Soline was silent a moment, as if weighing the question carefully. “Once, perhaps,” she said at last. “I believed Anson and I were supposed to get married, that he’d come home with my mother’s rosary and I would give him back his shaving kit, and we’d live happily ever after.”
Rory nodded gloomily, then frowned as she recalled something Soline had said earlier. “Wait. You said Anson’s father took the shaving kit, but I remember seeing it in the box.”
Soline shrugged. “He gave it back. I don’t know what made him do it or even when he did it. I was gone within the week. The chauffeur drove me to the train station, and a woman named Dorothy Sheridan met me in Providence.”
“Who was Dorothy Sheridan?”
“She ran the Family Aid Society, which is a pretty way of saying a home for unwed mothers. There were eight more like me there. Some were little more than girls, others claimed to be war widows, but we all had one thing in common—we’d gotten caught without a husband and had nowhere to go. I cried the whole first day. I couldn’t believe Owen could hate me that much. But when I opened my box, there was Anson’s shaving kit at the bottom. It’s hard to imagine him feeling remorse, but perhaps he did it for Anson’s sake. It certainly wasn’t for mine.”
“Did you at least get to say goodbye to Thia?”
Soline shook her head. “He sent her away the next day.”
Rory was quiet for a time, trying to imagine the horror of it. Pregnant and grieving alone. “You have to be the bravest woman I know. To live through all of that and keep on going.”
Soline looked at her hands, alternately clenching and flexing them, something she often did when she appeared lost in thought. “I kept going because there was no alternative.”
“I know, but giving up a baby . . .”
“I didn’t give her up,” Soline said, looking away. “She died.”
Rory went still, absorbing the words like a blow to the solar plexus. “I’m so sorry. I just assumed . . . What happened?”
“One morning I got out of bed, and there was a rush of water. I knew that happened, but it was too soon. I told them they had to stop it, that she wasn’t supposed to come for another month, but they said she was coming anyway and I needed to pray. They brought me to a small room with no windows and a narrow bed with leather straps. There was a tiny crib, too, a hospital bed for babies. Then they gave me something—a needle in my arm and a mask over my face. I don’t remember much after that.”
Rory’s eyes widened. “They put you under to have the baby?”
“It’s how it was done in those days. Twilight sleep, they called it. So you wouldn’t remember after. When I woke up, I felt as if I’d been beaten. There were bruises on my ankles and wrists from the straps. But I didn’t care. I begged to hold her, to feed her, but they said it was too soon. She wasn’t strong enough to nurse. I must have fallen asleep. I was so tired. When I woke up, the little crib was gone, and I began to holler. Someone finally came, one of the matrons, but she wouldn’t look me in the eye. I knew then what was coming, but hearing her say the words nearly broke me in two. Too small to survive. Lungs not developed. Gone to be with the angels.”
Rory closed her eyes, unable to find adequate words of comfort. Language for that kind of anguish simply didn’t exist. “I’m so sorry,” she repeated feebly.
“I knew it would be a girl. I had already named her—Assia. It means ‘one who brings comfort.’” She paused, struggling to swallow. “I heard her cry,” she whispered. “When she was born, I heard her. I wish sometimes that I hadn’t. If she’d been stillborn, lifeless from the moment she left my body, it might have been easier. But knowing she lived for even a few hours without her mère, that she died never knowing my touch, still breaks my heart. I asked to see her, to hold her, but they had already taken her away.”
“Taken her where?” Rory asked, horrified.
“They called the coroner’s office to come for her. It’s the law, so they can verify cause of death for the certificate. They said because I was indigent, Assia would be buried in the county cemetery. There would be no service, no marker. I begged them to stop it, to give me time to find the money to bury her properly. I would have called Anson’s father and begged, but they wouldn’t let me use the phone. Three days later, they told me it was done.”
Rory swallowed a throatful of tears. “Did they at least tell you where, so you could visit her grave?”