They were used to this. About twice a year, famous people came to the home, reporters in tow, to get their pictures taken with a few of the boys. Occasionally these visits resulted in a couple of baseball gloves or autographed headshots. But this man only had a briefcase. They all turned away.
But about a month after the man’s visit, all sorts of things started to arrive: science textbooks, math games, chemistry sets. And unlike the headshots or baseball gloves, there was enough to go around.
“The Lord doth provide,” the priest said, handing out a stack of brand-new biology books. “Which means you meek shall shut up and sit the hell still. You boys in the back, sit still, I mean it!” He slammed a ruler on a nearby desk, causing everyone to jump.
“Excuse me, Father,” Calvin said, leafing through his copy, “but there’s a problem with mine. Some of the pages are missing.”
“They’re not missing, Calvin,” the priest said. “They’ve been removed.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re wrong, that’s why. Now open your books to page one hundred nineteen, boys. We’ll start with—”
“Evolution’s missing,” Calvin persisted, riffling through the pages.
“That’s enough, Calvin.”
“But—”
The ruler cracked down hard against his knuckles.
* * *
—
“Calvin,” the bishop said wearily. “What’s wrong with you? This is the fourth time you’ve been sent to me this week. And that doesn’t count the complaints I’ve received from our librarian about your lies.”
“What librarian?” Calvin asked, surprised. Surely the bishop couldn’t mean the drunk priest who often holed up in the small closet that housed the home’s pathetic book collection.
“Father Amos says you claim to have read everything in our stacks. Lying is a sin, but brag-lying? There’s nothing worse.”
“But I have read—”
“Silence!” he shouted, looming over the boy. “Some people are born bad apples,” he continued. “The result of parents who were bad themselves. But in your case, I don’t know where it comes from.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he said, leaning forward, “that I suspect you were born good but went bad. Rotted,” he said, “through a series of bad choices. Are you familiar with the idea that beauty comes from within?”
“Yes.”
“Well, your insides match your outward ugliness.”
Calvin touched his swollen knuckles, trying not to cry.
“Why can’t you be grateful for what you’ve got?” the bishop said. “Half the pages in a biology book are better than none, aren’t they? Lord, I knew this would be a problem.” He pushed away from his desk and plodded about his office. “Science books, chemistry sets. What we have to accept just to get cash for the coffers.” He turned to Calvin, angry. “Even that’s your fault,” he said. “We wouldn’t be in this position if it weren’t for your father—”
Calvin jerked his head up.
“Never mind.” The bishop retreated to his desk, picking at papers.
“You can’t talk about my father,” Calvin said, heat rising to his face. “You didn’t even know him!”
“I get to talk about whomever I like, Evans,” the bishop scowled. “And anyway, I don’t mean your father who died in the train wreck. I mean,” he said, “your actual father; the idiot who’s saddled us with all these damn science books. He came here about a month ago in a big limo searching for a ten-year-old whose adoptive parents got hit by a train, whose aunt wrapped her car around a tree, a young boy who ‘might be,’ the man said, ‘very tall?’ I went straight to the cabinet and pulled your file. Thought maybe he’d come to reclaim you like a misplaced suitcase—happens all the time in adoptions. But when I showed him your photograph, he lost interest.”
Calvin’s eyes widened, taking in the news. He’d been adopted? That wasn’t possible. His parents were still his parents, dead or not. He fought back tears, thinking of how happy he used to be, his hand tucked into the safety of his father’s bigger one, his head resting against his mother’s warm chest. The bishop was wrong. He was lying. The boys were always being told stories about how and why they ended up at All Saints: their mothers died in childbirth and their fathers couldn’t cope; they were a problem to raise; there were already too many mouths to feed. This was just one more.