Authors: Deborah Henry
Nurse was dressed in the same blue uniform Marian was given
but with a white nurse’s hat pinned to her gray-streaked brown hair. The woman folded the oversized green tweed suit Marian had bought at Brown Harris, and which she planned to discard when she left this place.
Soon,
Marian thought as Nurse clicked her suitcase shut. Observing Nurse’s fidgety gestures, Marian couldn’t help but wonder how long this strange creature had been in this hellhole.
“This is a far cry from the convent parlor. Pack of lies,” Marian said.
“All the girls are greeted at the convent, and then you’re over here until they place your child, or until your two years run out,” Nurse told her.
“Two years? Nothing could keep me in this place for two years.”
“Sister Paulinas will discuss all that. I’ll keep that bracelet for you,” Nurse said.
Marian hesitantly opened the gold clasp of the one piece of jewelry she owned, a present she’d received from her parents for her confirmation twelve years ago. She looked at Nurse’s clumsy, outstretched hand and then into her face, a couple of coarse black hairs underneath her chin.
“Everything will be returned to you when you leave. No shoes in the hall.” Nurse placed her own brown leather flats with all the other pairs of shoes arranged in neat rows by the dormitory door. “No making marks on the floor,” she added.
Marian looked at her unprotected feet and followed Nurse through the chilly hallway and down the stairs to the offices. Marian was horrified to see her Uncle Stephen, or rather, for the past two years, Father Brennan, her ma’s brother, standing in the doorway of Sister Paulinas’ office.
Humiliation welled inside of her.
Sister Paulinas sighed loudly as Marian entered the office.
“Father Brennan brought you here at your request.”
“Yes,” she answered, though she felt she’d been coerced.
Sister Paulinas pushed some papers forward across her desk. “She’ll have to sign these consenting documents before you go,
Father.”
Marian took the pen from Sister Paulinas, and began to read the
admissions form. Father Brennan cleared his throat, impatient to be on his way. She hastily signed her name.
“Father?” Marian blurted.
“Be a good girl for the Sisters, now. Good-bye, Marian,” he intoned and left.
She nodded, keeping her head down.
“So you’re a schoolteacher, are you?” Sister Paulinas said.
“That’s right.”
Sister sighed.
Shame coursed through Marian’s bones at the thought of all the sacrifices her parents had made for her to become a teacher. She recalled the years of schooling, the high scores on her Leaving Certificate, her proud father.
“Date of birth is November 1, 1933.”
“Yes.”
“All Saints’ Day. Twenty-three years old, and let’s hope we can save you from a life of continued blemish.” Sister Paulinas stared down at her desk, shuffling some papers.
“Did Father Brennan mention anything about a headage fee?”
Marian couldn’t speak, tried to swallow.
“If you have one hundred pounds for the headage fee, your baby can be found a home right away, as long as it’s born healthy.”
“I don’t have one hundred pounds, Sister, but I’ve ten pounds with me. I’m sure I can get the rest. Contact Father Brennan, if you would.”
“Father Brennan notes that you come from a respectable background. We’ll see what can be done. In the meantime, in here you’re not to use your own name. None of the girls do. You’ll be known as Francie. Don’t forget that name, and don’t be sharing your past with the other girls.” She turned her gaze. “Take Francie to the others,”
Sister ordered and settled back down to her work.
Nurse had been waiting at the door with Marian’s belongings and bowed when Sister Paulinas acknowledged her. “Come with me,” Nurse dictated, placing Marian’s suitcase near the office files.
“I’ll be needing my books and my Pond’s vanishing cream, then,” Marian said.
Sister Paulinas looked hot, her face squeezed into her wimple.
“Schoolteachers, washerwomen—all here for the same reason, are you not? Consider yourself lucky you’ve been sent to us to look after you, when no one else will have you. The cheek of some of you girls—novels and vanity creams! Read the Bible. Keep your nose clean. Honor the code of silence here, and use your time to pray for God’s mercy. Go on, now. I haven’t all day to mind you. Go on to the day room and knit that baby of yours a day dress.”
Marian followed Nurse back upstairs. “Father Brennan has made a mistake. He said these nuns were kind,” Marian muttered as they eased past a girl furiously scrubbing the floor.
“You’ll settle in,” Nurse said. She placed a piece of carbolic soap on her nightstand. “That’s your bed,” Nurse continued, pointing to one topped with a pile of folded sheets and a blanket.
Everything had happened in no time. The car waiting outside to zip her away, she had little chance to change her mind. She remembered trying to think fast how best to get word to Ben right away.
“There’s a record player in the day room,” Nurse said. “Occasionally, the girls are allowed a song in the evening. No talking here, though,” she said. “No radio, no newspapers, no horsing around,
no visitors, no post.”
“No post?” Marian said.
“You’ll manage. You’re not the first been through this.”
Marian thought of Nurse’s words of encouragement eleven years ago and wondered if she
had
survived it, or if some of the most integral parts of her had died. She looked down at the rows of shoes and then walked over to the small window at the end of the long, narrow room. She studied the scraggly barbwire, and she felt herself growing faint. She heard voices, and to the far right, she watched two police officers patrolling the grounds, a long set of keys dangling from one of their belts. She recognized one of the men and remembered Nurse would dawdle by that window often, looking goofy, as if she believed she was a looker. She turned and made her way down the frigid hall. She drifted past the empty nurses’ quarters and turned into the refectory. A waiflike scivvy gaped at her, two inches of black roots and then stringy blonde hair hung to her chin. Marian slid into a metal chair, pulled it close and forced herself to look into Nurse’s
possum-like face.
“Listen,” Marian said. “I know this is your break and we don’t have much time.”
Nurse rattled her teacup.
“You shouldn’t have come,” Marian said.
Nurse put her head down.
“How is Sister Paulinas treating you?” Marian said.
“It’s too much work. Too much, I think. It’s been a bad Easter.”
“Did you do something wrong,” Marian said, “coming to see me?”
“No, no,” Nurse said, and then stared into her bowl of pandy before taking a bite.
Marian wanted to get to the reason for her visit before Nurse lost herself in her food. “Tell me straight out. We don’t have time to fool around, Nurse. What state in America have you placed him?” she said loudly, glad for the jerk reaction she’d hoped for.
Nurse put down her spoon and her hands went to her lap.
“What’s the matter, Nurse? Cat got your tongue?”
Nurse looked down still.
“At least I had the likes of you, Nurse. What would I have done without you? At least I know Adrian’s in America.” She picked up the knife on the table and studied it before turning to Nurse, the blade raised in the air.
Nurse shook her head in little quivers.
“Best to keep him away from an Irish couple, I think you said,
too, Nurse.”
“I don’t remember very well.” Nurse rubbed her fists into her eyes.
“You don’t remember, Nurse?” Marian said, open eyes staring at her, running her forefinger up and down the knife.
“I don’t remember much. I do remember a nig-nog years ago.”
Marian looked into Nurse’s uneasy eyes as the woman spoke. Nurse lowered her head, her graying roots giving her the look of a woman in her sixties, yet she couldn’t have been more than forty-five. “A nigger boy who ended up in an insane asylum up north. No one could control him. And I knew that should never happen to our Adrian.”
“You knew that should never happen to
our
Adrian, did you? I don’t trust Sister Paulinas, do you, Nurse? I ought to have checked all the sanatoriums in the country.”
“You might do well checking the orphanages,” Nurse blurted.
“Orphanages?” Marian allowed the word to pass onto her tongue.
“I know a lot more than people think,” Nurse said defensively.
“What state in America have you placed Adrian, and that’ll be the end to it,” Marian pressed. She was sweating now. “Sure, Sister Paulinas keeps us down, Nurse. Scares the wits off all of us, but I’m not afraid anymore, and neither should you be. What orphanage?”
Marian insisted. “I need to know. He may die. I just found it out.
He has some terrible genetic disease inherited from his da.”
“Deficient genes, I remember Sister Paulinas said, would be likely with the mixed blood. People don’t understand. I know more than they think.” Nurse wiped her mouth with her napkin. “I’d been let out of Silverbridge to spend a weekend with a host family. I was only fifteen,” she said. “I had a baby, too,” she admitted.
Marian said nothing.
“The McGuire’s, a lovely family. I didn’t know what I was doing,” she rattled on. “The son liked me, and I liked him.”
“I’m sure that boy did love you,” Marian said, worrying about
nothing but Adrian. “Can we find your man?” Marian offered.
“All these years later.” Nurse giggled. “Men can’t help loving the next girl if the first isn’t available. You must know that.”
Marian got up abruptly. “You had a baby yourself, you told me.”
“A little girl. Beth her name was.”
“I know a place in London. I’ll do anything to help you find her.”
Nurse was drenched in sweat.
“Okay, Nurse. You have my address and you can use it if you need me. But I’ve come all this way. You know where Adrian is and you’re not telling me. I’ll go to Father Brennan—that I can tell you. I’m sorry, but a friend is a friend. I’d tell you where Beth was, if I knew. Is Adrian in an orphanage in America?”
“You can check orphanages here,” Nurse uttered.
“Orphanages here?”
“I couldn’t tell you. No, no—I had no choice but to do what I could do. They brought him back, the farmer family, but I took care of him for you. No, no—he was the only baby in the place getting bits of sausage from my pocket. His cheeks puffed out from all the extra food I stole for him. I read to him, too, until Sister Paulinas said he was too old for me to be carrying on like I was.”
Marian took a long sip of water, tried to calm herself.