“Are you okay?” Maggie asks.
Evelyn shrugs and lets out a ragged laugh. “I don’t know, Maggie. I don’t know.”
She woke up to the pain a few minutes ago with only a faint presumption that she was probably in labour. It’s only now, as the cramps have begun deep in her pelvis and hips （“contractions,” Sister Teresa called them a moment ago）， that Evelyn realizes how entirely unprepared she is for this. Throughout the months she’s been at the home, Sister Teresa, the nuns, and Father Leclerc have only ever focused on what should happen after.
After you get out of here, you can move on with your life.
After you give birth, you’ll go find a nice boy and get married, do this properly next time.
After, you can pretend like this whole big mess never happened.
After.
The ordeal of childbirth was never discussed. The during. The thing itself. The girls have all come here to give birth, yet that’s the one thing no one has prepared them for.
“What happens now?” Evelyn asks aloud, alarm rising in her voice. “What’s it like?”
But no one answers. Maggie just cradles her belly, Anne stares up at the water-stained ceiling, and Louise closes her eyes tightly as though trying hard to imagine she’s somewhere else. The only girls who can answer are the ones who are already gone. The ones who stay on to pay off their keep are kept in separate postpartum quarters, assigned different tasks.
Despite Evelyn’s surge of determination that she and Maggie needed to find a way to escape the home, she wasn’t able to come up with a feasible plan for such a rebellion. They weren’t wanted at their family homes, and there was nowhere else two pregnant girls could go. They’d end up begging on the street. Maggie was right. The maternity home was their only option.
With a crushing realization, Evelyn finally accepts in this moment that the home, this system, is just one big well-oiled machine. Every cog is carefully designed for a specific purpose: selling children to desperate couples. The girls don’t actually matter. It’s nothing but a baby factory disguised as a reform mission, and it’s Evelyn’s turn to churn out the next product.
Bile rises in her throat at the thought, and Evelyn releases the sob she’s been fighting against. Maggie rises from her bed and steps across to Evelyn’s, pulling her into as tight a hug as she can with their bellies bumping between them.
“I’ll miss you, Evelyn,” Maggie whispers. “Good luck.”
“Excuse me!” The Watchdog is back at the door, snapping her reprimand. “Have you forgotten yourselves? No physical contact between inmates!”
Evelyn glares at the Watchdog over Maggie’s shoulder, and feels a rush of pure hatred for the woman. The girls pull apart. Maggie nods encouragingly and offers Evelyn a smile that doesn’t quite meet her eyes. Evelyn picks up the travelling case she prepared last week, wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, and follows the nun out the door.
* * *
The taxi pulls up outside the hospital. Evelyn rubs one hand along her belly and clenches the handle of her travelling case with the other. Her knuckles stand out stark white with the effort it takes for her to cling to these last few hours, the shred of precious time before everything changes. For now, her baby is still her baby, and the impossible gravity of saying a final goodbye to her child hasn’t yet weighed her down, cracked her like splintering wood.
“Here we are, miss,” the driver says, looking over his shoulder at her. His voice has a little purr on the r’s, a Scottish lilt.
Evelyn nods once and reaches for the door handle.
“No, no, sweetheart, ye stay put. Let me get the door for ye.”
The driver darts around the car, head bent against the cold spring rain that pours down and beads on the windows. The yellow and red lights on the outside of the hospital glitter through the raindrops like Christmas. The door opens beside her and the driver reaches in.
“I’ll take yer case, miss,” he says.
He transfers it into his other hand, then holds out his forearm to steady her as she gets out of the car. She managed to compose herself throughout the contractions in the back of the taxi, clenching her teeth against the pain, but this gesture from a stranger brings the tears back to her eyes. She stands on the slick sidewalk and he hands her the case with a small smile.
She offers him the bills. “I’m sorry. I can’t tip you. This is all they gave me.”
“S’okay, miss!” he says, taking the money. He doesn’t even count it, just stuffs it into his pocket. “You take care of yerself, now, and God bless ye and that babe.”
The rain is soaking her face. “Thank you, sir.”
And without thinking about what she’s doing, Evelyn takes a step forward and wraps her arms around the man. His body stiffens in a moment of hesitation before he responds in kind, patting her head with a paternal hand, and Evelyn feels more connected to the world and to her own body than she has in months. She closes her eyes and breathes in the unfamiliar smell of the man.
“Thank you,” Evelyn mutters again in his ear. The rain drips off his hat, landing with a tickle on her nose.
“Least I can do, miss,” he answers, then releases her. “I’ve got a daughter about yer age. I wouldn’ wan’ her comin’ here all alone like this.” Their eyes meet again briefly before he jogs back around the front of the car and hops into his seat, shutting the door with a dull thud.
The taxi pulls away from the curb as another contraction grips her and she nearly doubles over on the sidewalk. Resigning herself to it, she stumbles to the doors of the hospital. Her globe of a belly precedes her, announcing the title of her shame as her travelling case smacks against her damp thigh.
Two young women in the lobby stare at her through the glass door, their mouths moving. Neither of them comes to help as Evelyn struggles with the door. She keeps her head down, avoiding their eyes.
It’s not that she’s too young, she knows. Plenty of girls her age have babies. It’s that—like the taxi driver said—she’s alone. She’s come to the hospital to give birth with no chaperone or companion at all. No husband, no mother. The conclusion is drawn long before Evelyn has even reached the reception desk.
“Um, excuse me,” Evelyn says to the nurse. She has bright red hair and grey eyes, lips stained around a pinched mouth that loves to gossip. “I, um, I need to…” Her voice drops. “I’m here to have a baby.”
“St. Agnes?” the nurse asks loudly. Her voice echoes into the white space.
“Yes, how did you—？”
The nurse stands and indicates that Evelyn should follow her. “This way, come on.”
Evelyn’s wet shoes squeak on the tile floor as she trails the nurse down the hallway like a waddling duckling. She can feel her face burning hotter with each person she passes, and breathes a sigh of relief when they finally step into the elevator and the doors close, offering a moment of privacy and dignity, however brief. The nurse presses the number 4 and the elevator lurches upward.
“The matron from St. Agnes’s called and told us to expect you,” the nurse finally says.
Evelyn nods and looks up at the floor indicator.