The Land Beneath Us (Sunrise at Normandy #3) - Sarah Sundin Page 0,76
the slightest possibility of reuniting her fractured little family, she had to take it.
The porter led them outside and hailed a taxi.
Behind Leah, a tall square clock tower soared above the red brick station building.
The scent of the city was gently familiar, reaching into her mind and whispering to sleeping memories, urging them to awaken and step into the light.
A yellow taxi pulled up. The porter loaded the luggage into the trunk, the driver held open the back door, and Mama motioned Leah inside and tipped the porter.
Leah settled in. Helen made a face and turned toward Leah’s chest. “A little longer, sweetheart,” Leah cooed.
Mama sat and gave the address to the driver, and the cab pulled away from the curb.
“I’m so excited.” Mama folded gloved hands over her purse. “Tomorrow morning we’ll sit down with Juanita and a map and the list of orphanages, and we’ll plan your trip.”
“Tomorrow morning.” Leah gazed out at the darkened city and smiled. Somewhere out there were the answers she longed for. Somewhere out there her sisters might even be sleeping.
They’d be fifteen years old now. What did they look like? Sound like? Did they love school as she had? Books? Poetry? Or did they love jitterbugging and movie stars and baseball? She couldn’t wait to find out.
Please, Lord, let me have the chance.
CHICAGO
MONDAY, JUNE 5, 1944
The massive gray stone building didn’t look familiar from the outside, nor when Leah stepped inside.
But how long had she been in an orphanage before the Joneses adopted her? All she remembered was struggling as Mr. Jones carried her over his shoulder—crying for her sisters.
Leah shuddered. A horrible day, but today she had a chance to reverse it.
“May I help you, ma’am?” the nun behind the desk asked, her young face round and smiley under her habit.
“Yes, ma’am—sister.” Since Leah didn’t see any Greek Orthodox orphanages on the list, she’d try all the homes—Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish. “I’m looking for my little sisters. My parents died when I was four, and my sisters and I were placed in an orphanage, but I don’t know which one. I was adopted, but without my sisters.”
The nun folded her hands on the desk. “Your adoption papers should list the orphanage.”
“I don’t have them. The family who adopted me—they abandoned me at an orphanage in Des Moines without my birth certificate or adoption records.”
“Oh dear.” The nun clapped her hand over her mouth. “What an awful thing to do.”
“It was, but I’ve forgiven them.” Leah wound her fingers around her purse strap. “I know you must be busy, but could you search your records for my sisters and me?”
The nun pulled out a sheet of paper. “Your names, please?”
“My name is Thalia, and my sisters are Callie and Polly—possibly short for Calliope and Polyhymnia. I think we were all named after Greek muses.”
“Oh my.” Thin dark eyebrows rose. “Last name?”
“I don’t know. I was only four, and I couldn’t pronounce it.”
“Oh dear.” The nun nodded toward an office in the back. “Our records are filed alphabetically by last name.”
Leah’s chest contracted around her shrinking heart. “It sounded like Ka-wa-los.”
“I’m so sorry, ma’am.” Her light brown eyes went round. “Our records go back to the 1890s, and we had up to eight hundred children at a time during the Depression. You can imagine how many files we have.”
Tall cabinets lined the wall in the office. If only Leah could search them, but of course, they wouldn’t let her.
“Thank you anyway.” It wasn’t the nun’s fault, so Leah worked up a smile. On the paper she wrote down all the information she had and her contact information in Chicago and Tullahoma. “If you should happen to find something . . . but I understand. I do.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” The nun’s smile looked thin but sympathetic.
Leah headed outside into the balmy afternoon, and she leaned back against the rough stone fa?ade.
What now? She was supposed to visit two more homes before she returned to Juanita’s house to nurse Helen, but she’d have the same problem at every orphanage.
Was it even worth it? Had she come all this way for nothing?
Leah pressed her fingers to her temples. The familiar ache of longing for her family deepened, here in this city where she’d lost them.
36
OFF NORMANDY, FRANCE
TUESDAY, JUNE 6, 1944
The LCA cranked into a right turn away from the Ben-my-Chree, and Clay banged into Lt. Bill Taylor. “Sorry, sir.”
“It’s all right.” Taylor looked over his shoulder. “It’s 0430, boys. Here we go.”