Evelyn’s arms are shaking, she can’t control it, and she worries for a moment she might drop her daughter. But Sister Agatha reaches out and takes the baby. The transaction is complete.
“Goodbye, baby girl,” Evelyn whispers, her arms now empty in her lap. “I love you, sweetheart. Please forgive me. Please forgive me…”
All she can do is watch as Agatha carries her baby to the door and shuts it again behind her. She fights against the heat that’s building in her chest. She doesn’t want her daughter to hear this, to have any memory of her mother’s pain, of her voice rising above anything but a gentle murmur. The door closes and she crumples to the floor. Maggie is crying, too, and Evelyn feels a surge of intense gratitude for her friend’s sacrifice. Maggie kneels on the wooden floorboards and Evelyn lays her head in her friend’s lap as Maggie strokes her hair back from her wet face.
Once she’s sure Sister Agatha must be downstairs, Evelyn takes a shaky breath, then howls a scream of agony that’s too big to be absorbed by the tiny Goodbye Room. It permeates the walls and ceiling, reverberates inside Evelyn’s chest with nowhere else to go. It consumes her heart and lungs with fire as her face crumples against the burn.
“Shh shh shh, it’s over now,” Maggie whispers, wiping the tears from Evelyn’s cheeks with a cold hand. “It’ll be okay. One day, it’ll all be okay. We have to believe that.”
Downstairs in the tiny nursery near the Watchdog’s office, Sister Agatha closes her eyes and holds her little hands over the baby’s ears. The girls in the kitchen pause their work, suspended in tableau as they freeze at the sound. The imagined faces of their own babies flash into their minds. Their hands lower to their bellies until the scream dissipates, then they exhale with relief and try to push away thoughts of the inevitable.
But the barbed edges of those thoughts hook into their minds and latch on. They hear the clip-clop of the Watchdog’s shoes ascending the stairs, and quickly return to their work. They go about their business as the commotion upstairs plays out in the background. Evelyn lets fly a different kind of scream now. Maggie is shouting her protest, trying to protect her friend. Evelyn keeps shrieking. And the girls in the kitchen dry the dishes and sweep the floors as the repeated snap of the Watchdog’s whip drives them on.
* * *
Evelyn knows she should be dressed already.
It’s a Wednesday morning, three weeks after her baby was taken from her. She’s still lying in bed with the covers pulled right up over her head, her knees bent into the fetal position to make sure her feet stay covered under the inadequate blanket. The Watchdog’s lashings left welts on her forearms that haven’t fully disappeared, but her stitches have mostly healed, although the skin still sometimes aches with a dull longing at the memory of her daughter’s birth.
Her milk has dried up now, and her body is beginning to feel a bit like her own again. The thought makes Evelyn want to weep. She would give anything to share her body with her baby once more. How did she not know how lucky she was to be pregnant? That the constant discomfort, exhaustion, and sleepless nights punctuated by her baby’s kicks and rolls were a gift? She wished away the time as though the state of pregnancy were a curse to be thrown off in triumph, missing it for the blessing that it was. She wonders vaguely if her baby longs, in some unconscious way, for her own mother’s breast, for the scent of her skin and the comfort of her arms.
What a foolish dream, Evelyn thinks. Her baby will never remember her.
The mornings have all been much like this, ever since she said goodbye. She hoped that over time she might start to feel a little more like her old self, but her old self is gone. Dead. And good riddance. That girl knew nothing of joy or love or loss. She understands now why their housemate Emma used to cry in the mornings, her sobs echoing down the hallway from the postpartum dormitory where Evelyn and Maggie now sleep. They felt badly for her, yes, but Evelyn had no idea it would feel like this. She remembers how Emma’s eyes became like caverns after they took her baby. Evelyn saw her coming in the front door when she returned from the hospital, and she looked like a different person. She wandered like a lost spirit through these halls until she paid off her debt and was finally free to leave. Evelyn suspects she probably appears as departed and insubstantial now as Emma did. She wishes she had been kinder to her.
“Evelyn,” Maggie says from their bedroom door. Evelyn squeezes her eyes shut tight. “It’s nearly breakfast time. If you don’t get downstairs soon the Watchdog’ll be up. Come on, now.”
Evelyn pulls the covers down a little to expose her face. Maggie is standing over her bed now with her hands on her thin hips.
“I’m not hungry,” Evelyn says. “But you should eat. You’re so skinny, Maggie.”
Maggie sighs and sits on the edge of the bed. “You can’t keep doing this. You have to get up.”
“It’s so hard.”
“I know. I really do.”
Evelyn clears the phlegm from her throat. “But you seem so strong, Maggie. Why can’t I be more like you?”
“I’m not, really. Jane is still on my mind constantly…” She trails off, staring at her lap.
“Girls?” Sister Agatha appears in the doorway, her expression strained. “You’re nearly late for breakfast.”
“We’re sorry, Sister Agatha,” Maggie says. “We’re coming now.”
The nun frowns at Evelyn and hesitates before turning on her heel and disappearing down the hall.
“You named your baby?” Evelyn whispers.
“Yes.”
“But we aren’t supposed to.”
“I know. I did anyway.”
The moment feels like the time they revealed their last names to one another, a miniature rebellion that catches them both off guard.
“Sometimes I wish we had tried to get out, back when you first suggested it,” Maggie says, picking at a little hole in the bedcover, avoiding Evelyn’s eyes. “You were right, I think.”
“No, you were right,” Evelyn says. “We had nowhere to go.”
“No,” Maggie agrees. “But I guess I mean you were being strong then. You can be again. You have it in you. I’ve seen it.” She looks down at Evelyn now. “We have to keep on pushing forward, Evelyn. Once we get out of here, maybe there will be a way to find our girls. But railing against the Watchdog while we’re trapped inside these walls… it’s only going to harm us in the short term, and it won’t do any good in the long run. Like I told you before up in the Goodbye Room, we just have to believe it’ll be okay one day. We’ll never stop looking for them, Evelyn. We will find them. We just have to be patient.” Her voice drops. “This isn’t the end. I promise you.”
Maggie stands up and pulls the bedcovers all the way back. Evelyn groans into her pillow but doesn’t move. “It may as well be,” she says.
* * *
Two weeks later, Evelyn finally finds an opportunity to speak to Sister Agatha on her own. The damn house is so crowded, the girls and staff are practically tripping over one another. There’s never any privacy to be had.
She spots the nun out in the garden during the afternoon outdoor time. It’s a chilly, wet day and the drizzle has driven most of the girls indoors for the hour-long break, but Sister Agatha is in a corner of the small yard, trimming the hedge with a pair of rusted shears.