The Orphan Collector. Ellen Marie Wiseman

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      Pia wanted to look for a job to bring in more money, but Mutti hoped the war would be over soon, Vater would return, and things would go back to normal. In the meantime, Pia was only thirteen and needed to stay in school as long as possible, especially because the laws for Germans seemed to change every day, and there was no way of knowing how much longer she’d be allowed to attend. Finn had offered to teach her how to steal food at the open-air market, but she refused. Mutti would never eat stolen food, not to mention the trouble she’d be in if she got caught. The first time she saw Finn stuff a brisket under his jacket, she’d been shocked—and asked him afterward how taking meat was any different from robbing bottles and rags from the old colored woman. He said the boys who did that were trying to cause trouble by stealing from someone who already had nothing, but he was trying to help his family survive. Like him and everyone else unlucky enough to live in the Fifth Ward, she’d been dealt an unpredictable lot in life, he said, and someday she might need to slip a loaf of bread beneath her shirt to stay alive. Having been taught that taking something that didn’t belong to her was wrong, no matter what, she hadn’t been convinced. But she had to admit she was beginning to understand. Desperation was a powerful thing. Now she wished she’d listened to him. She supposed she could still try stealing if things got any worse; then she remembered she was too scared to leave the house.

      “Did you go to the market this morning?” she asked her mother.

      Mutti shook her head. “I was waiting for you to stay with the boys. Then Mrs. Schmidt told me everything was closing and I should stay home.”

      Just then, one of the twins started crying in the other room. Mutti sighed and pushed herself up from her chair, her hands on her knees, her face contorting in pain.

      “What’s wrong?” Pia said. “Did you hurt yourself?”

      Mutti shook her head. “Nein, I am only getting old.”

      Pia frowned. At thirty-two, Mutti wasn’t that old. “Stay there,” she said. “I’ll get the boys.”

      Her mother sat back down and sighed. “Danke.”

      Opening the door a crack, Pia peeked inside the bedroom. Maybe whoever was crying would fall back asleep. The lantern light from the kitchen fell over a wooden washstand, a dresser with mismatched handles and crooked drawers, and her parents’ rusty iron bed filling half the room. Near the head of the bed, a floor-level cubby and open closet took up one wall. The twins lay on the bedcovers in cotton gowns and day caps, their rattles and swaddling blankets on the floor. One was on his back with the toes of his foot in his mouth, the other on his stomach, red-faced and howling. Their names were Oliver and Maxwell, Ollie and Max for short—good American names, according to Mutti, who wanted Pia to change her name to Polly or Peg after the war started. But Pia liked being named after her great-grandmother, even though some of her schoolmates used it as another reason to pick on her, and in the end, Vater said she could keep it. Max was the one howling.

      She entered the bedroom, lit the lantern on the dresser, picked up the rattles and blankets, and stood by the bed, waiting to see what the twins would do when they saw her. Max noticed her first. He stopped crying and gave her a teary-eyed grin, his drool-covered lips still quivering. She wrapped one of the blankets around him, scooped him up, and sat on the edge of the bed, cradling him in one arm. He grabbed a handful of her hair, and Ollie cooed up at her from the bed, then stuck his toes back in his mouth. Then she remembered something and stiffened. What if she felt something strange when she held her brothers? What if her chest hurt or her lungs burned? Touching family had never troubled her before, but that was before the parade and the flu, before Mary Helen and Tommy Costa. She took Max’s tiny hand in hers, held her breath, and waited. To her relief, she felt nothing but his warm body against hers, and the silky soft skin of his little fingers and palm. She exhaled, her breath shuddering in her chest, and wiped the tears from his face.

      “What’s the matter, little one?” she said in a soft, singsong voice. “Did you think we left you home all alone? Don’t you know we’d never do that?” She kissed his forehead. “Never, ever, ever.”

      Max grinned up at her again, bubbles of spit forming between his lips.

      Unlike everyone else, she could always tell her brothers apart. Even Vater joked about hanging numbers around their necks so he would know who was who. Looking at their white-blond hair and cobalt blue eyes—traits inherited from Mutti—it would be easy to get them confused. But Pia knew Max’s face was the slightest bit thinner than Ollie’s, his button nose a tad flatter on the end. His dimples were deeper too.

      She’d never forget the day four months ago when the twins were born, the tense minutes after Ollie’s appearance when Mutti continued to groan and hold her still-bulging stomach. Vater sent Pia to get Mrs. Schmidt, but by the time she returned, a second baby had arrived, much to everyone’s surprise. Mrs. Schmidt, holding a jar of lard to “lubricate the parts of passage,” seemed unfazed.

      “I knew you were having more than one when you said the kicking felt like the baby was wearing hobnailed boots,” she said proudly.

      While Mrs. Schmidt helped Mutti remove her soiled skirt and get cleaned up, Pia swaddled the newborn twins and studied their tiny faces, grateful and amazed to finally have two brand-new brothers. From that day on, telling them apart had been easy.

      “I know who you are,” Pia said to Max now, as she cradled him on the edge of her parents’ bed. “Yes, I do.” She bent down and kissed Ollie’s forehead. “You too, Ollie boy.”

      Ollie smiled, chuckling around the toes in his mouth.

      Pia picked up one of their rattles and held it out for him, trying to get him to let go of his foot. Vater had carved the rattles out of wood before he left for the war, sanding them over and over until every spot was smooth and soft. He used twine threaded through holes to hold four brass bells on each side, and carved each boy’s initials on the handles. The sound they made when shook reminded Pia of sleigh bells at Christmas.

      Ollie was more interested in playing with his feet. She put the rattle down and noticed Max was falling back asleep, his long dark lashes like feathers against his pale cheeks. She rocked him in her arms and sang a lullaby in a soft voice. Ollie lay still and listened, then let go of his toes, put his thumb in his mouth, and gazed up at her with sleepy eyes. Within minutes they were both napping again. She covered Ollie with the other blanket, then stood and carefully laid Max next to him. After waiting a few seconds to make sure they’d stay asleep, she turned the knob on the oil lantern and the thick wick receded, reducing the flame. Then she tiptoed out of the room, giving them one last look before letting the door latch slip quietly back into place.

      When she turned around, her mother was still at the table, her head in her hands, her mending forgotten in her lap. A knot of fear twisted in Pia’s stomach.

      “What is it, Mutti?” Pia said. “What’s wrong?”

      Mutti looked up. “Oh, liebchen,” she said. “Nothing. I’m only tired.”

      Her words did little to lessen Pia’s alarm. She studied her mother’s face, worried she wasn’t telling the truth. It wasn’t like her to complain about being tired. Or anything else, for that matter. “Did you eat today?”

      Mutti nodded. “Kartoffelpfannkuchen, a potato pancake, and applesauce.”

      “That’s not enough,” Pia said. “Why don’t you have something to eat and take a nap while the twins are sleeping? I can work on the mending.”

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