Chloe’s whisper left them paralyzed. Their excited breathing rasped the silence. All the eager questions died unspoken. Now that the ice was broken Chloe was the calmest of the four. In her soft, lanquid voice louder than a whisper, but much lower than her usual speaking tone, Chloe lisped her heartbreaking story. Telling it helped. She spoke easier as she went along. When she had finished it was as if she had unclasped an iron necklace and left her throat free from choking bruises.
“Aunt Marcia is not my aunt at all. She selected me at The Home and adopted me. There is only one incident I remember about my real family.
“When I was very small, I couldn’t have been more than three, I was playing under two big trees by a big white gate at the end of a drive. Two men slowed up in a touring car and watched me play, then drove on. Soon they came back. The big one with the tattooed arms jumped out of the car and grabbed me. As he slung me over his shoulder like a sack of cotton seed and ran for the car, I heard a shriek. My head was hanging down over his shoulder bumping up and down as the man, whom I later learned to call Fritzie, ran. I couldn’t see very well, but I shall always remember the blurred picture I saw. A beautiful lady was running down the drive screaming frantically. As long as I could see she kept holding out her arms running after us and pleading. She must have been my Mother. She must have loved me very much.”
Chloe’s voice died away.
Not a soul moved. Even the raspy breathing was stilled. The whole night had paused to hear Chloe’s touching story.
Chloe’s voice and girls breathed again.
“The little man drove us miles and miles. Fritzie put coveralls on over my dress. Threw my little white shoes away and put sandals on me. The buckles pinched. Then Fritzie took some big scissors out of the car pocket and cut my hair off until I must have looked like a little boy. When the little man put Fritzie and me on the train he said, ‘So long Sonny.’
“Then there was a time, I have no idea how long, that I lived on a farm with Fritzie and a large slow moving woman called Freida. Callers seldom came but when they did I was hidden in the cellar.
“After a time something happened. I don’t know what but Fritzie and Freida packed up and left, leaving me at The Home. I stayed there ’til that happy day Aunt Marcia came.”
“But why didn’t you tell the people at The Home you’d been kidnapped?” Mimi asked.