Sister Teresa’s house rule allows the girls to have another inmate with them for moral support in the Goodbye Room, but only if the other girl has already said goodbye to her own baby first. Maggie gave birth to her daughter before her due date, just days after Evelyn was discharged. The adoptive family came for Maggie’s baby the same night she returned from the hospital. She was sent up to the Goodbye Room straightaway after dinner. Since Evelyn hadn’t yet relinquished her own daughter to the adoptive parents—who were still, she was told, preparing their nursery—she wasn’t allowed to be with Maggie. She never saw her friend’s baby. Maggie was moved to the postpartum dormitory that day, but Evelyn sneaked down the hall and got into bed with her later that night, held her tightly, stroked her hair as she sobbed into Evelyn’s chest.
“I’m sorry, Maggie,” Evelyn says now, reaching out to squeeze her friend’s hand.
Maggie returns the pressure with stony eyes. She’s closed herself off the past few days, and she’s visibly thinner. “It’s okay. It was bad timing. All of this is just bad timing.”
Evelyn nods, rolls her shoulders back. She has to get a handle on her emotions, like Maggie has, or her baby will be gone and she’ll never get to say a proper goodbye.
If only her brother had responded to any of her letters. She could be bringing her baby home to him and his wife, to be raised as their child. Evelyn has dreamed of the iced lemon birthday cakes, paper hats, and gifts from the woman her daughter might have called auntie. Of the pretty dresses she would sew for the little girl. Helping her through her first heartbreak and toasting a glass of champagne at her wedding, all disguised as the love of an aunt so fond of her only niece. Hiding in plain sight.
If only.
If only she had something she could give to her daughter as a token, a reminder that her mother had lived and breathed, laboured for her and birthed her, held her close and whispered, “I love you,” in her ear.
“Here, I came prepared.” As though reading Evelyn’s mind, Maggie leans forward and hands her a piece of paper and a pen that she withdraws from the pocket of her linen skirt.
“I wrote my baby a note and shoved it into the toe of those booties I knitted. I stuffed them inside the swaddling blanket. I doubt she’ll ever get to read it, but I didn’t know what else to do. I just couldn’t let her go without some piece of me.” She pinches her lips.
Evelyn’s heart is hammering. She glances at the door.
“I don’t—I don’t know what to say.”
“Just tell her you love her. That’s all she needs to know. That’s what I wrote to my little girl.” Maggie clears her throat. “That I would always love her.”
Evelyn scribbles a few words, fighting back tears, but several fall, hitting the paper. She’ll send along a piece of her broken heart with the little bundle that will, in mere hours, be held by another woman who handed over a bag of money in order to call herself a mother. Evelyn gags on the thought as she folds the paper into the tiniest square she can and stuffs it under her thigh as the door to the Goodbye Room clicks open.
It’s Sister Agatha with the baby, and Evelyn is grateful. She can’t bear to see her daughter in the arms of the Watchdog at a time like this. Agatha holds the baby with the same amount of care Evelyn does, gazing at her soft forehead, unwrinkled and perfect underneath a fuzz of silky hair. She’s wrapped in a nicer blanket than usual. It’s actually beautiful, a hand-knitted swaddling blanket in the palest pink, like a kitten’s nose. Evelyn notes it grimly; the home must put up a front to the adoptive parents when they come to pick up their purchase.
“Hello, girls,” Agatha says as she passes Evelyn the pink bundle. “Here you go, Miss Evelyn. It’s only supposed to be five minutes, but I’ll give you as long as I can.” She whispers it. Like a secret, or her deepest fear.
Evelyn can’t speak.
“Thank you, Sister Agatha,” Maggie says, her own voice thick.
Agatha nods. She can’t meet the girls’ eyes, although they’re only a foot apart. “I’m so sorry.”
She leaves, shutting the door with a soft thud, and Evelyn gazes down into the face of her daughter for the last time.
“Sweet little one,” she murmurs into the sleeping baby’s ear. Her face is serene, and Evelyn realizes, in an explosion of panic, that she must commit every detail to memory: the curve of her little chin, the long lashes so dark they seem wet. Her high cheekbones and steeply curved nose. She swears she’ll watch for that chin, those lashes, that nose in the face of every child, teenage girl, and young woman she passes on the street for the rest of her life. One day, she wants to look into the face of her daughter and say: I know you. You’re mine.
Evelyn wishes her daughter were awake so that she could see her eyes, but she can’t bear to disturb her when she’s so peaceful. Instead, Evelyn rests her little body gently against her own chest. She hasn’t been allowed to breastfeed since the hospital, but she holds the baby against her anyway, hoping with vain desperation that her daughter will remember the thump of her mother’s heartbeat, the smell of her breath, the feel of her skin at the base of her throat.
Something. Anything.
She takes a shaky breath, then lets it out as steadily as she can. She can hear the voices of the other girls downstairs in the kitchen, the jangling of pot lids as they prepare for lunch. Moving on with their day.
“She’s beautiful, Evelyn,” Maggie says.
Evelyn tears her eyes away from her baby to meet her friend’s. “I’m sure yours was, too.”
The tears finally fall from Maggie’s chin into her lap. Sunlight pours in through the window. Everything is glowing.
Evelyn reaches under her thigh for the folded note. She gently unwraps half of the blanket and tucks the piece of paper into the bottom of the swaddling folds as tightly as she can. She wraps her daughter up again and manages a smile.
“Ten fingers, ten toes, two eyes, two ears, a mouth, and a nose,” Evelyn says, reciting the little rhyme she made up during their stay in the hospital. She runs the tip of her index finger from the top of her baby’s forehead, between her eyes, then down the bridge of her nose to the little button tip.
She brushes her hand across the top of her daughter’s head, leans down, and breathes in her smell. The clock on the wall relentlessly ticks away the cruel minutes, reminding her that every second is precious right now.
Don’t look away from her, it says.
Tick.
This is it.
Tock.
This is all you get.
Tick.
Pay attention.
Tock.
Click. The spell is broken as Sister Agatha sweeps quietly back into the room.
“It’s time, Miss Evelyn.”
“Okay.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Okay. It’s okay.” Evelyn nods, blinking rapidly against the tears, but there’s no stopping them now.
She takes one last look at her daughter, feasting on the little face through her own swollen eyes, forcing down the panic. She catches herself glancing toward the window, but of course it’s locked, and they’re on the third floor. This prison is, as Maggie said, well designed, a series of snares and cages laid out inside a maze of confusion and lies. There’s only one exit, and the prisoners can’t leave until they make their final payment.