Glad for the handoff, I nodded, but then he shut the door between us.

Intermittently their voices swooped up and down. I could discern only snippets. My legs regained a tremble, making it difficult to keep still.

Would she call the police? The orphanage? The Children’s Aid Society?

My future again lay in someone else’s hands, dictated by the whim of a virtual stranger. Loathing that fact, I swore to myself in that moment:

One day, I alone would be the one in control.

***

Later, Arie recounted highlights of their discussion, beginning with his mother’s inclination to report me.

I couldn’t blame her, sincerely. Immigrants above all people had an aversion to trouble; living between worlds, you survived through hard, honest work and keeping your head down. If nothing else, the strike had shown me that.

So he’d appealed to her faith. He drew comparisons to the innkeepers who shunned Mary and Joseph, and he stressed how the right parents’ guidance would ensure my virtuous path.

I suspected that last point entailed saving me from the waywardness of Catholicism, though Arie never told me this explicitly. Rather he veered to his more practical assertions, such as the foolishness of wasting a spare bed. Specifically, his sister’s—as a few weeks prior, defying her parents’ objections, Thea had run off to elope with a beau from Wisconsin, thereby banning her name in the house. At least when his parents were around, he said.

In short, Arie was persuasive enough for his mother to march off to the auto factory, where she’d confer with her husband during his midmorning break. When she returned, in exchange for my vow to not cause any problems, I had the assurance of a place in their home and a seat at their table—and, from Arie, a friendship that once more I believed would never end.

Chapter 20

Several weeks trudged by before my fear of being recaptured diminished and the sight of a police officer, or anyone even slightly resembling Mrs. Atwood, wouldn’t incite a swell of angst.

It was a foolish thing, logically. As if the director would plead tirelessly for the return of a violent, bed-wetting, chalk-thieving, porridge-sabotaging delinquent.

Even if she’d sent out a cursory alert, the cops would be busy with more pressing issues. A continued rise in unemployment meant more folks out on the streets, living in shantytowns dubbed “Hoovervilles.” Even in Amesboro, there were gentlemen with signs around their necks, begging for work or spare change. Others wandered about like shell-shocked infantrymen, stupefied by all they had lost.