Looking for Jane (64)

Agatha takes a moment to focus. Nancy can see the truth developing in Agatha’s eyes, floating to the surface like photographs in a darkroom. But this time she finds she doesn’t want to hear it. She doesn’t want to carry it with her.

“I can hear them crying. The girls and their babies,” she mutters.

Nancy has to lean in closer to hear the older woman, and her long brown hair swings low over her shoulder, tickling her cheek.

“We stole their babies,” Agatha whispers. “And she sold them. Even the ones who’d been raped. It wasn’t their fault. And I lied to that poor girl. I told her that her baby had died. But it didn’t. It didn’t. I thought it was best. I thought it was a mercy, she was so terribly sad, but I was wrong. I was wrong. I thought it was best…”

Nancy’s hand flinches in Agatha’s cold grip. “You… you sold babies?”

Agatha doesn’t seem to hear her. “Their faces are here sometimes. But the baby never died.”

Agatha’s glassy eyes stare at a spot behind Nancy and she whips her head around, but there’s nothing there but fading wallpaper. Of course there isn’t. She mentally shakes herself.

“Agatha.” She leans in closer so she blocks out whatever Agatha thinks she’s seeing behind Nancy. It works. The woman’s eyes focus back on Nancy’s face before flickering toward the open door.

She cries out, her lips pulling back against her teeth in fear. Nancy jumps and looks toward the door, but there’s no one there. A heartbeat later, the nurse who greeted Nancy in the hall comes running into the room.

“What’s happened?”

“I don’t know,” Nancy says, making room for the nurse. “She got really confused, she started talking about—she looked at the door and screamed. I don’t—”

“I still see them sometimes,” Agatha whimpers up at them both, her eyes swimming with tears now. “But I never know. I can never tell if it’s all just in my head. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. The baby never died. I need you to tell her. Someone needs to tell her, but the others don’t listen.”

“Shh shh shh,” the nurse coos at Agatha. “Hush, now, Sister. It’s all right. No one’s going to harm you. It’s okay. You’re safe.”

Agatha’s face crumples, giving way to tears. Nancy reaches out to take her hand once again. Agatha starts as though surprised to be touched, but grips Nancy’s fingers.

“Sister,” the nurse says softly, “I’m going to give you something to make you more comfortable, okay?”

Agatha nods her understanding, her eyes closed.

The nurse turns to Nancy, her voice low. “I’m going to go get her something that’ll put her to sleep. It’s all we can really do for the panic and confusion. I wish we could do more, but it’s in God’s hands now.” The nurse crosses herself.

“Of course,” Nancy says.

“I’ll be right back.”

Nancy settles back down on the guest chair beside the bed, careful not to lose her grip on Agatha’s cold fingers. Her body seems to soften, the tears subsiding. Sometimes we just need a hand to hold.

A moment later, Agatha opens her eyes again. They’re foggy and a bit out of focus. “Please tell her,” she whispers.

“I—I will,” Nancy says, perplexed. She pats the woman’s hand again.

To Nancy’s relief, the nurse returns shortly with a syringe. She injects it into the IV beside Agatha’s bed, frowning.

“She should be asleep in just a minute or two, Nancy,” she says quietly. “You may as well go once she’s asleep. We’ll keep her out for the evening, I think. The confusion’s just getting worse and worse by the hour, and we don’t want her to feel afraid.”

Nancy nods again. “Okay. That’s fine.”

Ten minutes later, once she’s confident that Sister Agatha has succumbed fully to the sleeping medication, Nancy checks that her book is still in her bag and fastens the catch on her tote. She looks back at Agatha and reaches out for the peak she knows to be the dying woman’s right foot. She holds it with a motherly tenderness—a soft touch that her hands shouldn’t have learned yet—before she heads for the door.

She lingers outside the room, waits until the night nurse passes by again a minute later.

“Can I ask you something?” she says, hailing her.

“What is it, Nancy?”

Nancy hesitates, unsure how to phrase what she wants to ask without it sounding like an accusation. “What Sister Agatha just said—” She hikes the strap of her bag up onto her shoulder. “It was a bit disturbing. Before you came in, she told me that they used to steal babies and sell them here, when it was a home for wayward girls. What’s she talking about?”

The nun’s lips purse, and she glances over her shoulder. “There was something of a… controversy, back when this building served as the maternity home for the parish. It would seem some of the babies were sold to adoptive families. I think that’s what she’s referring to. I suspect Agatha holds a lot of guilt about her role in all that.”

Nancy refrains from swearing with difficulty. “And she said something about a baby not dying?”

The nurse shakes her head. “I have no idea what that’s about. You must understand that she’s been very confused lately. Sometimes wires get crossed in the mind, you know, toward the end. Don’t take any of it to heart,” she adds. “That’s all well in the past anyhow.”