Orphan Train starts off by taking place in Spruce Harbor, Maine. Molly Ayer is a seventeen year-old girl in foster care. Molly is currently living with Dina and Ralph who are her foster parents. Molly isn’t the easiest person to take care of. She gets into trouble and ends up having to do fifty hours of community service, otherwise she would have to go to jail. Molly’s boyfriend Jack’s mother, Terry, got Molly an opportunity to do her community service hours by cleaning out an old lady’s attic. Terry works for Vivian Daly and Vivian is the lady who’s attic Molly will be cleaning. Throughout the novel, the story switches between 2011 and 1929. During the parts where it is 2011, it is the story about Molly and Vivian. While it is 1929, Vivian has a story of her own. Vivian was in foster care from the time she was nine until she was an adult. When Vivian's parents died, she was put on the Orphan Train and sent to her new "family." She ends up at three different foster homes, but she doesn’t feel like she belongs until she ends up at the third foster home. Vivian’s original name was Niamh, it got changed to Dorothy, and then eventually became Vivian. When Vivian was brought to her first foster home, she doesn’t have a good experience, but it isn’t the worst thing that could happen. When Vivian goes to the second foster home, she goes through situations that no nine year-old should go through. Eventually she is brought to her third and final foster home. In the third home she gets accepted as a daughter figure and is able to experience more of a normal childhood than she had in the past two homes. As Molly cleans out Vivian’s attic, they grow to become very close and learn things about each other that neither of them have shared with anyone else. They are able to create this relationship because of having gone through similar situations throughout their life in the foster system. Despite not having the complete support from her boyfriend Jack, Dina, and Ralph, Molly is able to connect to Vivian. Vivian and Molly are able to help each other reconnect to the past and reunite themselves with the feelings that were left behind.