Where We Belong

by Lynn Austin

  Miss Flora was loving and kind, too. Soren was less fearful of what would happen to them after he overheard her saying that family members could never be separated. Then Mrs. Miller told him he didn’t have to sneak downstairs to sleep beside Gunnar anymore because Miss Flora was letting them bend the rules. The only time they were apart was when Soren went to school. At first Gunnar screamed and cried every morning, begging him not to go. “Why can’t he come with me?” Soren asked. “I promised Mama I would take care of him.”

  “We’ll take good care of him,” Mrs. Miller said.

  Soren hated school. He was so worried about his brother he couldn’t concentrate. Besides, he’d never attended school and had to go to a class with kids not much older than Gunnar. He barely fit in his desk. “I missed you,” Gunnar said every day when Soren got home. “Why do you have to go away all day?”

  “I don’t want to, but they say I have to.”

  One bright Saturday morning the matron told everyone to wash their faces and comb their hair and put on their best clothes. Soren didn’t understand why. “What’s going on?” he asked a boy his age named Dan.

  “Some families are coming who might want to adopt us.”

  “They’ll look us over and choose one of us,” another boy named Ronald added. “Whoever gets chosen will live in a real house with a mother and father.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Dan said.

  Soren had no idea what it meant to live in a “real” house. He remembered sharing a two-room apartment with Mama and Papa and Hilde and Greta, but the angels had carried them all to heaven, and no one could ever take their places.

  “They always want little kids, like your brother,” Dan said. “You watch. They’ll pick someone his age. Nobody ever wants us.”

  “You have to smile a lot,” Ronald said, “and then maybe they’ll choose you.”

  Dan shook his head. “Nah, who knows where you really end up after they take you away. We’re better off here.” Soren decided that living here with Gunnar was good enough for him, too. As soon as he was old enough, he would find a job and take care of Gunnar himself.

  Mrs. Miller led Soren and Gunnar downstairs to the director’s office when it was their turn. Soren gripped Gunnar’s hand tightly so the people would know they belonged together. The woman crouched down in front of Gunnar and smiled as she asked, “How old are you, honey?”

  “He’s my brother,” Soren said. “He’s four, and I’m sixteen.”

  The woman stood again and turned to the man behind her. He shook his head, and the matron led Soren and Gunnar out of the room again. Soren wasn’t sure if Gunnar understood what had just happened, but he did. And as he led his brother upstairs again to change into play clothes, he squeezed his hand tightly and said, “I promise we’ll always be together, Gunnar. I’ll always take care of you.”

  Chapter 26

  CHICAGO

  1887

  THREE YEARS AGO

  The sky outside the window was still gray one morning when the matron came into Soren’s dormitory room. “Wake up, boys,” she said, shaking some of them awake. “You need to get dressed and come downstairs. Quickly, now. The new director wants everyone to line up outside in the play yard.”

  Gunnar lay curled in the bed alongside Soren, still asleep. Soren hated to disturb him, but he shook him gently. “Come on, Gunnar. There must be some people coming to look us over.” He put on his own clothes, then helped his sleepy brother get dressed.

  “I’m hungry,” Gunnar said, rubbing his eyes.

  “I know. We’ll probably eat in a minute.” He held Gunnar’s hand as they walked outside to the yard and joined the rows of waiting children. They were told to stand three feet apart, but Gunnar refused to let go of Soren’s hand. A few minutes later a short, dark-haired man came outside to face them, his back as stiff as an iron pole.

  “I’m Mr. Wingate, the new director of this orphanage,” he said. “The rules are much too lax around here. From now on, order and discipline will be strictly enforced.” Gunnar clung to Soren’s leg as Mr. Wingate detailed his new rules and the punishments they would all face for disobeying them. He had a mean face and a snarling voice. Suddenly the director stopped and glared at Gunnar. “You there! I said to stand three feet apart. That’s this far.” He held up his hands to demonstrate. “Move away from each other.” Soren felt his brother trembling with fear as Wingate waved the little whip he carried.

  “Do what he says. Move away,” Soren said, nudging Gunnar. His brother clutched his leg tighter still. Mr. Wingate took a step toward them and ordered him to move for a second time, but Gunnar was frozen in place. “What’s your name?” Mr. Wingate asked as Soren tried to pry Gunnar’s hands loose.

  “Soren Petersen and—”

  “What? Speak up!”

  “I’m Soren Petersen, and this is my brother, Gunnar. He doesn’t like it when people yell at him or try to separate us.”

  Wingate grabbed Gunnar and yanked him away, then made him stand apart from Soren. Gunnar wept in terror, but he stayed put. “As the former headmaster of a boys’ school in Ohio, I’ve learned that everyone is happier when there’s order in an institution.” He went on and on about the new rules and all the chores they would have to do from now on, with new standards of cleanliness, too. He finished by saying, “My job is to find good homes and families for everyone in this school. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Soren felt a shiver of fear. Wingate was looking at Gunnar when he asked the question.

  In the weeks that followed, more people than ever came to look the children over. The new director insisted that Gunnar sleep in his own dormitory again, and he beat Soren with his little whip when he caught him sneaking downstairs at night. “Do it again, and you’ll both be whipped,” Wingate warned.

  Soren tried to be patient and wait for Miss Flora to come back, certain she would tell the new director to keep them together. But the matron said Miss Flora was away on a trip. The entire summer passed, and she still hadn’t returned. Soon the new school year began. “Please don’t cry and fuss when I leave for school,” he begged Gunnar, who still wasn’t old enough to go. “Wingate will punish both of us if you do.”

  Soren hated school. The students who weren’t from the orphanage mocked and taunted the orphans. But if they fought back or tried to skip school, they felt the director’s whip. The moment school was dismissed each day, Soren would push his way past the others and race to the orphanage as fast as he could, where he would find Gunnar waiting for him in the play yard. “What have you been doing all day?” he would ask. “Did you have fun playing with the other kids?”

  Then on a warm, sunny day in September, Gunnar wasn’t waiting in his usual place when Soren arrived home from school. “Where’s my brother?” he asked the playground monitor. “Have you seen Gunnar?”

  The woman looked away, not at Soren. “You need to go inside and see Mr. Wingate.” Soren was already breathless from running, and now the rising panic he felt made him dizzy. He couldn’t make his feet move fast enough as he stumbled into the building and barged into the director’s office. Wingate looked up in surprise from where he sat behind his desk.

  “Where’s my brother? They said you know where he is.”

  “First of all, you can’t barge in here without knocking—”

  “Tell me where he is!” Soren shouted.

  Wingate stood and snatched up his little whip. “He’s someplace happy and safe, with a new family to—”

  “NO!” Soren skirted the desk with a savage cry and pushed Wingate backward against the wall. “You can’t do that!” he cried, shaking him by his lapels, banging his head against the wall. “Tell me where he is! Bring him back! I want my brother!” The commotion brought Mr. Miller and some of the other workers at a run. They pried Soren away and held him back, but he continued to scream, “Give me back my brother!” Rage and grief turned him into a madman. Wingate beat Soren with his whip to make him stop struggling, but he barely fel
t the blows. The terrible pain in his heart was the worst he’d ever known.

  “Drag him down to the basement and lock him in the coal cellar until he calms down,” Wingate ordered.

  “You can’t separate us!” Soren screamed on the way down, thrashing and struggling to free himself. “We’re brothers!”

  “No, you’re not,” Wingate said before slamming the door shut. “Your mother was a prostitute, and your brother was a bastard. You’re probably one, too!”

  Soren wept and screamed for hours at the huge injustice and at his own helplessness. He beat and kicked at the door until his fists and feet were sore and his throat ached, but it did no good. On top of it all, he was sick with fear for his brother. Gunnar would be terrified. He had never been separated from Soren in his life and was afraid of strangers. He would think Soren had broken his promise and abandoned him.

  When Soren finally gave up trying to batter down the door, he sat in the dark cellar planning revenge. He would torture the director until he told him where Gunnar was, then murder him with his bare hands.

  Soren was in and out of his basement jail several times over the next month. He would calm down enough to be released so he could ask Mrs. Miller and her husband and anyone else who worked there if they knew where Gunnar was. Then he would see Director Wingate and be unable to control his anger. “The next time you attack me, I’ll have you sent to jail,” Wingate threatened before locking him in the cellar yet again. That night Wingate beat two boys from Soren’s dormitory, Ron Darby and Dan Nobel, and locked them in the cellar along with him.

  “We don’t have to take this treatment from him,” Ron said. “As soon as I get out of here, I’m running away.”

  “Me too,” Dan said. “In fact, let’s go right now. I bet we could squeeze through that chute up there.” The tiny opening high on the wall was the only source of light besides the crack beneath the locked door.

  “How would we climb that high?” Ron asked.

  “I think I know how,” Soren said. He had been considering the idea all month but couldn’t manage to escape on his own. “I want to go with you.”

  “You’re too soft,” Dan sneered. “What do you know about living on the streets?”

  Soren stood and inched toward them. The boys had witnessed his fury at the director, and they backed up a step. “Gunnar and I lived on the street before they brought us here. My father is a famous thief. Ever hear of the Swede Gang? He was their leader. He taught me how to steal. I’m good at it, too.”

  “Makes no difference to me, if you come with us,” Dan said. “What’s your plan for getting out of here?”

  “First you have to swear that you’ll help me find my brother and get even with Wingate.”

  “Sure. We hate him, too.”

  “Good. . . . We’ll need to pile all the coal beneath the chute so we can climb up it. There’s a shovel we can use over by the door. Then we’ll lift each other up and out.” They piled the shifting coal as high as they could, then Ron boosted Soren and Dan up so they could climb out. Soren leaned back inside for Ron. They were free.

  Soren lived on the street with his friends for months. He tried a few times to get a regular job but couldn’t control his anger whenever he was bullied or treated unfairly by the boss. He and his friends survived by breaking into houses or robbing people who made the mistake of being out on the streets after dark. Sometimes his partners became violent, beating anyone who didn’t hand over his valuables quickly enough. “You don’t have to hurt them,” Soren said, but the other two boys seemed to enjoy it. They spent a great deal of their money getting drunk, while Soren spent his share on streetcar tickets. Each week, he rode to a different part of Chicago and walked through the parks and neighborhoods, searching for his brother. He planned to run away with Gunnar to a place where no one would ever find them. But despair overwhelmed him when his searches proved futile. He feared he would never see his brother again.

  “I’m tired of listening to your excuses,” Soren told his partners after nearly a year had passed. They had splurged on a cheap hotel for one night and were sitting around the dingy room, drinking. “You swore you’d help me find my brother and get even with Wingate.”

  “How are we supposed to do that?” Dan asked.

  Soren had been pondering that question for some time. “He keeps records in his office of all the adoptions. Help me break in so I can look in his files.”

  “What’s in it for us?” Ron asked.

  “He keeps cash in his desk drawer. I was in his office one day and saw him take out a roll of bills to pay a deliveryman. Besides, I thought you wanted to get even with him, too.”

  Two nights later on a moonless night, Soren broke a pane of glass in the office window, reached around to unlock it, then opened the window to climb inside. Dan and Ron rifled through the desk for money while Soren went straight to the files where the records were kept. He opened a few drawers, crammed with papers, but the moonless night made it difficult to see. Besides, he couldn’t read well enough to recognize Gunnar’s name. He searched for Petersen, which he’d learned to spell in his few brief months of school, then noticed numbers on some of the drawers. Maybe they were years. He found one marked 1887 and had just begun sifting through it when he heard a shout.

  “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” Wingate stood in the doorway with his cursed whip.

  A year’s worth of fury and frustration boiled up inside Soren and he rushed at the man, knocking him down, pummeling him with his fists. “Where’s my brother? Tell me where he is or I’ll kill you!” He was dimly aware of Ron calling to him, telling him to run. Mr. Miller was outside on the street, shouting for the police. Soren didn’t care. He was desperate to beat the truth out of Wingate. He might have, too, if the police hadn’t pried him away and thrown him in jail.

  That long, hopeless night, sitting alone in a prison cell, was the lowest point of Soren’s life. Would he spend the rest of his life there, dying in jail as his father had? He considered ending his life, ending the pain and grief that burned inside him, but if he did, Gunnar would never know the truth. He would think Soren didn’t love him anymore. Soren longed to bury his face in his hands and weep for all the loved ones he’d lost, but he feared the violent men who shared his cell.

  The next morning guards fastened a pair of heavy shackles on Soren’s wrists and took him to another building across the street. He had no idea what was happening. Then he saw Miss Flora and nearly wept. She told the judge that she wanted him, and after sitting in his jail cell for a few more hours, Soren was set free. He was afraid Miss Flora would take him back to the orphanage, but instead, she took him home. A few weeks later, she and Miss Rebecca somehow made things right with Mr. Wingate and saved Soren from going to prison for attempted murder. The moment they told him the news, he silently vowed to take care of the sisters and protect them for as long as he was able.

  For the first time in his life, Soren lived in a house—even though he was only a servant and slept on the third floor. It was a peaceful place, with laughter and food and music filling the downstairs rooms. Miss Flora and the others were kind and patient with him, and although their gentle treatment should have calmed his rage, it seemed to enflame it. The sisters were inseparable—as he and Gunnar should have been.

  Soren would never give up searching for his brother. He saved the money the sisters paid him to buy train tickets so he and Gunnar could disappear. The sisters expected him to attend church with them every Sunday, but Soren spent the rest of the day exploring different sections of Chicago, walking up and down neighborhood streets, following the sounds of children playing, searching for him.

  “Tell me what work you would like to do,” Miss Flora said when he first arrived. “Is there a particular job you’d like to try?”

  “I want to drive the carriage,” he replied, even though he knew nothing about horses and was afraid of them. If he was out of the house and driving the sisters or Mr. Edmund around, maybe
he would see Gunnar.

  “Well, let’s give it a try,” Miss Flora replied. Soren was terrible at driving. The horses seemed wary of him; the regular driver, Andrew, grew impatient. But Soren wouldn’t give up.

  Then it happened. As Soren was driving the sisters home one day, he saw Gunnar walking down the opposite side of the street, holding a woman’s hand. He wasn’t wearing a hat, and his fair hair shone in the summer sunlight. Soren yanked on the reins and the brake, causing the horse to rear back and bringing the carriage to a screeching halt. The sisters cried out as they were jolted out of their seats. The driver in the carriage behind his, which also came to an abrupt halt, began yelling obscenities. Soren didn’t care. He leaped down from the driver’s seat and ran toward his brother, zigzagging through traffic as he crossed the avenue, shouting, “Gunnar! Gunnar, wait! It’s me! Soren!”

  The boy wasn’t Gunnar.

  Shock and disappointment struck him like blows. Tears blurred his vision as he returned to the carriage and tried to calm the horse and the angry driver. Then he checked on his passengers. Thankfully, both sisters were fine. “I’m sorry. . . . I’m so sorry. . . . I thought . . .” He couldn’t finish.

  “Soren, what’s going on?” Miss Flora asked.

  “I thought I saw my brother,” he said, wiping his tears on his sleeve. “I’ve been trying to find him for so long. . . . We didn’t have a chance to say good-bye. . . .”

  Miss Flora took his hand. “That was very wrong of Mr. Wingate to separate you.”

  “Gunnar won’t understand why I’m not with him. I promised I would always take care of him, and he will think I broke my promise.”

  “He’s in a good home, you can be certain of that. The orphanage selects their adoptive families very carefully.”

  “I need to see for myself how he is.”

  “Soren, I’m so sorry. But that just isn’t possible.”