laid a blanket over her, and he and the other paramedic—whom she didn’t recognize; a Baptist?—carried her through the house and out the front door, where red flashers lit the gray morning sky.

She heard a car pull up and stop, a door slam, footsteps crunching snow. Mom? Mom?

Cecily couldn’t reach out her hand or turn her head, they had her strapped in so. Don’t worry, Liz, honey! Just a little fall, she called out, as the paramedics bounced her along. They were moving gingerly, with the snow and ice underfoot. The air was frigid on her face; she could see her breath. She heard Roger telling Liz about the broken hip, the shock; that Liz could follow the ambulance to the hospital, and not to worry about red lights, just follow them on through.

Cecily did not think this was good advice at all. Anything could happen! Liz could have an accident on the way to the hospital just as easily as Cecily had fallen. You be careful, though, Liz, honey! she called out. Why had she always felt such munificence from Time, when in fact, day by day by day, she was coming closer and closer to breaking the promise she’d made to herself: that she would tell Liz and Molly the truth about their family before she left this earth.

The one time she’d mentioned it to Liz, about a year ago, Liz had just shaken her head, seeming to misunderstand. "You’re an orphan, Mom. You don’t even know your background, right? How do you expect to be able to tell us?"

Admittedly, Cecily had brought up the subject only when Liz was on her way out the door, parka and boots on and everything. Also, it had been a day when Liz had seemed particularly out of sorts, her grief bubbling to the surface as it did from time to time.

But Liz had never followed up with any questions. Maybe she just wasn’t interested? Cecily could hope.

Still, though. I was Cecily McAvoy, she imagined beginning. Born June 5, 1920, to Madeline and Thomas McAvoy.

It got a lot more complicated from there.

But she’d always liked the sound of her parents’ names—the ones on the papers in the file at the orphanage, which she and Flip had sneaked a look at one day when Mrs. Hamilton had been called away by the sudden alarm of a mysterious (ha) kitchen fire, leaving the big drawer in her private upstairs office unlocked.

Father, deceased. That had been a blow, at age seven, to find out for certain.

Mother, unknown address. (An address beside that was crossed out, with a note: Attempt to contact returned to sender.) Perhaps worse.

Anyway, that was such a small part of the story. And, for some reason, Cecily hadn’t even told Liz that much. Madeline and Thomas McAvoy. Liz with her permanent pinched frown, these days, and Cecily felt for her, she did, and Dean had been a wonderful man, but sometimes Cecily just wanted to shake Liz and say, There’s a lot more life out ahead of you, so buck up, kid.

Though, at sixty-eight, Liz was not really a kid anymore, Cecily had to admit.

I’ll be right behind you, Mom! Liz called back now, and Cecily wiggled her fingers—all she could approximate as a wave, strapped in as she was—and then a feeling that she imagined was grace, or maybe it was gratitude (how fortunate she was, to be in such capable hands! to have lived the long life she had!), permeated her body, warming her by degrees despite the frigid air, and she heard the idling engine of the ambulance growing louder with each of the paramedics’ careful steps, the creak of the door being opened, and then they were sliding her inside, into the warmth, and, as she saw the dials and machines lining the inside of the metal compartment, she thought, how interesting, that this was where she’d ended up, when she had been the girl famous for never falling.

Fearless, this one is, said Mrs. Hamilton, resting her hand on the back of Cecily’s dark curls. A firecracker. Honestly, we don’t even know what to do with her.

Cecily smiled up at the man in the gleaming black topcoat—the orphans were instructed always to be charming to visitors, and never to seem hungry—though her toes were curled inside her too-small shoes with nerves at having been called into Mrs. Hamilton’s office. Flip and Dolores had whispered that certainly they’d been found out, before Cecily had shushed them. How could Mrs. H. even suspect they’d climbed out onto the roof again after lights-out last night—and, if she did, wouldn’t all the malefactors have been called in? Instead, the other orphans, all seventy of them, had been sent outside to play, with only Miss Oversham and Miss Thompson to watch them, which Mrs. H. rarely allowed to happen, because she said Miss Oversham didn’t have the sense for this work. (Cecily disagreed: Miss Oversham had taught her to read, said she was the best seven-year-old reader she’d ever seen and that reading would open up the world for her, then presented her with her very own pocket-size copy of Around the World in 80 Days to prove it. Cecily had carried the book in her apron pocket for weeks, sleeping with it under her pillow to make sure it didn’t get swiped, though eventually Horace, twelve and a giant, stole it straight from her pocket, ripped out the pages, and stomped them into a mud puddle. In Cecily’s view, the only thing Miss Oversham didn’t understand was that orphans couldn’t have anything nice of their own.)

Right now, Cecily could only conclude that she was really in trouble. She just had no idea why.

Pretty little thing, too, the man said, and the up-and-down look he gave Cecily made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. He had a thick brown mustache that covered most of his mouth, so it was impossible to tell if he was smiling. But the price you’re asking is awfully high.

The price is the price. A required donation to the Home, Mrs. Hamilton said stiffly. I believe she’d be perfect for your needs.

Mrs. Hamilton and the man stared each other down, and the man’s mustache twitched, which only intensified Cecily’s awful feeling that she’d done something horribly wrong. You are just the worst troublemaker, child; no wonder your mother never came back for you, Mrs. H. always said, especially whenever she caught Cecily turning backflips down the hallway, or front flips down the stairs. And what was Mrs. H. trying to sell, anyway, that this man didn’t want to pay full price for?

The whirring feeling at the back of Cecily’s neck was growing worse.

Mrs. H. spoke first. Cecily, dear, why don’t you show the nice man the way you walk on the railing?

But you said I wasn’t supposed to—

Come now. Mrs. H. tugged her by the hand.

Out in the cavernous hall, Cecily removed her shoes and stockings, more nervous by the second. She’d only ever tried this when no adults were around, and the two times Mrs. H. had caught her, she’d yelled her head off and sent Cecily to The Closet for a whole day. And now she wanted her to walk the rail for this horrible—Cecily had decided he could be nothing else—man?

The Home was an old mansion, and the wide staircase that led up from the broad tiled foyer split in the middle at a landing graced with a weathered statue of a sad-looking woman, then headed up in two narrower flights to the second floor. All flights were lined in sweeping oak balustrades (once a week, the orphans polished every post), as was the upper length of hall that crossed at the rear of the building. It was this rail that Cecily was preparing to cross. The drop to the landing below was a good fifteen feet.

Mrs. H. clapped twice. Chop, chop. And do that little flip at the end.

Cecily had never, ever seen adults act the way Mrs. H. and this man were acting now.

But what could she do about it? Nothing. Just like she could do nothing about the fact that her mother hadn’t come back for her in almost three whole years, even though the box on the form was checked saying she’d intended to come back in one.

So, Cecily tucked her curls behind her ears and boosted herself onto the railing, grabbing the pillar to keep steady. She’d only traversed the rail’s length the first time because Flip had said he bet she couldn’t do it. The times after that, it had been for fun, to see if she still could. But—having to do it under these watchful adult eyes?

Would she get in trouble if she refused?

What if she fell?

One more look at Mrs. H. said the lady wasn’t joking.

All right, then, Cecily thought.

She curled her bare feet around the rail. Let go of the pillar. Wobbled. Held out her arms to steady herself. Took a step. Then another. Another, another, another (it was easiest when you moved fast). She wobbled again; caught herself, heart pounding, as she glanced down to the top of the head of the sad statue below. This was the hardest part: the middle. Her feet were starting to sweat. She took another step. Another, another, another—then sent herself flying off toward the carpeted hall, shooting her heels over her head then around and onto the floor. Thunk. She grinned and raised her arms when she realized she’d landed right.

Bravo! Bravo! said Mrs. H., applauding, and the man took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow.

My goodness, he said. "That is promising."

Chapter 3

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Itasca, Minnesota

Mom, you can’t keep me from seeing my own father," Caden snapped, as he buckled in to Molly’s Mazda SUV for the ride to school. The argument had started over breakfast; Molly had hoped he would just let it go.

Well, pardon me for being surprised, she said, turning to back out of the drive of the rented blue bungalow, craning to see over the snowbanks on either side. There never seemed to be an extra five minutes in the morning to warm up the car, the way her father, Dean, had always told her she should, and she could see the fog of her breath in the cold interior. "When you announce your father’s coming to town this weekend for your game. You haven’t seen him in six months, and I haven’t seen him in two years. I haven’t even talked to him in weeks."

Yeah, well, he calls me every day. And it wasn’t his fault the weather was bad at Christmastime and I couldn’t reschedule my trip to Newport on account of hockey.

Molly bit back what she wanted to mutter—the enlightened, positive communication practices she recommended to her clients did not come easy—and, at a four-way stop, took her turn, tires crunching on leftover snow. Honestly, the changes to Caden in the six months since Evan had seen him had been seismic (six inches, a deep voice, a whole new taste in music, plus he was reading Hemingway!)—would Evan even recognize him?

Mom, I just really need you to be cool about this, Caden said, and in his voice suddenly was the little boy he’d been—the one whose heart she’d broken.

Instant tears stung her eyes, and she found herself remembering her mom’s voice on the phone that terrible morning three years ago—Your dad’s gone, Liz had said, and Molly had thought, Gone where? Already, she and Evan had been struggling, and the idea that someday soon she’d get a similar call about her grandma, or her mom, had sent her careening like a car down a mountainside after busting through a guardrail. There was just no turning it around. None of the dozen healing modalities she’d been trained in could seem to touch the wreckage of her heart; none of her highly-trained-therapist’s techniques had managed to bleed over into making her marriage work. Less than a year after her dad’s funeral, the marriage was over, and she and Evan were in court to decide whether almost-twelve-year-old Caden would stay in Rhode Island with his father or move with her to her old Minnesota hometown.

Yet—imagine asking a child in court which parent he preferred! (I love them both equally, Caden had said, with an equanimity that had clearly been rehearsed; it slayed her to imagine him, probably in the privacy of his bedroom the night before, in that voice that had been so tiny then: I love them both equally.) And when the decision came down that he’d move to Itasca with her, she’d known instantly that meant she’d be the one making him go to the dentist, do his homework, brush his teeth, take out the garbage, while Evan would be the fun one, the one picking him up at the airport and taking him to the beach, the surf shop, up to Boston for Red Sox and Bruins games. The one Caden would long for, in other words.

Her grandma Cecily had tried to console her: Some things you never get over. Sometimes life makes you strike poor bargains, and sometimes you just plain don’t know what to do. And you just have to go on and do the best you can!

Honestly, how would Molly have made it without Cecily, these last two years in Itasca? Their weekly lunches—Molly brought takeout; dessert was always a slice of one of Cecily’s famous fifteen-layer cakes, left over from this or that recent community meeting—were all that had really sustained her. With her mom, Liz, never that easy to talk to in even the best of times, it was only Cecily who’d made Molly believe that, even after all that had happened and all she had lost, she could still succeed in building a new life in her old hometown—and in raising her son on her own.

Okay, bud, Molly told Caden carefully now, as she pulled into the line of traffic in the high school’s circle drive. She did try to be enlightened. Just give me a little time to process, okay?

A big sigh. K, Mom. And he was gone, slamming the door.

Have a nice day! she shouted through the window to his back. His shoulders were slumped a bit, till a friend came up and they bumped gloves and disappeared through the sliding glass doors.

Always like a pinprick to the small balloon of her heart, that. And why did kids these days talk like every utterance was a text message?

Then she had to laugh at herself: kids these days. She was just glad Caden had made good friends when he’d moved to town at the start of seventh grade—small-town cliques could be so unforgiving—as well as that he’d inherited his athletic abilities from his father and not from her, because scoring goals for Itasca Central as a freshman made you a once and future king, and that was that. She’d been such a nerd in her day, class of ’93.

She sighed at the thought of seeing Evan, put the car into gear, and inched ahead, close behind the bumper of the car in front of her. Once she got out of here, it was just a two-minute drive to the century-old brick building downtown that housed her private practice. Her cell phone rang in through the stereo; she clicked the button on the steering wheel to answer. Hey, Mom!

Moll? From the tinny sound of the Bluetooth and road noise, it was obvious Liz was calling from the car. She never called at this time of day, and, as Molly recognized the sound of bad news, her stomach clenched.

Moll, Liz shouted through the speaker. It’s your grandma. Meet me at the hospital!

Chapter 4

October 1927

Chicago

An’ then, Cecily whispered to her friends, he asked me if I’d ever ridden a horse, then he told Mrs. H. that he had to ask his partner and he’d let her know, but he still thought the price was too high."

What the blazes? said Flip. They were outside in the barren fenced yard under a pure blue sky, huddled together against the cold wind. Brown and orange leaves skittered past.

You’re gettin’ adopted, I guess, said Dolores sadly.

But the guy didn’t have a wife! Flip said. He and Dolores had gotten a look at the man when he’d come in, before they’d been sent outside. "How could he adopt anybody?"

Shh! Cecily said, and the other two cocked their heads, then looked around to see who might be listening, but the older kids were playing Kick the Can, and the little ones wouldn’t understand, anyway.

After they’d all turned seven—Flip was first, Dolores last—the three of them had made a blood oath to stick together forever, because everybody knew: Once you turned seven, your chances of getting adopted were slim to none, at best. There were always new babies coming in, at least one every month, and they were what grown-ups wanted to take home. (The twenty-nine kids in the orphanage who were nine years old now, babies during the flu pandemic, hadn’t had a prayer.)

Cecily, though, had a secret card up her sleeve: her mother was still alive, and intending to come back for her. Flip had scorned it when Cecily’d shown him the little box checked on the form, but Flip scorned everything except the Chicago Cubs. Cecily had decided privately that, when her mother came back, she’d just make her mother take Flip and Dolores home, too. It was the least Madeline could do, for making Cecily wait two whole extra years. Cecily hadn’t told her friends, because she didn’t want them always pestering her about when. But Cecily had put a lot of facts together. One: the form had also said, Reason for surrender: Financial. Mother (distraught) cannot earn enough to support the child and care for the child at the same time.

Two: Cecily had asked Miss Oversham what financial and distraught meant. Money-related and very, very upset, Miss Oversham had explained.

Three: Cecily had a vague memory of Madeline taking her to Marshall Field’s downtown once—how happy her mother had been, just walking in through the big doors, seeing the glittering merchandise laid out in the glass-topped counters, though she’d told Cecily, Don’t touch, we can’t afford one thing!

Putting all of these facts together, Cecily had decided that Madeline worked at Marshall Field’s now and was saving up so she could afford to come get Cecily. Cecily didn’t know how long it would take, though she did think three years ought to have been enough. But what did she know? (Even Miss Oversham didn’t know how much a saleslady working at Marshall Field’s would make.)

Cecily imagined Madeline taking the ‘L’ train downtown every morning and home every night. She imagined her helping ladies try on shoes. Maybe hats. Or lipstick. Madeline was gentle and kind, and everyone wanted to buy from her, because she was beautiful. She barely even had to ask.

I don’t know what he was after, Cecily told her friends, about the man. She swallowed. What if her mother came and Cecily wasn’t here? Would Madeline think that Cecily had given up on her? Look, I’ll just tell Mrs. H. I won’t go with him. And that’ll be that.

Flip scoffed—justifiably, in this case; everyone knew you couldn’t say no to Mrs. H.—and Dolores just looked at Cecily with big, sad eyes.

That night, after prayers and lights-out, Cecily felt a poke to her shoulder.

What? she whispered, without opening her eyes. Dolores had a way of creeping out of her own cot and over to Cecily’s without making a sound. She always had something more she wanted to tell or ask before she could sleep; things she maybe hadn’t wanted to say in front of Flip, who, this time of night, was stuck over on the boys’ side, unless they’d made a plan to sneak out to the roof to meet. Tonight was too cold to bother with that. Anyway, Cecily wasn’t in the mood to press her luck about getting caught.

Dolores also had a way of knowing things that were going to happen before they actually happened, which Cecily had chalked up to strange coincidence at first, but now largely found useful. It wasn’t as if you could ask her anything you wanted to know, though; more like she’d just get a feeling about things, sometimes. Two weeks ago, for example, she’d suddenly fixed her eyes on