Orphan Train

Molly makes a vegetarian dinner, but Dina hates the meal. She complains about Molly and her weird food, claiming that they cannot afford it. Dina blows up when Molly points out that they are getting money for her being there. Dina accuses Molly of being a thief—bringing Anne of Green Gables out of Molly’s room as proof—and throws her out of the house.

Molly, who has tried so hard to get along with Ralph and Dina, is devastated, but she packs her bags and leaves. Desperate, she looks up her mother on the internet and finds out that she’s in jail. She knows that no homeless shelters will take a teenager under 18 without a parent. She decides to go to Vivian’s house because there is nowhere else she can go. Ralph lets her leave.

Molly leaves her foster parents’ house after Dina throws her out and makes her way to Vivian’s. Vivian welcomes her in. They settle down for a talk, and Molly tells Vivian her whole history: her mother’s drug addiction and jail time, her father’s drinking and death, the succession of different foster homes, and her stealing the book from the library. Vivian listens without judgment and laughs in the end about Molly stealing Jane Eyre, of all things.

Next, Molly knows she must tell Vivian the news lying heavy on her heart: that she found Maisie, but too late for a reunion with Vivian. Vivian marvels at the news, and Molly shows her Maisie’s picture from her obituary on the internet.      

In late September, when Vivian is 19 years old, two friends convince her to travel to Minneapolis with them to see the movie The Wizard of Oz. Vivian doesn’t take much time for herself, so her parents allow her to go with her friends on this overnight trip.

Vivian loves The Wizard of Oz; the movie weaves a magical spell over her, as if it has a message for her. The other two girls have hidden their plans, to go out drinking in clubs, from Vivian. One of the girls has a fiancé, and they meet up with him to go out that evening.

As she looks around the lobby of the Grand Hotel, Vivian runs into Dutchy. 

Dutchy, now named Luke Maynard, is a piano player in the Grand Hotel bar. They reconnect and she invites him to her room, where he spends the night. They talk all night.

Dutchy explains that the farming family who took him in were as bad as he feared. He slept in the barn and was beaten regularly. He ran away many times before a kindly widower—Karl Maynard—with grown children took him in. He learned to play the farmer’s piano, and the farmer even paid for Dutchy to take lessons. At 18, he moved to Minneapolis and began making his living playing piano.

Dutchy and Vivian are immediately in love with each other. Their shared past forms a tremendously strong bond between them. Vivian and Luke Maynard get married ten months later.