Orphan Train

Vivian opens up to Molly, and soon the stories of her early life come spilling out. Vivian hasn’t shared most of the stories before, with anyone, not even her husband. Molly is surprised, but she understands, because she doesn’t want to talk about her own past. As Vivian says, “‛[h]ow do you talk about losing everything?’” (169).

Now, as they go through the boxes, Vivian tells the stories that match the items in each box. Molly soon learns the cast of characters and keeps them straight in her head.

As Molly learns about Vivian’s experiences and begins to develop a friendship with Vivian, she gains confidence about sharing her opinion at school. In history class, she reveals to her classmates that she is Penobscot Indian. She expresses her opinion that the Indians in the United States were treated with the same disregard as the Irish under British rule.

However, Molly doesn’t talk about her new friendship with Jack. In fact, Jack and Molly fight because he tells her that it looks like Molly is just taking advantage of Vivian and not doing any work. In reality, Vivian does not want to let go of her belongings, and Molly no longer wants to force her to throw things away.