04: The Orphan No One Wanted

In her profile in St Francis Orphanage's registry of children, it was written in a yellowed, dog-eared page that Angie was only three days old when a group of loggers had heard her crying in the woods. Her records ran back to eight years ago, in a far-flung town called Brierley in South Yorkshire, England.

Growing up in the orphanage, she never liked the name bestowed upon her. Angie. When she pictured an Angie, a red-head would first come to her mind. A dash of freckles perhaps, with a winsome smile.

Instead, the Angie that stared at her in the mornings from the speckled bathroom mirror had hair that glowed cobalt under the sun. It turned obsidian at night, hanging like small iridescent snakes past her shoulders. Her eyes were wide-set and too big for her face, looking haunted, bearing the colour of Brierley's perpetual rainy skies. Angie was scrawny as a child, mouse-like, quiet. She didn't speak, she whispered.

Someone had scribbled a careless "unknown" in her profile to describe her ethnicity. It didn't fare well for her prospects. Despite being matched several times, one look was all it took for them to reject her. For no one wanted to adopt such a strange-looking girl with an ambiguous background.

"Angie, why don't you go out in the sun and take a fresh breath of air?" Sister Beatrice would tell her everyday.

"It's cold outside," Angie would reply.

The sister jabbed her side. "Of course, with a bag of bones like that. Look at the way your elbows are sticking out."

Everyday Sister Beatrice would discover Angie by the window, watching the other children play.

There the children were blissfully open of their dislike of Angie, calling her names like "Ghost" and "Boogie" and isolating her from their activities. The adults were less proud of themselves. They'd liked to believe they were patient, good-natured creatures, but the child brought out a shameful side within them. With Angie they were snappish, brusque, intolerant.

Surely, there must be something innately wrong with her, their hearts whispered, for such a miserable child to exist. To protect themselves from such bad thoughts, the caretakers would avoid dealing with her whenever they could. As a result, Angie's care in the orphanage was the most negligent one.

But one day, a visitor came to see her.

Angie was standing by the windows as usual. She liked doing that—amongst the children she felt awkward and voiceless, but away from them she possessed an all-seeing eye, like a omniscient god observing the errant antics of his followers.

The visitor was broad-shouldered, easily towering Sister Beatrice beside him. Angie supplied him with an indifferent glance before turning back to the windows. The old nun coughed.

"Mr Colson is here. Remember what I said? He's a social worker from the government, here to visit St Francis. All the other children have met him, which leaves only you."

Sister Beautrice had spun stories about the man to everyone, before he even stepped into the orphahange. Her praises placed him on a pedestal, where she likened him to an angel from the Bible. Angie didn't want to see the social worker. Or rather she didn't want him to see her. Shock, with a slight recoil of the body, was the common reaction of people meeting her for the first time. And what was reflected in their eyes? Some grotesque, odd-footed animal?

The man walked forward, his footsteps measured on the linoleum floor. Bristling, Angie turned at last and found him kneeling down before her. He was so tall their heads levelled. He removed his hat. She saw the clearest pair of eyes, blue like a proper summer's day.

When Angie blinked, she was sitting in a moving vehicle at the front seat, a seatbelt strapped across her body. Her eyes darted around the car's interior in wild confusion—a hat on the dashboard, a quiet jazzy song on the radio—until they landed on the person driving at her side. He looked vaguely familiar. Then his blue eyes peered at her and Angie remembered.

"Hello," he said.

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Angie raised her head slowly. She tried to gather the pieces in her mind, blurry, fuzzy at the edges. How did she get here? Where were they going? She swore she was standing by the windows in St Francis just a moment ago.

The tall man with Sister Beatrice. The social worker who was visiting them. He had knelt down to greet her like a knight before his queen. Angie took a deep breath to quell her nervous voice.

"Are you...bringing me...to the government?"

"Should I?" he asked her back.

Was it a trick question? The sisters at St Francis were full of them. She shook her head, apprehensive. "I've... I've been good."

The man nodded. Suddenly he swerved the car right and it entered into a long road, flanked by yellow fields at its sides. Something told her they were no longer in Brierley.

"Forget about your time at the orphanage. You shall be under my care henceforth. My name is Clive Colson. You may call me Clive."

Angie's hands smoothed against the brushed cotton of her dress, a tickling sensation under her palms. She wasn't dreaming, was she? She had always wondered what they would sound like. The words that, yes, they wanted her. Yes, we choose you. Yes, we're going to be your new family.

She had finally heard them, but it wasn't what she envisioned.

This man, Clive, sounded like he was reading the news. There was no emotion in his delivery, let alone joy. His manner was brisk yet eloquent, his British English clipped with a unique accent. She must have imagined the tear that slipped from his eye when he first greeted her.

"Your name?" he spoke again, and this time his simple question surprised her.

"You don't know?" she asked.

"Oh, don't mind me. I skipped the paperwork. Too tedious."

Angie pressed him with him a long, incredulous look. She wasn't sure what "paperwork" meant. Her eyes dared to hover over his features. His head almost touched the ceiling of his car. His hair was ice-blond, combed tightly to the side, neat but also rigid-looking. Which was the whole impression he gave her. Was this how angels were supposed to look like?

"Are you a real angel? Sister Beatrice says you are," she said.

Clive laughed. "Unfortunately the existence of angels is not within my line of beliefs. Does that mean I'm not one, however?"

She then turned away, wondering what the sister had said when he took her.

"You know, she was very grateful," Clive mentioned, as though reading her mind. "Ecstatic, actually. The nun was practically jumping in joy." He paused. "She won't be missing you, would she?"

Angie pouted, saying nothing.

"Here," he then said, opening a compartment in front of him. He brought out a brown paper bag and let her peer its contents. There was a doughnut and a cinnamon roll inside. "Which one would you like? It's going to be a long while before the next stop, so help yourself."

Angie grabbed onto the cinnamon roll. She didn't realise she was hungry until she found her teeth sinking into the doughnut as well. Alarmed, she tried to hide the empty paper bag from Clive, who drove the car farther away from the place she had called her home for almost a decade.

Eight years. She had waited for eight years since she was born for someone to pick her up. She saw the children come and go in the orphanage, and yet she always remained there to stay, like a discarded leftover someone forgot. After awhile she stopped hoping. She stopped waiting.

Today someone took a good look at Angie, and decided that they wanted her. Angie was thus accepted for the first time.

This person would give her a proper home to live in. She would get to have her own room to prance about, and a big bed to jump and roll about. Angie could imagine neither. And most importantly, he would care and shower her with love like one would with his own child, and in turn she would love him with all her heart.

That was how it went, the greatest order for an orphan like her. A warm emotion welled up in Angie, like a spring gurgling from the ground. She touched her chest. Maybe it was Clive's kind eyes, or the delicious snack he had given her. In either way, she could believe in him for a better life.

"My name is Angie."

She was looking through the windshield at the empty distance up ahead. It was almost seven, the sun dipping for the horizon, the skies fading into a deep shade of blue. No, Clive thought, not just blue, but cobalt blue, when the sun touched her hair.

His fine eyebrows shot up. "Is that what they named you? You look nothing like an Angie."

She let herself wonder aloud. "When I think of that name, it sounds like a person with red hair..."

"A dash of freckles, perhaps?" Clive added.

Angie nodded slowly and found herself smiling.

"A dash of freckles… And a winsome smile."

To be continued...