The House of Eve (71)
“Bitch,” Bubbles mumbled, but even she was too tired to do much more than dab at the soppy mess. “That’s Gertrude. She’s a lifer.”
“What’s a lifer?”
“She went over already, surrendered her baby, and now she is here paying off her debt by working in the laundry. We’re all required to do payback work. Some stay longer than others.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“There is a lot they don’t tell you before confining you to the Gingerbread House.”
I looked at her confused.
“It’s what we call this place. Sounds sweeter than the House of Magdalene for Unwed Whores, don’t it?”
* * *
On Sunday morning we met in the parlor for church, and after an hour sermon, we had time to ourselves. I spent mine painting Shimmy’s hands reaching out for me. I missed him, and I missed Aunt Marie. I desperately wanted to be back home with her.
During daybreak devotion on Monday morning, a young nun arrived carrying a satchel. She wore a black jumper with a white collared shirt and a light veil that swung around her back. I heard a few greet her as Little Sister Bethany. She did not live in the Gingerbread House with us, but Bubbles told me that she was our teacher Monday through Friday. After a breakfast of clumpy oatmeal, we filed into the classroom, where she stood in front of the blackboard.
“Welcome, Ruby.” She introduced herself, then held out her hand to shake mine. “We have a rotating schedule. Today is sewing. Do you have any experience?”
“Just a little,” I offered. Nene used to take in sewing to make ends meet before she went blind, and she had taught me how to thread a needle and darn socks.
Small sewing kits were passed around with wicker baskets containing different textures of fabrics. Little Sister Bethany demonstrated a simple hem and then walked around the room inspecting our stitching as we tried mimicking her work. When class was dismissed, we were given watery chicken noodle soup for lunch. Each afternoon we were permitted two hours to work on our school assignments. Little Sister Bethany walked around the house checking to see if anyone needed help. The girls who weren’t in school took that time to read or practice knitting or sewing. Once we finished, we did our house job; Mother Margaret assigned me the job of sorting and distributing the mail. When I looked around confused, a porcelain girl slid up to me.
“I’ll show you how it’s done. That used to be my job before I got transferred to tallying the spices and condiments in the kitchen.”
“By spices you must mean cardboard and containers because that is the blandest food I’ve ever tasted in my life,” I chuckled.
She introduced herself as Clara, and I recognized her as the freckled girl from the kitchen who smiled at me while peeling the potatoes when I’d arrived on Friday.
Clara had stringy brown hair and was rail thin. Her belly was grossly out of place on her tiny frame. It looked like she had shoved a beach ball under her blouse.
“We collect letters on Mondays. Then we put them in a box and mail them to an address in Raleigh, North Carolina. From there, the letters are transferred into new envelopes and postmarked.”
“Why so many steps?”
She whispered, “Everything is done here in secrecy. They go to great lengths to protect our identity so that no one knows the sins we have committed.” Her lips trembled before she pulled them into a smile. “You got it?”
“Yes.”
She handed me a small brown box. “Here are the letters that just came in for distribution. Once you give them out, you can put the new letters you collect from the girls back in the same box.”
There were ten letters. Each envelope was addressed in the same script, with a first name and the first initial of the last name of the recipient. As I stood in front of the living room reading off the names, each girl who retrieved a letter smiled and cheered like she had won a sweepstakes. After I called out the last name and closed the box, Loretta rushed up and grabbed my arm.
“There’s nothing for me?”
I turned the box upside down to be sure, but it was empty. Tears gathered in her eyes and she ran off.
A few minutes later, done with my sorting duties, I went to see about Loretta. I found her laying on her bed reading the same crumpled paper she had been reading since I arrived.
“What’s the matter?”
“My boyfriend. He promised to write, and it’s been weeks.”
“Maybe he got busy.”
“Busy with Cissy Fontaine.”
My cot creaked beneath me and I took off my shoes, folding my legs underneath me.
“She’s been wanting Rucker since he and I started dating. Now that I’m in here, she can sink her claws into him.” She tucked away a few strands of hair that had come loose from her bun. “Crazy thing is we only went all the way one time. One silly time and now I’m stuck dealing with this.” She pointed to the pop of her belly. “He said we would get married.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“My mother said we didn’t know his people and that they weren’t our kind.”
I nodded for Loretta to keep going. She sighed and then told me that her father was a dentist and her mother a social studies teacher. She grew up in a nice middle-class home, went to school and participated in social clubs with other nice girls who didn’t do bad things.