Looking for Jane (31)
As she heads for the front door, she holds her breath against the citrus scent. For the rest of Nancy’s life, guilt and betrayal will smell like lemon dish soap.
CHAPTER 10 Evelyn
SPRING 1961
Evelyn’s head snaps back as Sister Teresa wallops her across the face with a powerful open palm.
“With our Lord as my witness, if you do not quiet down this instant, you will lose your privilege to say goodbye to the baby. Calm yourself, Evelyn!”
Evelyn absorbs the nun’s blow, gripping the arms of the chair she’s sitting on in the Goodbye Room.
The Goodbye Room, as the girls have come to call it, is little more than a closet at the end of the hall up on the third floor. There isn’t even a rug, just a bare wooden floor supporting the creaking weight of a pair of large oak rocking chairs, their worn blue cushions sagging sadly over the edges of their seats. It’s the room they sequester each of the girls in for their last goodbye to their baby. A designated, separate room they’ll never have to set foot in ever again, ostensibly so they won’t have to be reminded of the pain of parting from their child. As if such visceral anguish could ever be contained within four paper-thin walls. The pain leaks through all the tiniest cracks. It seeps up from between the worn floorboards like floodwater, muddy with silt and carrying the stench of regret.
They’ve moved the other girls out of the upstairs floors to their chores and into the parlour so they don’t bear witness to Evelyn’s tragedy, knowing that their own time will come just as surely, in only a matter of weeks. But this protocol isn’t a sign of compassion for the girls.
It’s riot control.
Through the shock and sting of the slap, Evelyn still registers Sister Teresa’s language. Not her baby. Never her baby. The baby. The couple’s baby. The product. A retort stabs at the back of Evelyn’s throat, but her eyes flash down to the whip in the Watchdog’s belt loop.
“Good. Now, here—sign this.” Sister Teresa thrusts a piece of paper and pen at Evelyn.
“What is it?”
“It is a document swearing that you will never go looking for the baby. A standard contract.”
“I already signed something at the hospital.”
“Those were the adoption papers. This is to confirm that in choosing to relinquish the child, you are forfeiting all future contact.”
Evelyn can feel the cold smoothness of the pen in her clammy hand. She feels hate rising like fire in her throat, but it scorches her tongue before she can spit in the Watchdog’s face.
“I didn’t choose this,” she says.
“Oh yes, you did. Do not delude yourself. You must sign it, Evelyn, or you will not see the baby.”
Evelyn smooths the piece of paper out on her lap. It’s a typed document with her name on it. Her daughter is listed as Baby Taylor. Underneath that are the words Father unknown. A surge of grief for Leo, of anger that he has been so unceremoniously erased from his own child’s identity, clutches her heart. Evelyn licks her lips, then holds her breath and, swearing a silent oath that she has no intention of adhering to this contract, signs her name on the line. The ink hasn’t even dried before the Watchdog snatches it out of her hand and leaves the Goodbye Room, shutting the door behind her.
Evelyn hears Maggie’s voice on the other side. The nun says something to her, and the door opens again. Maggie slips inside, her face pale underneath a sad smile.
“Hi,” she says, taking a seat in the chair across from Evelyn.
“Thank you for being here, Maggie. I know it’s not—it can’t be easy for you to be here again.” Evelyn’s voice catches.
Maggie’s chest rises and falls on a deep breath. The sunlight pouring in through the window illuminates her hair like a halo. “No. But I wish someone could have been with me.”
Sister Teresa’s house rule allows the girls to have another inmate with them for moral support in the Goodbye Room, but only if the other girl has already said goodbye to her own baby first. Maggie gave birth to her daughter before her due date, just days after Evelyn was discharged. The adoptive family came for Maggie’s baby the same night she returned from the hospital. She was sent up to the Goodbye Room straightaway after dinner. Since Evelyn hadn’t yet relinquished her own daughter to the adoptive parents—who were still, she was told, preparing their nursery—she wasn’t allowed to be with Maggie. She never saw her friend’s baby. Maggie was moved to the postpartum dormitory that day, but Evelyn sneaked down the hall and got into bed with her later that night, held her tightly, stroked her hair as she sobbed into Evelyn’s chest.
“I’m sorry, Maggie,” Evelyn says now, reaching out to squeeze her friend’s hand.
Maggie returns the pressure with stony eyes. She’s closed herself off the past few days, and she’s visibly thinner. “It’s okay. It was bad timing. All of this is just bad timing.”
Evelyn nods, rolls her shoulders back. She has to get a handle on her emotions, like Maggie has, or her baby will be gone and she’ll never get to say a proper goodbye.
If only her brother had responded to any of her letters. She could be bringing her baby home to him and his wife, to be raised as their child. Evelyn has dreamed of the iced lemon birthday cakes, paper hats, and gifts from the woman her daughter might have called auntie. Of the pretty dresses she would sew for the little girl. Helping her through her first heartbreak and toasting a glass of champagne at her wedding, all disguised as the love of an aunt so fond of her only niece. Hiding in plain sight.