by Sigrid Nunez
Most people avoided calling them orphanages. They called them children’s homes instead. And in the beginning, most home children weren’t orphans at all but kids who’d been taken away from their parents. And although the homes might not have been the happiest places in the world for a young child to be, at least in the beginning they were safe and clean, the children got three meals a day and decent clothes, and, like other children, they were sent to school.
Before the pandemic the homes were kept as small as possible, and there were people who were angry about the expense, who complained about their tax dollars going to buy home children things they couldn’t afford to buy their own children—though, of course, this was worse than an exaggeration.
But most people would have been too ashamed to complain. These were just kids, after all, poor and unlucky but innocent of crime, and they touched the heart in a way that people rotting in nursing homes, or in prisons (as was the sad case with many home children’s parents), never could. In fact, in the beginning Americans everywhere opened their wallets. It didn’t take long for the new orphanages to become one of the nation’s top charities. Besides money, there were donations of everything from toys and computers to musical instruments and gym equipment. (One home in New Jersey found itself blessed with a stable of retired racehorses.) It was not unusual for a home to have more volunteers than were actually needed, and celebrities of all types could always be counted on to help raise funds or pay visits, especially at holiday time.
“An unlikely success story,” reported Time magazine. “What began as a bold and risky experiment soon turned into a trend. Now people are calling it a movement. At first, many Americans were appalled at the thought of bringing back state-run shelters for parentless children. Visions of Dickensian hellholes danced in their heads. But by involving community organizations and local school boards and insisting on rigorous oversight, child welfare authorities are reinventing the orphanage into something Dickens would not recognize.”
Nothing is perfect. Not every children’s home everywhere ran smoothly all of the time. A scandal here, a scandal there—no one was saying it didn’t happen. But overall the new system was hailed as a great improvement over the old, offering a better deal for all America’s cast-off and mistreated children.
But who would ever envy these children? A lot of people, it seemed. At school, home children—especially boys—were among the most popular, the ones who set the style. Young people all over the world had taken razors, bleach, and lit cigarettes to their brand-new clothing to create the “diddy rags” American home kids were the first to wear, and when The New York Times Style Magazine did a spread, it used real home kids as models.
It was a bleak but inescapable fact that most home children remained at the bottom of their class, with a growing number expected to leave school without having learned to read or write. But everyone knew this was because there was no way you could be mad chill and a good student, too—and how many kids anywhere nowadays were convinced that reading and writing were the most important things in life?
Of all this Cole has memories, including one of his parents discussing, over bagels and chai, whether bringing back orphanages had been a good idea or a bad one. Cole’s father said it made sense that it would be easier to monitor children who were in public institutions rather than in private foster homes, and that the group homes were probably the least bad solution to a terrible social dilemma.
“Maybe. But I can’t imagine any sensitive kid surviving in a place like that,” said Cole’s mother. And she had glanced at Cole, sitting across the table.
Once, in downtown Chicago, Cole had seen a giant poster with a picture of the handsomest man in the world. It was a sight that had made his heart beat faster, and he had thought how, with a face like that—with such a strong mouth and jaw and such smooth bronze skin—and with such perfectly square shoulders filling out a uniform, you could be anything you wanted to be. Cole wanted to be a superhero. And later that day, he had told his mother what he had decided. He would join the Marines. They were sitting at the same table and in the same chairs, and it was the same look Cole saw on his mother’s face both times. As though a voice had shrieked from the sky, and only she heard.
AT FIRST, TRACY IS EXCITED about her new job. “But you’ve got to be patient with me. It’s a long time since I was in school myself, and I can’t say I was the sharpest knife in the drawer back then. Not that I’m saying I’m the sharpest knife in the drawer now. Oh, will you just listen to me! Anyhoo, I will pray for guidance.”
And she does pray, of course—just as Cole prays, every morning before they begin, thanking God for whatever portion of his truth will be revealed in that day’s lessons.
In what way Jesus answers Tracy’s prayers about homeschooling Cole cannot tell. But there is ample help from other sources. Most families in Salvation City are following the Christian homeschooling curriculum, and other parents are happy to give advice or to pass on whatever materials they might have used when their own kids were in Cole’s grade.
But the growing pile of books and study guides and worksheets and tests only makes poor Tracy’s head spin.
For moral support she turns to Adele, one of the women in her Bible group, a grandmother who once taught kindergarten and has homeschooled four children herself.
“I don’t know, Adele. They say it’s best to do a little bit of each subject every day, but if we’re supposed to do math and science and social studies and language arts—which at first I didn’t even know what it was—a little of each still adds up to a heck of a lot.”
The trick, says Adele, is to be creative. “That way Cole won’t get bored. Like, take medieval times. You don’t want to sit there teaching him a mess of dull facts that aren’t going to stick in his head anyway. But he likes to draw, right? So have him draw a medieval castle, you know, with the moat and turrets and all.”
“Oh, I think he’d like that.”
“And when you’re doing the Civil War you can have him watch an episode of the old Ken Burns documentary. Then, for a writing assignment, he can pretend he’s a soldier writing a letter home to his family.”
Tracy is most anxious about teaching her own worst subject in school: math. But Adele says just because a person is bad at math doesn’t mean he or she can’t teach it. “You can go on the Web and print out the worksheets for square roots, say, and you can print out a quiz with the answer key. I’m no math whiz myself, but how do you think I got my own kids all the way through calculus?”
“Calculus!” Tracy yelps, as if it were the name of a lion to which the Romans were about to throw her.
“Oh, come on, girl,” Adele says, laughing. “You know you’re never on your own in Salvation City. You need any help, all you got to do is ask. And remember, if the Lord wants you to be doing this—and you know that he does—then you know he’ll light up a way.”
And it’s true that, although Tracy is his main teacher, at least some days during the week Cole finds himself in a group class taught by one of the other grown-ups. For these classes the children usually meet at the church, where there might be a video or a talk on a special topic. One of the first topics is “Evolution or Not,” taught by a guest speaker from the Creation Museum in northern Kentucky. But by now Cole has studied Genesis with PW and he doesn’t learn much of anything new. Another time Adele shows them a video about preborns. There are photos showing babies who, though still seven months from coming into the world, have tiny eyes and noses and ears and mouths, and stubby little arms and legs, and hearts that beat strong. They look to Cole like cute little dolphins, and when he remembers how he and the other boys used to call some girls PBs he is ashamed. As he is ashamed when he remembers Ms. Mark and how much he used to hate and make fun of her. He wonders if she has passed.
And when, like every other boy or girl in the room, he is called on to answer the question “Would you yourself be willing and able to murder one of these innocent babies?”—like e
very other boy or girl in the room, Cole answers no.
But something funny has occurred to him. If Jesus was a baby, does that mean he was once a fetus, too?
Absolutely, says PW. Jesus was a fetus. “When God sacrificed his son he made him live through all the stages: conception, birth, childhood, manhood, death. Otherwise Christ couldn’t have been fully human and fully divine. And, of course, he was as much the Christ at the moment of conception as he was at the moment of birth. And it’s the same for every human being.”
Cole pictures the Bible that belonged to his parents, its place on a shelf with other big books: reference books. He remembers his father saying that a person couldn’t understand the history of art without some knowledge of the Bible. He remembers his parents and some of their friends playing charades one night after a dinner party, his father having to act out “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
He has no idea how much of the Bible either of his parents had read, but he knows that the things that are sacred in Salvation City were never important to them. What Jesus said on the cross, what happened to the preborn, these were not matters of concern to them.
His parents did not know the truth. They lacked the information. There was no one like Pastor Wyatt to explain the Good News to them. Cole does not understand why it had to be this way. Now that he knows the story of Jesus by heart, he loves Jesus, but he does not believe his parents were treated fairly. Whenever he thinks about it, it’s as if some spiny, muscular creature begins thrashing around inside him. He would like to talk about it, about why God would have wanted to save him but not his mother and father. He would ask PW, he would even ask Tracy, except it’s as if there was an agreement among them not to talk about his parents. Cole has the feeling that, if he himself didn’t bring them up now and then, his parents would never be mentioned again. Whenever he starts talking about his life before Salvation City, everybody acts as if the room had suddenly turned too hot or too cold. Now he is learning to be silent. But the spiny, muscular creature goes on thrashing inside him.
Tracy says, “I love this great big beautiful world and I know my life has been blessed. But when I see what’s happening out there, all the violence and greed and perversion, well, I understand why it’s time for this chapter of the story to end. I want to go where evil can’t get its filthy hoof in the door. I want to be with all the people I’ve ever loved and all the good folks that ever lived, all of us happy together forever with the angels and saints and the Lord.”
Everyone in Salvation City talks about being rapture ready. They even joke about it. (“Don’t cry. It’s not like it’s not the end of the world.”) They talk about the Second Coming and the Resurrection and being reunited with loved ones who’ve already gone home.
Mason tries to comfort Cole. How did they know his mother and father hadn’t seen the light? Who was to say that, at the very last minute, they hadn’t taken Jesus into their hearts? How could anyone say for sure that wasn’t the way it went down?
Cole could say. For sure, his parents had not done that. And Mason cannot tell a lie. Unless that miracle occurred, Cole’s parents would never be with God. And he opens the Bible to John 14:6 to show him where it is written.
He cannot bring himself to believe that his parents are in hell. It is very different from believing that they are not in heaven. He can understand why those who had never accepted or worshipped God would not ever be permitted to meet him. But it maddens Cole that anyone would think his parents deserved to be punished for not knowing Christ. The Christians he has met are not better people than his mother and father. Some of them, like Mason, have done things worse than anything his parents had ever done. Cole does not understand how, after Judgment Day, the saved are going to be happy in heaven knowing that at every moment they are enjoying themselves billions of other people are being horribly tortured. Wouldn’t that be incredibly mean and selfish of them? He wonders if God intends to wipe the knowledge of hell from the minds of the saved in the way that, before the Fall, he kept Adam and Eve from knowing about evil. But that is another puzzle. If Adam and Eve knew nothing of evil, how could they have known right from wrong? And if they didn’t know right from wrong, how could they sin?
“You’re overthinking,” PW tells him. “Which is one very good way of keeping the Lord at a distance.”
Instead of overthinking, Cole is supposed to pray. But prayer does not come easily to him. It’s not just that his mind tends to wander, as it did during mindfulness training. It’s that it always feels more as if he was talking to himself or to the air than to God. He certainly has a very hard time believing God is listening. Besides, he is never sure what to pray for.
“Well, what would make you happy?” says PW. “Part of your prayers should always be telling God what your hopes are.” But what if his hopes are against God’s rules? What if his hopes are that hell doesn’t exist, and that if it does exist his parents are nowhere near there?
“Think of all the things that had to happen in order for you to end up here with us,” says PW. “Then tell me you don’t see God’s work in that.” Cole knows what PW is saying. He has felt it, too: some kind of force, some hand. His coming to Salvation City has never felt to him like an accident. But he is full of questions and doubts. And since he can tell the others do not feel what he is feeling, he thinks this must mean he is unsaved. At his worst moments he is afraid that he accepted Jesus not out of faith but to please Pastor Wyatt. He is not a true believer. He became a Christian because he did not see how he could stay in Salvation City if he didn’t.
He fills the moat with crocodiles. He draws a little medieval child about to fall in. A guardian angel poised on a turret, ready to swoop down.
WHEN THE PLAGUE STRUCK Salvation City, Tracy had not been among those who were passed over. Like Cole, she’d had a brush with death. One morning, when they were supposed to be studying tectonic plates, she told him all about it.
“It was touch-and-go with me for about two weeks. The way I felt was worse than being sick with the cancer. What it was really like was chemo. I was weak and dizzy as a top and I kept throwing up. And I remember it was just like I was dreaming, even when I was awake. I knew I should be praying nonstop, but there were times when I was just too sick. And though I always put my trust in God, I tell you, I was scared. You know, it wasn’t as bad here as it was in some other places, but there were plenty of folks who didn’t make it through, and some of the ones that did make it have never been the same.
“I remember lying there in my sopping sheets and starting to panic because I was having so much trouble breathing. And this great shivering took ahold of me, really like some kind of fit, and I had room for only one big thought and it was that my time had come. I tried to call WyWy but all I got out was a squeak. It was daytime, but all of a sudden the room got way dark, like night. Next thing I felt myself being sucked through that darkness, like a train racing top speed through a tunnel. Then I burst out the other end into this flashing light, which I knew right off was a holy light. And standing right in the middle of that light I saw him.”
Holding up his hand like a traffic cop.
“Like, not so fast, ma’am!”
It was the second time Christ had appeared to her. The first time, she was in the hospital and had just had surgery.
“Only that time it was night and I was lying there wide awake. It’s not like the doctors were mean to me but they didn’t hide the bad news, either. I remember I turned my face to the wall and started crying harder than I’ve ever cried in my life. And then someone turned on the light. Or at least that’s what I thought at first. Then I rolled over and saw him.”
He was sitting in the visitor’s chair by the bed.
“That really got to me, how he was sitting there with his legs crossed like any ordinary dude, except for the awesome light. And even before he said a word, I stopped crying. My family always loved me, and from the time they knew I was sick they were right there, doing everyth
ing they could for me. But nothing they ever did brought me anything like the peace I felt then. It was just a whole ’nother scale. I still thought I was going to die, but now I was ready.”
Except what Jesus had come to tell her was a different story.
“You know me, CoCo, I got a memory like a sieve. But even though I didn’t write them down, I never forgot his words. ‘Your name is written in the book of life, and the day is near when you will be with me forever. But that time has not yet come. Do not be afraid of the suffering you will have to endure.’ He was talking about the pain and the horrible chemo and the fact that I’d never be able to have a baby.
“I was raised to believe in God, and I always went to church and said my prayers and tried to be a good person. But back then, I confess, whole days would go by without my giving much thought to Christ. But ever since then I have felt him right here, and I have always trusted him. That’s how I beat the cancer. I put my faith in his love, and in the end I got my reward. God sent me the best husband a woman could ever have, and then he sent us you.”
Cole wants to know what Jesus looked like. Tracy laughs and pinches his cheek. “Like himself, silly puppy. Who else?”
Later, when he is alone, Cole ponders Tracy’s story. To him it is not a comforting story. It is a splinter in his heart. I was raised to believe in God, and I always went to church and said my prayers. Tracy had already accepted Jesus Christ. Her name was already written in the book of life. So why did Jesus choose to appear to her, and not just once but twice? Cole’s parents had not been raised to believe in God. His parents were not redeemed. Hadn’t they needed to see Jesus a thousand times more than Tracy did?