Free Orphan #8 by Kim van Alkemade

Spanish flu?” I made a sad sort of shrug, which she interpreted as a yes. “So, this Doctor Solomon, she took care of you?” Touching my hair, I nodded. “And now you can take care of her. That’s fitting. I doubt she has anyone else. For a woman to be a doctor, in those days? She couldn’t have been married. I guess you were all like her children.”
    “I suppose so.” Something had come to me, an image so clear I wondered where it had been all these years. “When she came toget me for my treatments, Dr. Solomon had such a smile, you’d think it was only for you in all the world. She always told me how good I was, how brave.”
    “What were you being treated for?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Of course not, you being so young. But you could find out, I suppose. Aren’t there records?”
    “She said she wrote an article.”
    “There you go then.” Gloria pushed up her glasses, satisfied my problem had been resolved. “I’m sure they have those old journals at the Medical Academy library. You’re off tomorrow, why not go find out?”
    H EADING HOME , I practically collapsed into my seat on the sweltering subway. Once the train was above ground, across the river, the open windows helped ease the heat. I stretched my neck to catch what wind I could. We reached the end of the line at eight o’clock, the sky still light from the late summer sun. Avoiding the crowds, I walked the back streets to my apartment building, Gloria’s question rattling in my mind.
    Why hadn’t I ever found out? I only knew I’d had X-ray treatments because Mrs. Berger always said it was a shame what they had done to me, but I didn’t actually remember getting them. I blamed my ignorance on the way we were raised. At the orphanage, questions were usually answered with a slap from one of the monitors; even Mrs. Berger was evasive if I asked about my hair or where my father had gone. Doing as I was told hadn’t come naturally to me as a child, but eventually I’d learned. Learned to stop asking questions. To eat everything on my plate. To open mymouth for the dentist. To stand with arms outstretched for punishment. To strip for the showers. To snap into silence.
    I checked the mailbox in the entryway, my name and hers snugged together on that tiny label like any pair of roommates: widowed sisters, cohabitating spinsters, cost-conscious bachelorettes. I was hoping for one of her postcards scribbled with complaints about the Florida heat, but there was nothing. I imagined her lounging by the pool, too preoccupied to write. Disappointed, I rang for the elevator. As I pushed the button for my floor, I heard Molly Lippman’s voice calling out to hold the door, but in my moment of hesitation—that woman can be so tedious—it shut, leaving me feeling a bit guilty. Upstairs I hustled to get into the apartment before Molly caught up to me. How many minutes of my life have I wasted with her while she went on and on about Sigmund Freud and that psychoanalysis club of hers? I might have been more abrupt if she didn’t live right next door.
    I went straight to the bathroom and started a cool shower. If Molly did knock, at least I’d have a good excuse for not answering. I shed everything head to toe in seconds, desperate to be naked, dying to feel the water on my limbs and scalp. I was clean in a minute, the Ivory slick against my skin, but I stayed under the cool spray until my toes began to wrinkle. Only when I pulled back the curtain did I realize I’d forgotten to take out a fresh towel. Reaching up to grab one from the linen closet, I felt that twinge again, a slight strain from lifting a patient out of bed a few months back. I’d thought it was better by now. No matter.
    Dry and powdered, I went into my room, pulled clean pajamas from a drawer in my dresser. I noticed a layer of dust had settled on the collection of jade carvings arranged there. How had I gottenbehind on housework, with nothing else to occupy my days off? I got a