Violet let go of the suitcases and perched on the edge of the first seat. Muriel lowered herself into the chair beside her.
Sadie placed her quivering palms against Lily’s stomach, and Muriel piped up: “Six months along, so she says.”
“You’ll blossom soon enough.” Sadie smiled and her lips disappeared into the space where her teeth once resided. “Plenty of time before I see you.”
“Sadie delivers the babies around here.” Muriel rubbed her belly. “So what do you think? Carol Kochis says I’m having a girl, but I don’t believe her.”
Violet stared at Sadie’s hands, now folded in her lap and still. “You’re a midwife?”
Sadie eyed Muriel. “And just how would Carol Kochis know such a thing?”
“Says I’m carrying all around. Says that’s what happens when you’re having a girl. And she should know. Had herself two already.”
Violet tried again: “Does anyone help you?”
“Nothing but an old wives’ tale,” Sadie said. “Only the Almighty Himself knows for sure. And if you ask me, Carol Kochis has better things to do with her time than devil you about your baby.” She shook her head and mumbled, “Two girls already.”
“And a boy. Every last one of them farmed out,” Muriel explained to the Morgan sisters.
Sadie turned to Lily, leaned in, and pushed back her upper lip. “Teeth look good. How’re your bowels?”
Lily scooted up against the far end of the couch.
Sadie seemed not to notice. “Had the shakes all my life.” She stretched her hands straight out and looked at Violet. “Even as a child.” She tipped her trembling palms up and examined them. “Birthed hundreds of babies, though.” She paused as if in thought. “Maybe thousands. Funny thing is,” she picked up a tufted pillow and cradled it, turning her eyes back to Violet, “the shaking stops as soon as I take hold of something.” She smiled and her lips disappeared again.
The Reverend Mother knocked lightly on the doorframe. “The doctor’s asking for you, Sadie.” She continued down the hallway.
“It’s been a pleasure, ladies.” Sadie dropped the pillow, stood to leave, and the tremors started up again.
“So there is a doctor,” Violet said, once the three girls were alone in the parlor.
Muriel looked around, then leaned forward. “Only when there’s trouble.” She ran a finger across her stomach. “He knows how to cut them out.”
Lily shivered.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” Muriel said. “He has a purpose, is all. And besides, a healthy girl like you,” she waved her hand, “piece of cake.”
Lily teared up. “I want to go home.”
“Well, you can’t.” Violet took a breath and tried again: “They’ll take good care of you. I’ll see to that.”
“I still don’t like it here.”
“I wouldn’t complain too loud,” Muriel said, and pointed to the wall closest to the front of the building. “Mother Mary Joseph sleeps in there. Says it’s so she’s close to the babies, but she can’t fool me.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “The woman has elephant ears under that war bonnet. Hears everything.” She hooked her thumbs behind her ears and flapped her hands. Lily laughed. “Come on. I’ll show you.” Muriel smiled and stood up, then led the girls back into the hallway toward the staircase. “Watch.” She lifted her foot onto the first step, the boards groaning under her weight. The Reverend Mother’s door opened and closed so stealthily that had it not been for Muriel’s warning, the sisters would have missed the event entirely. “No need to put locks on the doors,” Muriel explained, cupping her ears again. “She’ll hear you if you try to give her the slip.”
Halfway up the steps, Muriel leaned over the banister and pointed down to a set of half-opened French doors at the front of the hallway. “Foyer’s through there. Foyer. Ain’t that a kick. Never heard of such a word, but that’s nuns for you.” She paused at the landing, caught her breath, and started up again. “We go through the foyer,” she laughed, “to get to the chapel on the left. Hospital’s to your right. Everything here’s connected. Never have to go out.”
“Fine by me.” Lily pulled one side of her coat over the other, and held it closed at her stomach.
Muriel continued up to the next landing. “Home sweet home,” she said. “The whole second floor is ours. Third floor belongs to the good sisters.” She looked up. “And Sadie Hope. Been widowed for forty years. I suppose if you’re going to live like a nun, you may as well live with them. Not that I could ever do it,” she chuckled. “Washrooms are at the end of the hall.” She pointed toward the back of the building, to the place just over the kitchen. “Four of ’em. Two on each side. Knock first if you know what’s good for you.”
Muriel opened the door closest to them and pulled the cord on a porcelain ceiling light, one of four centered down the length of the room. Eighteen steel beds, nine on either side, lined the walls. “Clean, anyways.”
Violet nodded to the two suitcases. “Where do we sleep?”
“Up here on the left.” Muriel waddled to the end of the room, pulling on cords, lighting the way. “Eight and nine.” She waved a hand toward two unmade beds with linens piled on blue-and-white-ticked mattresses. “I’m lucky number seven,” she said, lowering herself onto the nearest bed. “A pleasure to meet you.” She laughed again and lay against her pillow.
“How many girls are there?” Lily asked, backing out of the way so Violet could get in to make the beds.
“We’re full up.” Muriel patted the edge of her mattress, inviting Lily to sit. “Everyone’s off at chapel just now.”
Lily half-smiled. “Not everyone.”
Muriel giggled and nodded toward Lily. “I like this one,” she said to no one in particular.
When Violet finished making the beds, she set the suitcases on top.
“You can stash what’s yours in the dressers.” Muriel motioned toward the small chests of drawers to the left of each bed. “Stow the bags underneath.”
“I want to be next to Muriel.” Lily grabbed hold of the brown metal footboard and pulled herself up farther. Muriel drew up her legs to give the girl more room.
“You can’t always get your way.” Violet ran her hand along the tops of the cowhide suitcases before unbuckling the one closest to her. Matching luggage with forest-green lining. They were supposed to have been her wedding present from the widow who had shown them to Violet the day they’d arrived. “I just couldn’t wait,” the widow had said. “Act surprised when Stanley sees them. We wouldn’t want him to think we have secrets.”
But then the widow had dragged them out again that February night, with Violet’s mother and Lily in the parlor. “I thought you could use these on your holiday,” she’d said, and smiled as if she’d convinced herself that the sisters really were going to their Aunt Hattie’s in Buffalo, instead of an infant asylum in Philadelphia.
“It’s just that Muriel understands my delicate condition,” Lily explained, as Violet lifted her sister’s clothes and slid them into the dresser. Lily patted her stomach. “Anyhow, you’ll still be next to me, just like home.”
Not at all like home, Violet thought. At home, Violet slept on the left, Lily on the right. Violet had always slept on that side, even before Lily was born, back when Daisy had been alive to share the bed. Daisy, older by thirteen months. Some of the folks in Scranton used to call them Irish twins. Almost seventeen years since that tragedy, and Violet’s eyes still stung with the memory of it. She reached into her sleeve and discovered Mother Mary Joseph’s handkerchief tucked inside. She dabbed her eyes and turned to the girls. “I’ll be back.” She headed for the door, waving the hanky.
Violet made her way down the steps. Since there was no light under Mother Mary Joseph’s door, she continued down the hallway to the kitchen. When she found no one there, she decided to step outside for a breath of air. The day had been long and heavy, like every day since the first of January. New Year’s, a time for luck and sec
ond chances—the day Violet had finally understood Lily’s predicament. No monthly rags. Sick stomach every morning. Her two good dresses, her only dresses, pulling at the bosom. Lily had been sulking for the better part of December, but until that morning, Violet had never once thought Lily could be expecting.
A sharp wind cut across Violet’s face and whipped up a sudden squall of snow, slicing the stars out of the evening sky. Violet whirled around to go inside, tried the handle, and found the door locked. Gooseflesh rippled under the thin sleeves of her blouse, prompted more by fear than cold. She cradled her arms, tucked her head, and balled her body up against the fieldstone wall. Violet had been lost in the snow when she was nine years old, the night she’d helped birth Lily, and ever since, she was terrified to be alone in it. She stayed tucked for a long time before she remembered to breathe. The air raced out of her lungs so fast it seemed to push back the wind. The snow stopped falling as quickly as it had begun, and the stars repopulated the inky sky.
Violet drew in a breath and listened for the wind to circle back, but heard only the thump of her own heart. She straightened slowly and twisted the knob a second time. The door stayed put inside its frame. Try the main entrance, she thought, whether the nuns like it or not. Just as she rounded the corner, a woman, her face hidden behind a tightly drawn shawl, bolted out of the asylum’s double oak doors and down the slate front steps, vanishing into the frozen night. Violet might have thought the woman an apparition if her sobs hadn’t pierced the icy silence.
Violet scurried through the yard and up the steep steps to a large porch. She looked back to make certain the woman had disappeared before turning the knob and dashing across the threshold. Violet’s flesh prickled in the heated air; her limbs ached from the warmth of the foyer. She stood for a moment, dripping melted snow, silently thanking God for the unlocked door, when what sounded like a baby’s whimper interrupted her prayer. Violet looked around and spotted a large white cradle to her right, near the arched entrance to the chapel. A wooden sign above the cradle instructed, Go and Sin No More. The cries started again, full on, so Violet walked over and scooped a swaddled bundle into her arms. A note pinned to a moth-eaten blanket simply read, Be good to my boy. Violet offered the infant her finger to suck, and noticed his disfigurement. She’d only seen two other harelips in her life. They reminded her of a pig’s notched ear. The crying stopped momentarily, and the baby looked up with his broken expression. Violet kissed her finger and lightly traced the triangular opening from the infant’s nostril to his lip.
“I’m right here, Sister!” a male voice yelled from the hospital side of the entrance. “I’ll see to the matter.”
Violet looked to her left as a corpulent man in a bloodstained apron parted a set of pocket doors on the opposite wall.
“What is it, Dr. Peters?” Mother Mary Joseph called out.
The man stood for a moment, eyeing Violet as he would a bit of gristle on the side of his plate. “Just another whore,” he answered, in a voice too low to carry into the next room. He pushed a plug of tobacco into his bearded cheek, walked over to Violet, and whispered, “Just another stinking whore.”
Chapter three
AS SOON AS VIOLET LEFT THE ROOM with Mother Mary Joseph’s handkerchief, Lily walked to the door on Muriel’s orders and looked down the hallway in both directions. “Coast is clear!”
“Not for long,” Muriel called from the other end of the room, “what with all your yelling. Now, hurry up. Chapel will be over soon. And who knows when that sister of yours will get back.” She reached into her top drawer, pushed aside a crumple of nightclothes, and pulled out a pile of magazines. “If the Reverend Mother catches us, we’ll have to scrub floors for a month of Sundays,” she said, fanning the magazines out on her bed like a winning hand of pinochle.
“Can she really make us do that?” Lily’s eyes dipped toward the contraband.
Muriel grabbed her nightgown and draped it over her curly red locks, making a pious face. “With our own toothbrushes.” She tied the gown’s arms around her forehead, fashioning a nun’s wimple for her makeshift veil. “Here at the Good Shepherd,” she said in Mother Mary Joseph’s unsteady falsetto, “unwholesome pursuits will not be tolerated.” Muriel lifted a pudgy thumb and started ticking off the rules. “No tobacco. No cards. No alcohol. No profane language.” She unfolded her pinky with a flourish. “And no suggestive literature.” She cleared her throat and stretched her voice another octave. “It’ll rot your very soul.”
“I’ll not scrub one floor,” Lily said, as she considered the consequences for the infraction she was about to commit. “And I’m not afraid to tell her that,” she added, though her voice lacked conviction. She sat on the corner of Muriel’s bed and fingered the magazines. True Story, True Romances, Modern Screen, Movie Monthly—all scandalous, though none very recent. Why, Gertrude Olmstead was on a November 1928 cover of True Story, and she hadn’t been heard from since talkies became the rage.
“I’d like to be a fly on the wall when you tell her that one.”
“Who?” Lily picked up the December 1929 True Story with a picture of Clara Bow on front.
“Mother Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” Both girls erupted into laughter. “Oh!” Muriel pressed her hands against her belly. “He’s a real scrapper,” she said, rubbing a tip of elbow or knee poking up.
Lily grimaced. “What was that?”
“He’s kicking.”
Lily looked at Muriel’s belly, stunned.
“You didn’t know?” Muriel swung around sidesaddle, reached for Lily’s hand, and placed it against her stomach. “Here,” she said. “Feel that?”
When the baby kicked again, Lily pulled her hand away and wiped it on the blanket. “How awful!”
“Awful? Happens to everybody.”
“Not me!”
“You too, silly.”
Lily’s mouth dropped open.
“First you feel flapping inside,” Muriel squinted, “but soft, like a hummingbird’s wings. After that, the kicking starts.”
Lily’s eyebrows sprang up.
“I’m just starting my seventh month,” Muriel said, “so you should be showing any day. Probably just need to put a little meat on those bones.” She picked up a 1925 Movie Monthly with a picture of Priscilla Dean on the cover. The headline read, “Ladies in Peril.” She scooped up the remaining magazines and buried them in the open drawer. “Didn’t your mother teach you anything?”
Lily shook her head and moved to her own bed. Clara Bow peeked out from under her arm. “She said I’d already had quite an education, and that nature would take care of the rest.”
“How ’bout that sister of yours? She’s no spring chicken. Imagine she’s been around the block a time or two.”
“Violet? Hardly. She’s too busy mooning over Stanley. Stanley, Stanley,” she singsonged. “That’s all I ever hear.”
“What sort of fella is he?”
“Sweet enough, I suppose. Not much taller than Violet. Educated. Finishing up law school right here in Philadelphia.”
“How romantic. Will she see him?”
“No!” Lily slapped the magazine onto her lap. “He doesn’t know a thing, and Violet swore it would stay that way. He thinks we’re off in Buffalo visiting our relations.” She picked up the True Story and smoothed its pages. The publication’s motto, Truth is stranger than fiction, stared up at her. “It’s bad enough the widow knows, but Mother couldn’t be stopped. She said Catholics know more about worldly matters.”
Muriel closed her eyes and smiled. “Is he handsome?”
“Promise you won’t tell?”
Muriel nodded so vigorously that her wimple and veil slid off her head, down onto her pillow.
“I couldn’t say.” She leaned in and whispered, “I’ve never been able to get past the hand.”
“What’s wrong with his hand?” Muriel scooted toward the edge of her mattress, closer to Lily.
“It isn’t there.” Lily drew back
and shivered. “For as long as I’ve known him, he’s always just had the one.”
“Born that way? I’ve heard of that. A woman oughtn’t look at a crone or a cripple when she’s in the family way. It’ll mark the baby for sure.”
Lily considered the warning. “It’s different with Stanley. Lost his hand in the mine when he was a boy. Came this close to dying.” She pressed a half-inch of air between her thumb and forefinger. “He swears it was Violet’s voice that brought him back.”
“Now there’s a romance story if I ever heard one. And what about you?” Muriel rolled her copy of Movie Monthly and rapped it against Lily’s headboard. “Do you have a sweetheart waiting for you back home?”
Lily considered the question. She loved George Sherman Jr., but that didn’t make him her sweetheart. Or her his. He’d told her to come back in a few years after she’d “grown up some,” but that hardly meant he was waiting for her. She’d seen him around town with those other girls. And he’d certainly never want her now if he knew she was expecting. “I can’t say for sure.” Her eyes teared up. “How about you? Do you have a beau?”
“Promise you won’t tell?” Muriel leaned in.
“Cross my heart.”
“I’m a married woman,” she said, stretching out a ringless hand. “All very proper.”
Lily examined Muriel’s unadorned fingers out of politeness. “Why not tell?”
“Pa would kill him.”
“Is he mean?”
“My pa? He’s wonderful to me. Says I’m his little princess.” Muriel wrapped her arms around her stomach. “I’m the only girl in a family of nine.” She trembled. “So naturally he favors me.”
“What’re you going to do when the baby comes?”
“Take him home, of course. Raise him with his daddy.”
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