Chapter Three

I AM HANDED A MYSTERIOUS ENVELOPE

LEAVING TURNED OUT to be trickier than I had anticipated. The Little Ones were all upset. Most of them cried for at least a while, and all of them had to be soothed and reassured. The seven of us—Toni, Sara, Betty, Tess, Malou, Dot and I—being the oldest, had been cast in the roles of babysitters, older sisters, little mothers and/or amateur nurses. It fell to us to calm and console. The day after the fire we were all summoned by Mrs. Hazelton. Toni talked to her first. Then Betty. Then Dot. Then, just before me, Tess. By the time it was my turn, I had a pretty good idea what was coming.

Mrs. Hazelton, kind and wise (most of the time), launched into the speech that the others had already listened to.

“I know all that,” I told Mrs. Hazelton before she got very far. “I know why I’m here.”

Mrs. Hazelton sank back in her leather chair and folded her hands carefully on her desk. She was a still person, always. Still, calm and soft-spoken, even though her words were sometimes hard to hear.

“Always the reporter, our Cady,” she said. “I suppose you interviewed the others as soon as they stepped out of my study.”

You bet I did. And even after I’d learned why Mrs. Hazelton was seeing us each in turn instead of as a group, I told myself that nothing was going to change my plans.

Mrs. Hazelton slid an envelope across the desk to me. “This contains—”

“Some items that my adopted parents handed over when they dumped me here. I know.” All of the others had been given something from their pre–Benevolent Home life.

Mrs. Hazelton sat in silence for a moment, studying me with her sharp eyes.

“I’m afraid not, Cady. Not in your case. Your adoption was privately arranged, and since it occurred before you came to us, we were not privy to any documentation. The people who took you in did not provide any information about where you came from originally. The only thing I found was what’s in that envelope. It was in the lining of the basket that held the few clothes you came with. And don’t you give me that look, Cady Andrews. I am not going to tell you where to find the people who took you in before you came to us. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. Besides, when I sent them a card the first Christmas you were with us, it was returned Address Unknown. Unless I miss my guess, the name they gave me wasn’t their real name either.”

I wasn’t surprised. They sounded just like Johnny. They’d traded me in for a newer model like I was last year’s Buick. They were cowards too. They didn’t want anyone to know they’d taken in an orphan and then changed their minds. So they’d used a fake name. I told myself I didn’t care. Why would I? They were nothing to me.

“There is only one item in that envelope, Cady,” Mrs. Hazelton continued. “And frankly, I am not sure what to make of it or even if it will do you any good. I—”

“No offense, but I’m not interested.” I slid the envelope back to her.

Her back stiffened just a ladylike little.

“Manners, Cady,” she warned.

“I said no offense.”

“Cady, I know what happened at the newspaper—”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“—but you can’t let it make you bitter. People who are bitter are never happy.”

“I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, Mrs. Hazelton, I really do. But what happened at the newspaper helped me make up my mind. Even without the fire, I would be leaving. I was going to have been gone by the time everyone got to breakfast.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised.”

Mrs. Hazelton said things like that all the time, so that if you were small enough and gullible enough, you got the impression that she knew everything there was to know about you, all the time. But she didn’t fool me, not anymore. I liked her. I respected her. I think at some point, when I was younger, I even loved her. But that time had passed, and I was aching to start my life, the real one, my life as only I could make it, and never mind anymore what had happened in the past. That was all water under the bridge, so to speak. There was no going back even if I wanted to, which, I guarantee you, I did not.

Mrs. Hazelton laid one hand on the envelope and pushed it across the desk’s burnished surface again. “Take it,” she said. “In case you change your mind.”

I took it, but only to put an end to the conversation. Now I was truly free.

It was midday by the time I’d said my goodbyes and headed into town, where I stood in line at the service counter in the town of Hope’s one and only grocery store, behind a plump woman with dimpled elbows and thick ankles that showed no bone. She was holding a pink suitcase in one soft, manicured hand and a matching overnight bag in the other.

She stepped up to the counter, deposited her bags on the floor on either side of her and fussed in her purse for her wallet while she asked for a ticket to Peterborough to visit her sister, who was going in for an operation and needed someone to help her when she got out—not that the clerk seemed remotely interested. She was just a grocery cashier and not much older than me. Her hair, a lacquered beehive, sat as tall as a top hat on her head, and she looked for all the world like a milk cow as she stood at the cash register, chewing a stick of gum with a bored expression on her face.

“Round trip or one way?” she asked when the plump woman paused to take a breath.

“Round trip, of course. I said I was visiting my sister, not moving in with her permanently.” The woman shook her head as if this was obvious and the clerk was simple-minded for asking the question. She looked at me for support. Sorry, lady. I found myself suddenly fascinated by a display of canned soup at the end of the aisle nearest to me. I’d had it up to here with the women of this town. I was sick of their superior, holier-than-thou attitudes.

The woman paid for her ticket and tottered outside on her fancy high-heeled pumps to claim a seat on the bench in front of the store, where the bus made scheduled stops. I stepped up to the counter and asked for a ticket to Toronto, one way, no explanation. I knew how much the fare was, so I slapped down the exact change. I slipped the ticket into the pocket of my skirt and went outside to wait. I sat as far from the plump woman as possible and avoided eye contact with her. My beat-up little suitcase sat at my feet like an obedient old hound.

I looked down at it and wondered whom it had belonged to and whether that person had ever carried in it every single thing they owned. Was it even possible that such a small suitcase—half again as big as the plump woman’s overnight bag—could contain an ordinary person’s everything? Or did a person have to be like me, an orphan with practically nothing to call my own and precious few things that were brand-new or bought especially for me? Even my books were secondhand, gleaned, like my suitcase, from the thrift shop. But that didn’t matter now. It would never matter again. My old life, the one that would end the moment I set foot on the bus, was a life that had been inflicted on me. My new life was the one I was going to create for myself, one that no one would dictate to me. It was going to be an exciting life, led by a new and improved Cady Andrews—not poor Cady, not unfortunate Cady, not I-wonder-what-will-become-of Cady, but Cady who chose her own path, Cady who made her own decisions, Cady who was the mistress of her own destiny.

I looked down at my suitcase again and made a decision. I swept it up and carried it around to the side of the grocery store, where a row of oversized garbage cans stood ready to receive whatever was thrown their way. There I opened it and started pitching the contents into the first can—two hideous jumpers (handmade by church ladies with a view to longevity, not fashion), one skirt, a size too large, that I’d held together with a safety pin, much to the dismay of Mrs. Hazelton, who’d kept badgering me to put my needle skills to work and take it in, for heaven’s sake, and one of two floral-patterned blouses. I kept the second blouse, a skirt that I’d finally grown into, a pair of slacks I’d bought for myself, my underwear, hairbrush and toothbrush, and a threadbare hand towel and a bar of soap. And the one book I had taken with me. And the envelope? It was in one of the suitcase’s little side pockets, minus the money Mrs. Hazelton had given me. I’d taken that out—money was money, after all—and taped the envelope shut again without looking inside. I had told Mrs. Hazelton I didn’t care—and I didn’t. I did what I should have done in the first place. I threw it into the garbage can along with everything else. I didn’t want to know anything about the past. Why would I? Why should I? I’m not the kind of person who wastes time on things that don’t matter, and as sure as the sun comes up every morning, I don’t believe in pining for someone—anyone—who shows no interest at all in me. That includes Johnny Danforth and whoever is responsible for my being on this earth in the first place. I snapped the suitcase shut and headed back to the bench. The bus was due any minute.

I was about to sit down again when I saw a man duck down the same alley. He was one of those men you saw around sometimes, even in a quaint, proper little town like Hope. Bums, some people called them. Unfortunates, Mrs. Hazelton said. There-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I men. They thrust their hands out for a nickel or a dime when they saw you coming. I heard a sharp clang, and right away I knew exactly what was going on. I jumped up and ran around the side of the store again. Sure enough, the man had lifted the lid from the first garbage can and was rummaging through it, his sun- and wind-burned hands pawing through my clothes, holding up each item in turn and inspecting it before letting it fall back into the trash can. Then he found the envelope. He held it up to the sun, squinting at it to try to see what was inside. He hooked one grubby finger and began to pick at the sealed flap.

“Hey!” I lunged at the man and grabbed one end of the envelope. He hung on tightly. There was no way he was going to let go, not now that someone else wanted it. That only seemed to prove to him that whatever was inside was valuable. “That’s mine!” I said.

“It was in the garbage. Finders, keepers.” The man’s words were slurred and awkwardly formed, and no wonder. He couldn’t have had more than a couple of teeth in his mouth.

“It was in the garbage because I dropped it by accident.” I tried to jerk the envelope away from him.

“Too bad for you.” He gave a mighty yank, and the envelope slipped from my grasp. He grinned at me and hooked his finger again.

There is no reasoning with some people; that’s just a fact. And when you can’t reason, you have to take action. I stomped as hard as I could on one of the man’s too-big, unlaced boots. He howled. I seized the envelope and marched back to the bench. The man started after me but stopped in his tracks when the plump lady fixed her eyes on him. He ducked his head and slunk away. I sat down, envelope in hand.

The woman turned her gaze on me. “You’re one of those girls, aren’t you?” the woman asked.

I hated that question, and I made a resolution there and then to never answer it ever again. People were going to think whatever they wanted to think, no matter what I said. So let them. I took my book out and buried my nose in it until the bus arrived.