A dense silence follows Jack’s words. They meet eyes across the bed, brown mirroring brown. Deep in her chest, Maggie feels the unfamiliar sensation of hope struggling to its feet.
“But who’s going to believe me, Jack? A lot of the girls that go through that place willingly give their babies up. They convince you to, coerce you into agreeing. They tell you your baby will have a better life with an adopted family, that you can’t afford it, you’ll end up shamed and prostituting on the street. They terrify those girls into signing off on the adoptions. It’s the Church, Jack. Who’s going to believe us? Even if they do believe me, they would probably still agree that the baby is better off with an adopted family. Forced or not. We wouldn’t stand a chance.”
Jack chews his lip the same way Maggie does. “I assume you didn’t see the name on the adoption papers? Of the parents?”
Maggie shakes her head. “I hardly remember signing.”
She knows her brother means well, but there’s no point discussing the what-ifs. It’s not possible now. There’s nothing to be done. It’s over. Jane is gone. “There is something else, though,” she says.
Jack waits.
“I, um, I attacked Sister Teresa. The warden.”
Jack springs off the bed. “What?”
“Jack, she had it coming, I promise you.”
“What? What do you mean, ‘had it coming’？”
Maggie can feel the burn of shame creeping up her neck. “She beat us. She sold our babies. She’s evil, Jack.”
Jack opens and closes his mouth, then throws himself back down on the bed. “What did you do?”
“I stabbed her.”
“God, Maggie.” Jack buries his head in his hands for a moment, then rakes them through his sleek hair. “But they’ll be coming to find you. The police could be arriving here at any moment! Why didn’t you say something when you first got here?”
Maggie tenses at his raised voice, curling her shoulders inward. Jack notices, immediately apologetic.
“I’m sorry, Maggie. Where did you stab her?” he asks, wincing. “Is there a chance she’s dead?”
Maggie shakes her head. “Probably not.”
“Probably not?”
“I can’t say for sure. I don’t know. It was right after I found my friend Evelyn dead. I’d just had enough. Something snapped. I had Joe’s face in my mind. And I stabbed her and ran. Sister Agatha unlocked the door for me and told me to run. I didn’t know where else to go, so I came here. I thought they would be after me right away, like you said.” Maggie picks at her cuticles. “Your razors were right there. I thought I could just drift off, and… I woke up here this morning, and I’m alive because of you.” She reaches out and strokes his arm, trying to avoid looking at the gauze wrapped around her wrist. “The police haven’t shown up, so I’m sure the Watchdog isn’t dead. Have you heard from Mother?”
Jack shakes his head.
“So, they’re not coming for me, I’m sure of it,” she says. “Listen, I have a letter from Evelyn, addressed to the police. She asked me to post it for her, as her final wish. I’m hoping, when they read it, they might actually come after the Watchdog. It shouldn’t be me they want. And the home has to deal with the body of a—a dead girl, and a stabbed warden. The house will be in chaos right now. They won’t come after me. And the letter is my insurance policy.”
Jack collects his thoughts, then reaches out and pulls Maggie into a hug that crushes her starved frame. He lets out a breath into her shoulder. He’s warm and solid and smells like the cedar aftershave Maggie gave him for his birthday the previous year. She smiles through her tears.
“I’m so sorry, Maggie,” he whispers into her ear. “I should have gotten you out of there. I’m so sorry.”
“You didn’t know, Jack.”
“I love you, Maggie.”
“I love you, too.”
The room is silent. Maggie can hear the rhythmic ticking of the clock on the bedside table. Twenty-one ticks, she counts. She and her brother hold each other for twenty-one seconds until her breathing slows and matches his. Twenty-one seconds that heal the temporary divide and bind them together again. Twenty-one seconds until they break apart and Jack asks the impossible question:
“So. What happens now?”
CHAPTER 30 Evelyn
SPRING 2017
Evelyn looks up from her own hand, which has been steadily stroking Darwin for the past hour as she told Angela her story. She has rarely in her life experienced such an enormous relief. She released some of the pain when she told Tom her secret, but this time with Angela feels different, as if she can see the way forward now. After decades of hoping, she might finally—almost—find Jane.
Tissues lay crumpled and scattered over the surface of the white coffee table. Angela stares at them through filmy eyes. Evelyn can tell she isn’t quite sure what to say next. She’s still reeling from Evelyn’s revelation and the exposition of the maternity home’s horrors, from start to finish, all the way up to the morning after Evelyn’s escape and attempted suicide.
“So…” she begins. “So, what happened once you moved back to Toronto? Do you see Jack? Did you ever marry or have any other children? I’m sorry, I just have so many questions.”
“Yes, I still see Jack. We’re very close.” A smile slowly creeps across Evelyn’s face, as though unsure whether or not it’s allowed to be there. “And I was married for a long time, actually. To a man.”
Angela raises her eyebrows. “Do tell.”
“Until a little over ten years ago. His name is Tom O’Reilly. He’s my best friend. We divorced so he could marry his longtime lover, Reg. Once it was finally legal.”
“Why did you marry a gay man?”
Evelyn shoots Angela a pitying look. “So that we could both hide, my dear.”
Angela tips her head to the side, inviting Evelyn to continue.
“Tom was a doctor, too. We met while we were studying in Montreal and became fast friends. He needed an intelligent wife as an accessory for fancy surgeons’ dinner parties, and him being a bachelor for too long would have raised eyebrows. As much as a female doctor was a relatively unusual thing anyway, being an unmarried female doctor wouldn’t have been good for business, either. So, we married and continued to just live together as best friends. We wore wedding rings and trotted each other out in public when the occasion called for it, but other than that, we lived our own lives. I see Tom and Reg often. We spend holidays together still. And I’ve lived here ever since the divorce. I like being in the city, in the thick of it. When things get too quiet, my mind starts to wander. I think too much. About…”
She rests her forehead in the hand that isn’t stroking Darwin, and Angela hands her another tissue.
“Good Lord. I hate being such a mess,” Evelyn says, rolling her eyes. “I didn’t get this far by blubbering away at every sad memory.”
“I think given the circumstances you can cut yourself some slack.”
Evelyn lets out a sound somewhere between and scoff and a chuckle. “You’re right. Young people are often wiser than we old sods give you credit for.”