Looking for Jane (17)
Hi, I work at a store called Thompson’s Antiques & Used Books in downtown Toronto. I recently found a letter addressed to a Nancy Mitchell, and I wondered if you have ever had any connection to the store. If so, this letter might have been intended for you. Let me know. Thanks!
She sets her phone down on her knees and takes a deep breath, followed by what habit tells her will be a grounding swig of wine, though the non-alcoholic imitation does nothing to calm her nerves.
Two responses come back almost instantly, and Angela’s heart leaps up into her throat. The first is a terse, Not me. The other is a more compassionate and polite decline, wishing her luck in finding the intended Nancy Mitchell. She feels both disappointed and immensely relieved, but still she waits another few minutes. When no other messages arrive in her in-box, she sets her phone down on the side table. Without noticing what she’s doing, her other hand comes to rest on her own belly button.
“Oh, Margaret,” she whispers to the young girl, a shadowy ghost in her mind’s eye. “Did you ever find your baby girl?”
CHAPTER 6 Evelyn
WINTER 1960–1961
The worst part of Christmas is the fact that the girls of St. Agnes’s are spending the month of December clutching embossed red hymnals in their young, ringless hands while reluctantly belting out odes to a virgin and her baby.
On a snowy Sunday morning during the second week of Advent, Evelyn and Maggie sit side by side, their eyes on Father Leclerc at the front of the room, half-heartedly mouthing the words to “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” Evelyn wonders how much conscious thought went into planning the carol sings and Advent Sunday hymns, and whether it had occurred to Father Leclerc at any point in the proceedings that singing about Mary and the Christ child might be reinforcing a sense of romantic longing in a group of girls who are meant to be giving up their own babies in a matter of weeks. The home’s resident priest is a pale, doughy man with a voice like cold oatmeal. He shares their table to lead the saying of grace at mealtimes, serves Communion, conducts Bible study on Sundays, and offers confessionals for those who desire it, though Evelyn can’t imagine why any of the girls would want to spend ten minutes alone with the man, expounding on their sins.
They finish the hymn and are permitted to sit down again. For the girls whose bellies are in full bloom now, the relief makes itself known in a chorus of sighs and grunts. Father Leclerc surveys them with the air of a man about to dig into a hearty meal, then begins his sermon.
“Everything that has happened to you in your life, everything that has happened at this home, and your time leading up to it, is God’s will,” he says with a smile. “Remember that, girls. Like Mary, your bodies are undertaking God’s work…”
“Maybe we should have claimed our pregnancies were immaculate conception,” one of the girls, Etheline, mutters under her breath from the row in front of Maggie and Evelyn. Her words are met with appreciative tittering from the others, but Evelyn looks around to check whether Sister Teresa might have overheard behind her. The Watchdog glares back at her through her thick glasses, fingers the whip in her belt loop, and gestures for Evelyn to face the front. She doesn’t need telling twice.
“You are fulfilling the needs and desires of women who are not able to bear children,” Father Leclerc continues, “which is also God’s will. He always has His reasons for the trials that befall each and every one of us, and it is not for us to try to understand them.”
Maggie shifts in her seat, clears her throat loudly. Evelyn glances over at her and sees that her neck and face are flushed red.
“Are you all right?” she whispers to her friend.
Maggie’s jaw clenches, but she nods. “Shh.”
Father Leclerc holds his Bible close to his chest, hugging it as one would a child. “When you feel saddened or hard done by or punished, remember that God alone chose for you to bear these children for the good women who cannot conceive their own. You must always accept God’s will, fully and truly and without question. Remember that you can, clearly, conceive and bear children. At a later time in your lives, once you are married in the eyes of God, you can conceive again and bear legitimate children for your husbands.”
Evelyn considers the priest’s words as she runs her hand along her belly and feels a responsive kick from her baby—her baby who would be deemed a bastard by the Church, if she were able to keep it. She was so close to having been married in the eyes of God. Just a few more months, and her baby would have been legitimate, even if Leo had still died. If they had only been married, she would have been pitied as a mourning pregnant widow, would she not? Surely she would have been taken care of by her parents, instead of being hidden away in the dark halls and stuffy rooms of St. Agnes’s. They would have welcomed a grandchild, and Evelyn would have been allowed to hang on to all that remained of her sweet Leo.
Father Leclerc’s voice floats back to her as she fights the urge to weep. “What is one child given away, if you can go on to have more? You will see this child again in heaven. And in the meantime, he will make another good family so very happy, and that family can provide more than you ever could. Your baby could have the best life possible.” After this pronouncement, his eyes search those of his young congregation again. “And you wouldn’t want to cheat your baby out of the best, would you?”