proclaimed itself A HAVEN FOR THE HOMELESS in a sign over the fortress of the front door.
Samantha hung back close to her teacher immediately upon entering. The first memory never to leave her was the rancid smell overlaid by the heavy odor of cooked cabbage. The second was the shocking realization that looks could be deceiving. The woman who bustled toward them to introduce herself as the head matron looked as if she could have been the wife of Santa Claus. Rosy cheeked and round as an apple, her gray hair done up in perky braids that framed a cheerful face, the woman personified sweetness and light until Samantha saw how quickly the merry eyes could freeze to ice, the smiling mouth form a trap of steel. She did not fail to notice the ring of jailers’ keys dangling from the matron’s belt, the sharp metal tip of a rod in her pocket, and how the children cringed from her hand upon their shoulders meant to demonstrate affection. The Sunday school teacher had pronounced her a lovely person on the way home, and Samantha had wondered how adults could be so fooled.
One gaze had stood out from all the other pinched faces and blank stares that eyed the members of the Sunday school class as they distributed the baskets. It belonged to a small girl her age. “Thank you,” the girl said, looking at Samantha out of shy hazel eyes when she handed her the basket. Samantha wanted to cry. The little girl, like the other children, looked hungry and undernourished. Her thin face and arms and hands appeared to have been washed, but not enough to wipe away the grime of long neglect. Her golden hair hung limp and greasy, and a rim of dirt was under her fingernails.
“You’re welcome,” Samantha said. “What is your name?”
“Susie,” the little girl said. “What is yours?”
“Samantha. I will come again, Susie.”
“I hope so, Samantha.”
Samantha never did. Her mother forbade another trip to the orphanage and was furious with the Sunday school teacher for arranging the visit and with her husband for allowing it while she’d been away on a weekend shopping trip.
“I thought that by now she would have forgotten that she wasn’t born to us,” Samantha overheard her father defend his action to her mother.
“Samantha may have forgotten, but how could you think that mean, snobby Anne Rutherford would forget? Anne asked Samantha on the way back if she was aware of what she’d been spared. The child is traumatized. I had hoped her never to know what her life might have been like if she hadn’t come to us.”
“So what do we say when Samantha asks about her parents and how we got her—and she will, Estelle. They are inevitable questions only normal to an adopted child. We have to tell her the truth. Her parents didn’t want her and they gave her away. Plain and simple. The truth will keep her with us, Estelle. If her parents come looking for her, she won’t want to go with them. She’ll stay with us.”
“We are not going to tell her the truth. We’re going to let her believe her parents are dead,” Estelle said. “Why would those awful people come looking for her anyway, since that doctor told us she wasn’t wanted? Neal, dear, you must stop living with the fear that we’re going to lose her. Our love, not truth, will hold Samantha fast to us.”
“I can’t seem to shake the fear that they’ll show up someday and take her from us, honeybee. Blood can be stronger than a court order saying she’s ours… stronger even than love.”
Samantha, deeply upset and not wanting to let her parents out of her sight, had gone in search of them and caught the conversation huddled outside the door to the library in the ranch house. Up until then, she’d simply assumed her real parents were dead. It never occurred to her that they were alive and she’d been given away because they didn’t want her. Now, even more terrified at what could have been her fate, she’d backed away and gone to her room before the people
Samantha hung back close to her teacher immediately upon entering. The first memory never to leave her was the rancid smell overlaid by the heavy odor of cooked cabbage. The second was the shocking realization that looks could be deceiving. The woman who bustled toward them to introduce herself as the head matron looked as if she could have been the wife of Santa Claus. Rosy cheeked and round as an apple, her gray hair done up in perky braids that framed a cheerful face, the woman personified sweetness and light until Samantha saw how quickly the merry eyes could freeze to ice, the smiling mouth form a trap of steel. She did not fail to notice the ring of jailers’ keys dangling from the matron’s belt, the sharp metal tip of a rod in her pocket, and how the children cringed from her hand upon their shoulders meant to demonstrate affection. The Sunday school teacher had pronounced her a lovely person on the way home, and Samantha had wondered how adults could be so fooled.
One gaze had stood out from all the other pinched faces and blank stares that eyed the members of the Sunday school class as they distributed the baskets. It belonged to a small girl her age. “Thank you,” the girl said, looking at Samantha out of shy hazel eyes when she handed her the basket. Samantha wanted to cry. The little girl, like the other children, looked hungry and undernourished. Her thin face and arms and hands appeared to have been washed, but not enough to wipe away the grime of long neglect. Her golden hair hung limp and greasy, and a rim of dirt was under her fingernails.
“You’re welcome,” Samantha said. “What is your name?”
“Susie,” the little girl said. “What is yours?”
“Samantha. I will come again, Susie.”
“I hope so, Samantha.”
Samantha never did. Her mother forbade another trip to the orphanage and was furious with the Sunday school teacher for arranging the visit and with her husband for allowing it while she’d been away on a weekend shopping trip.
“I thought that by now she would have forgotten that she wasn’t born to us,” Samantha overheard her father defend his action to her mother.
“Samantha may have forgotten, but how could you think that mean, snobby Anne Rutherford would forget? Anne asked Samantha on the way back if she was aware of what she’d been spared. The child is traumatized. I had hoped her never to know what her life might have been like if she hadn’t come to us.”
“So what do we say when Samantha asks about her parents and how we got her—and she will, Estelle. They are inevitable questions only normal to an adopted child. We have to tell her the truth. Her parents didn’t want her and they gave her away. Plain and simple. The truth will keep her with us, Estelle. If her parents come looking for her, she won’t want to go with them. She’ll stay with us.”
“We are not going to tell her the truth. We’re going to let her believe her parents are dead,” Estelle said. “Why would those awful people come looking for her anyway, since that doctor told us she wasn’t wanted? Neal, dear, you must stop living with the fear that we’re going to lose her. Our love, not truth, will hold Samantha fast to us.”
“I can’t seem to shake the fear that they’ll show up someday and take her from us, honeybee. Blood can be stronger than a court order saying she’s ours… stronger even than love.”
Samantha, deeply upset and not wanting to let her parents out of her sight, had gone in search of them and caught the conversation huddled outside the door to the library in the ranch house. Up until then, she’d simply assumed her real parents were dead. It never occurred to her that they were alive and she’d been given away because they didn’t want her. Now, even more terrified at what could have been her fate, she’d backed away and gone to her room before the people
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