The Home for Unwanted Girls

by Joanna Goodman

  “This is Dr. Duceppe,” Sister announces. “He’s going to ask you each some questions. Just answer as best you can. You will be called outside the class when it’s your turn. In the meantime, you’re to remain at your desks, eyes in front and backs straight, working on your lessons. No fidgeting, please.”

  Elodie raises her hand and also blurts her question before she’s called on. “What sort of questions?” she wants to know.

  “You’ll find out when it’s your turn.”

  With that, Sister Tata calls on the first girl. Elodie watches her make her way to the front of the class and follow the moustached man outside. The door closes. Elodie is beside herself with anticipation.

  She has a hard time concentrating on writing her letters. She’s supposed to copy the letter A from one end of the page to the other, but it’s boring and hard to keep the A’s neatly between the two lines. She can hardly wait for her turn with the doctor.

  Finally, it comes. She jumps up from her desk and makes her way out of the class, where the doctor is waiting for her. She follows him down the hall to Mère Blanche’s office, neither of them uttering a word.

  “Sit down, please,” Dr. Duceppe instructs, closing the door behind him.

  Elodie sits in the chair facing the desk. The doctor sits across from her, in Mère Blanche’s chair. She can see notes on his clipboard. Elodie: 3–6–50. There are some other words too, which she doesn’t know how to read.

  “Do you know what this is?” he asks her, holding up a square brown object that has a texture like the ball the boys play sports with outside.

  She reaches out to touch it and discovers that it unfolds. Inside, there are rectangular pieces of paper with numbers on them. She shrugs. “No, monsieur.”

  He takes the thing back from her and scribbles something on the paper. “It’s a wallet,” he mutters.

  “For what?”

  He raises his eyes to meet hers without lifting his head. “For carrying your money,” he says.

  “What about this?” He holds up a picture of some oddly shaped silver things. And then another of a big machine she doesn’t recognize.

  “No, monsieur. No, monsieur.”

  “Keys,” he says. “Stove.”

  “Do you know what the word ‘compare’ means?” he asks her.

  “No, monsieur.”

  Scribble, scribble. “That’s all,” he says, not even looking at her.

  She sits there for a moment, not wanting it to be over. “That’s all?” she repeats.

  “You can go back to your class now.”

  “I can almost tie my shoelace,” she tells him.

  He doesn’t say anything. She goes back to the class. Claire is looking at her expectantly. Elodie shrugs. Nothing more is said about the moustached man for the rest of the day.

  The next morning when they get to class after prayers, Sister Tata tells them to go straight to their desks. “But it’s carpet time,” Elodie reminds her.

  “There’s no carpet time today,” Sister says, and Elodie is disappointed.

  Before long, two more sisters show up in the classroom, followed by Mère Blanche. Elodie looks over at Claire. Something is going on.

  “Girls,” Mother says, standing front and center of the room, her hands clasped together, her back straight as a plank. “Today is Change of Vocation Day,” she announces.

  The girls begin to twitter. Elodie is excited. Change of Vocation Day! “Is it a holiday?” she cries out, not bothering to raise her hand.

  “After today,” Mother continues, “there will be no more school.”

  Elodie’s spirits plunge. No more school?

  “From now on, the orphanage will be a hospital,” Mother tells them.

  Elodie looks over at Sister Tata and notices tears rolling down her cheeks. Her head is lowered, and she won’t make eye contact with Elodie or any of the girls.

  “What does that mean?” one of the older girls asks.

  “Just as I said,” Mère Blanche responds sharply. “We are now a mental hospital. There’s no more orphanage and no more orphans. From this day forward, you are all mentally retarded.”

  Elodie looks around the room. Everyone is dead silent. Some of the older girls are crying. Sister Tata’s shoulders are shaking, her head still lowered, her eyes hidden. “What does it mean, ‘mentally retarded’?” Elodie asks.

  “It means you’re mentally deficient,” Mother explains. “Do you understand? You’re mental patients now. This is how we go forward.”

  With that, she turns on her heels and leaves the room to its silent shock and heartbreak.

  The next morning, three important things happen, all of which give Elodie an anxious feeling of terrible things to come. The first is the banging that wakes her up much earlier than usual. When she looks outside, she sees workers removing all the shutters from the windows and replacing them with black iron bars.

  Next, when she goes downstairs to breakfast, she notices that all the sisters are wearing white habits instead of their usual black.

  “Why is your dress white?” she asks Sister Joséphine, sitting down to her bowl of gruau d’avoine.

  “This is the habit the nurses wear.”

  “Since when are you a nurse?”

  “Since today.”

  The banging outside is deafening, and some of the toddlers are crying and covering their ears. “Why are they putting up bars on the windows?” she asks Sister Joséphine.

  “It’s a mental hospital now.”

  “But it’s not a prison.”

  “It is, in a way.”

  Elodie can feel her lower lip begin to quiver. “Will we be locked inside?”

  “Yes,” Sister says, not making eye contact. “This is the way it is now, so you must stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

  “Why is this happening?”

  “Because you were born in sin.”

  Elodie bites her lip. She stares down into her bowl of gruel and concentrates on not crying at the table.

  “Do we have lessons today?” Claire asks Sister Joséphine.

  Elodie’s head pops up.

  “No,” Sister says. “Today we have to get ready for the new patients. Tomorrow you start working.”

  “Why?”

  “No more school.”

  “What new patients?” Elodie wants to know.

  “Stop asking so many questions.”

  “What kind of work will we have to do?” Claire asks.

  “You’ll have to help take care of the other mental patients,” Sister Joséphine responds, and Elodie notices she’s made a point of inserting the word “other”—“other mental patients.”

  “We’re not mental patients,” Elodie clarifies.

  Sister Joséphine sets down her spoon and stares directly across the table at Elodie. “Yes,” she says, her voice cold, her eyes unflinching. “You are.”

  An hour later, while the bars are still going up in the windows, a yellow school bus pulls up in front of the redbrick building that Elodie has always known as home.

  “The crazies are here!” someone yells.

  The orphans crowd around the windows in the front room with nervous anticipation to watch as their strange new roommates pile out of the bus one by one. The children and nuns let out a collective gasp as the spectacle unfolds before them—old men and women shuffling clumsily up the walk in pajamas, some of them babbling and singing, others in stupefied trances.

  “They’re old!” one of the children cries out.

  “And scary!”

  This is the third disturbing thing to happen this day.

  Elodie feels a knot of panic tighten in her chest. She’s old enough and clever enough to understand that life as she knew it is over.

  Chapter 16

  Maggie

  On her way to meet Roland at L’Auberge Saint-Gabriel in Old Montreal, Maggie can’t help glancing inside her purse to look at her new bra. It’s not so much the bra that thrills her as the achievement. T
he department manager at Simpson’s gives a free brassiere to the number one salesgirl every quarter, and this time it was Maggie. She can’t wait to tell Roland.

  With her job at Simpson’s and Roland by her side, her life in Montreal is turning out not to be such a bad backup plan after all. They are creating a solid, fulfilling life together in the city, and Maggie experiences more moments of genuine contentment than she ever thought possible.

  Roland is waiting for her at their table, sipping a Scotch. There’s a bottle of wine for them to share chilling beside him. She smiles and waves.

  “How was your day?” Maggie asks him, unfolding the white linen napkin on her lap.

  “Far too boring to discuss,” he says. “I’m reviewing a loan proposal for a small mining company run by two very charismatic and persuasive brothers. They’ve managed to establish a viable business out there, which I admire. If I don’t subsidize them, they’ll be swallowed up by Noranda mines. I hate to see that happen.”

  Maggie nods in all the right places. Roland’s cleverness and business acumen still impress her a great deal, but she can’t say she finds it interesting. She decides on the escargots and suprême de volaille for dinner.

  “So it looks like I’ll have to go out to Rouyn later this month,” Roland finishes as the waiter arrives to take their orders. “What about you. How was your day?”

  She reaches for her purse and pulls out just enough of the white lace brassiere to show him, without anyone else seeing what it is.

  “You bought a brassiere?”

  “No. I won a brassiere,” she explains. “I was the number one salesgirl this month!”

  Roland doesn’t say anything. He finishes his Scotch and reaches for the second, which has appeared next to the bread basket. “Congratulations,” he says, staring into his glass. No smile, no feeling behind it.

  “Aren’t you proud of me?”

  “For selling the most brassieres?” he says. “I’m not sure that’s an achievement on par with, say, raising children.”

  Maggie blinks back tears as the waiter sets down her ramekin of escargots. The smell of garlic and warm butter wafts around her, but now she can’t enjoy it. “I’m a natural with the customers,” she murmurs. “I’ve got my father’s instincts—”

  “Let’s change the subject.”

  “I want to keep working.”

  Roland puts down his fork and looks straight at her. “You mean measuring women’s breasts all day? Where does that lead, Maggie?”

  “Women’s apparel. Department manager. Maybe even to a store of my own one day.”

  Roland chuckles sourly. “Get your head out of the clouds,” he says dismissively. “You haven’t touched your escargots, dear. They’re delicious. Very buttery, just the way you like them.”

  “I thought you’d be happy for me.”

  “How can I be happy when I haven’t got a say in what happens in our marriage?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “A man needs a legacy, Maggie. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

  The waiter delivers Roland’s third Scotch and asks Maggie if something is wrong with the escargots. She shakes her head and forces herself to smile up at him. She picks at the rest of her meal, tasting nothing. They finish off the bottle of wine, and then Roland orders a cup of coffee to pep himself up for the drive.

  At home, he heads straight for his liquor trolley in the living room and fixes himself a nightcap. “Drink?” he asks her.

  She grimaces, kicking off her pumps. She notices one of the heels is scraped from the cobblestones in Old Montreal. She kneels down in the vestibule and rubs the scuff with her thumb.

  “I want you to go off your birth control,” he says, sitting down on the brocade sofa.

  “Now?”

  He leans back against the plump cushions and crosses his leg. “Yes. Now. When, Maggie, if not now?”

  She should have seen this coming, but the truth is she’s still not ready. She’s not over Elodie. The wounds have not healed nearly enough to start again. “You haven’t said anything before tonight—”

  “Well, I’m saying it now,” he snips. “I thought you’d bring it up at some point, but apparently it’s not at the top of your priorities.”

  “You’re being a bully.”

  “You told me you wanted children.”

  “I said not right away.”

  “And it’s not right away!” he cries. “I’ve waited patiently for almost three years.”

  “I don’t feel ready.”

  “You may never feel ready,” he says. “But it’s like diving into a lake. It just has to be done.”

  “Easy for you to say,” she mutters, remembering the nausea, the weight, the heartburn, the contractions. The loss. “We have a good life together, Rol. We’re happy. We don’t need to rush to start a family. Not yet.”

  “I’m not going to wait until they make you manager of brassieres at Simpson’s,” he says. “That could take decades.”

  “I don’t like you when you’re drunk,” she tells him.

  He stands up, crosses the room to his liquor trolley, and pours himself another Scotch. “Funny,” he says, plunking ice cubes into his glass. “My father felt the same way about me when he was drunk. Couldn’t stand me. He did everything he could to avoid me. I rubbed him the wrong way, I suppose. Especially when he was drunk.” He sits down, swishes the Scotch around in the glass and takes a healthy gulp. “Every time I opened my mouth, he cringed. I once overheard him say that to my mother.”

  Maggie is startled by Roland’s unexpected confession. He’s not in the habit of sharing personal stories with her, even when he’s been drinking. “I was more surprised to hear him say it out loud than I was to hear that he didn’t like me,” he continues. “I knew of course that he didn’t like me. A child knows.”

  Maggie nods, thinking of her own mother.

  “I just want the opportunity to do better,” Roland slurs. “I’d like to try to be a good father, Maggie. Don’t you see?”

  His lids are beginning to droop, and Maggie feels sorry for him. “We can discuss this in the morning,” she says. “When you’re not so drunk.”

  He responds with a loud snore.

  Upstairs, she sits down at her vanity and combs her hair. Maybe Roland is right.

  Maybe doing better than her mother did would be healing. What if she could make up for every kiss withheld, every caress denied? Raise a child who feels treasured and adored?

  The idea begins to blossom as she gets ready for bed. A baby to love, a life to shape. She could do it with kindness and affection, not anger; with a gentle voice, the balm of acceptance, and all the nurturing that would enable a living thing to thrive. It might even turn out to be redemption for the daughter she gave up.

  Chapter 17

  Elodie

  1957

  “Stay still!” Elodie cries impatiently.

  Big Abéline barks like a dog and chomps her gums together as though she’s about to bite.

  “You don’t even have teeth, imbécile!” Elodie says.

  More barking.

  “Stop barking, or I’ll get Sister Louiselle,” Elodie threatens. Sister Louiselle is the meanest nun at Saint-Sulpice. She arrived with the crazies two years ago to manage the mental patients and teach the other nuns—who, previously, had only ever cared for orphans—how to run the place like a hospital.

  Big Abéline growls. She weighs about 250 pounds and could crush seven-year-old Elodie like an ant. Still, it’s Elodie’s job to wash Abéline before bed, which means scrubbing her back and under her armpits and even her private parts, which Elodie always skips.

  Some of the other crazies are easier to handle. P’tite Odette is tiny and gentle, always cooperative. She has droopy eyes and a slow way of talking—Claire says from all the medicine they give her—but Elodie isn’t even sure why she’s here. Mam’selle Philodora is another one Elodie doesn’t mind taking care of. She’s retarded for real—not crazy lik
e the other ones—and everyone likes her. She’s always smiling and laughing, happy. She doesn’t seem to know or care where she is. She likes to hug and cuddle, which Elodie enjoys in return.

  Big Abéline is the worst. Elodie hates her. Her barking and growling, her sweaty thighs that are always covered in a rash, her unbearable stink.

  “Why is she still in here?” Sister Louiselle says, coming into the bathroom.

  Abéline barks at her.

  “She’s not letting me wash her,” Elodie complains.

  “Go to the dorm,” Sister Louiselle says. “Say your prayers and get to bed.”

  Relieved, Elodie leaves the room and escapes to the dorm. She drops to her knees and pretends to pray. Crosses herself, not meaning it, slides under the crisp white sheet and pulls the wool blanket up to her chin. The younger girls are already asleep, the older ones still working. Elodie lets out a long sigh. Another boring day is behind her.

  The room is cold for October. She used to love the fall, but that was back when she still got excited about things. There’s no more playing outside, no more singing or coloring. No more sunshine on her skin, fall leaves, books, crayons, or hope.

  She presses her doll, Poupée, to her cheek and closes her eyes. The good thing about working all day—whether she’s bathing the crazies or making their beds or washing their dirty clothes—is that by the time she gets into bed at night, she’s too tired for sad thoughts or even for listing all the things that make her angry. But tonight, just as she’s hovering on the precipice between deep sleep and semiconsciousness, she’s startled awake by a brusque shake.

  “Heh?” she cries, rolling away from the intruder.

  “It’s time to wake up.”

  Elodie blinks in the dark, trying to orient herself. Outside, it’s pitch-black. “It’s the middle of the night,” she moans, recognizing Sister Tata standing above her.