The ghost of Pearl learns some of these facts through her interaction with Frankie Mazza, a girl living in the orphanage where her father, Gaspare, visits on Sundays, bringing sandwiches and sometimes his girlfriend, Ada. Then, her younger brother watched as her older brother drowned.
When she returned home, her brothers were bitter because of the shame and the financial ruin she had caused. Charles still planned to marry Pearl, but she met his brutality. The baby born of that love was taken from Pearl and now lives in the blue house. Pearl, however, fell in love with a Chinese boy – a romance that was not acceptable in this time and that was forbidden in the Brownlow's social circle.
Their deal was partly business but included that Pearl would marry Charles. Pearl was a beautiful young girl who was basically a pawn in a deal made between two bankers, her father and Charles Kent. The truth about Pearl's life comes to her in pieces, partly through her interaction with a young orphan named Frankie and partly by a chance encounter that brings back her memories. She often stops at a particular blue house and watches the young man and woman inside, though she is careful not to watch too much because the memories are painful. She believes she is a victim of the flu pandemic of 1918, but her memories are vague and pieced together.
Pearl is a ghost who has been dead more than two decades, and she is not aware of what drives her to spend so much time with the children, especially the babies.
She talks to the children there, even though most do not register her presence at all. In Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All, a novel by Laura Ruby, Pearl Brownlow spends a lot of time at the Guardian Angels Orphanage in Chicago. The following version of the book was used to create this study guide: Ruby, Laura, Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All.
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