Looking for Jane (34)

“We’re sorry, Sister Agatha,” Maggie says. “We’re coming now.”

The nun frowns at Evelyn and hesitates before turning on her heel and disappearing down the hall.

“You named your baby?” Evelyn whispers.

“Yes.”

“But we aren’t supposed to.”

“I know. I did anyway.”

The moment feels like the time they revealed their last names to one another, a miniature rebellion that catches them both off guard.

“Sometimes I wish we had tried to get out, back when you first suggested it,” Maggie says, picking at a little hole in the bedcover, avoiding Evelyn’s eyes. “You were right, I think.”

“No, you were right,” Evelyn says. “We had nowhere to go.”

“No,” Maggie agrees. “But I guess I mean you were being strong then. You can be again. You have it in you. I’ve seen it.” She looks down at Evelyn now. “We have to keep on pushing forward, Evelyn. Once we get out of here, maybe there will be a way to find our girls. But railing against the Watchdog while we’re trapped inside these walls… it’s only going to harm us in the short term, and it won’t do any good in the long run. Like I told you before up in the Goodbye Room, we just have to believe it’ll be okay one day. We’ll never stop looking for them, Evelyn. We will find them. We just have to be patient.” Her voice drops. “This isn’t the end. I promise you.”

Maggie stands up and pulls the bedcovers all the way back. Evelyn groans into her pillow but doesn’t move. “It may as well be,” she says.



* * *



Two weeks later, Evelyn finally finds an opportunity to speak to Sister Agatha on her own. The damn house is so crowded, the girls and staff are practically tripping over one another. There’s never any privacy to be had.

She spots the nun out in the garden during the afternoon outdoor time. It’s a chilly, wet day and the drizzle has driven most of the girls indoors for the hour-long break, but Sister Agatha is in a corner of the small yard, trimming the hedge with a pair of rusted shears.

Evelyn approaches her from behind. “Sister Agatha?” she asks timidly.

Agatha turns. She’s wearing an apron and rain jacket over her habit, and oversized Wellington boots on her small feet. She looks like a child playing dress-up. “Hello, Miss Evelyn.”

Evelyn has practiced this speech in her head as she’s gone about her chores over the past few days, imagined the conversation as she tosses and turns in bed at night, unable to sleep. But she decides to skip right to the point. She has a plan and she needs Agatha’s help.

“Sister Agatha, I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. All I can think about is my baby, and where she is, whether she’s happy, and, you know… loved.” Her throat is so tight she’s not sure she can get the words out. “I need to know where she is. I need to know who has her. I just don’t think…” She shifts her weight to the other foot and her boot squelches into the soggy grass. “I can’t see myself being able to move on if I don’t know where she is. I need to know. I need your help.”

The nun clutches the garden shears tightly in her gloved hand. “I think you just need to give it some more time, Miss Evelyn.”

“I can’t.”

“But you must. It’s early days, yet. This happens to most of the girls, right at first. It’s very difficult. But given time, things usually start to look a little brighter. Especially after you go home.”

Evelyn scoffs. “I need you to help me find out where she is.”

“Oh, Miss Evelyn, I can’t.”

Evelyn watches the nun’s eyes closely and starts to see a change in them. They droop somehow, weighed down. Her shoulders fall in defeat.

“Do you know something?” Evelyn’s heart is racing now. “What is it?”

“I can’t say,” she says, glancing nervously back toward the house.

“Sister Agatha, please.”

Agatha searches Evelyn’s face, looking for something. Finally, she takes a deep, shuddering breath. “Your baby… your baby didn’t make it, Miss Evelyn. She—she died.”

The world stops moving, and all Evelyn can feel is the misty rain, blurring her vision. “She’s… dead? But… how?”

Agatha takes a step toward Evelyn. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said.” She looks agonized. “It’s just one of those things. She was small, remember. But you can move on now, Miss Evelyn. There’s nothing to chase or worry about. You can put all this behind you. You can… move on,” she finishes weakly.

Evelyn starts to shake as the shock sets in. She can’t process what she’s just heard. She feels nothing and everything and all the things in between. She holds Sister Agatha’s gaze in an iron stare as the young nun shrinks back, then turns on her slippery heel and staggers back toward the house.





CHAPTER 11 Angela




LATE JANUARY 2017




Since finding Frances Mitchell’s letter and the note from the young girl named Margaret, Angela has been sending out messages to Nancy Mitchells everywhere in the Greater Toronto Area and beyond, but so far her search hasn’t yielded any results. Despite Angela’s niggling sense of shame at pursuing the unknown Nancy, she doesn’t feel right sneaking around behind Tina’s back, so she decides to tell her about “the Nancys,” as she has collectively dubbed them in her head, on their way to the fertility clinic.