The Home for Unwanted Girls

by Joanna Goodman

  A loud cry from the nursery startles both of them. Gabriel nearly jumps out of his seat. Maggie is used to the baby’s waking screams, his inconvenient sense of timing. She waits for a moment, hoping he’s up for good and she can finally feed him and relieve the pain in her breasts, but the crying subsides. He’s fallen back to sleep.

  “Angèle told me you had a baby,” he says. “Congratulations.”

  She pauses. “He’s yours, Gabriel.”

  Her revelation visibly knocks the wind out of him. His mouth opens, but no words come. He sits there for a moment, absorbing it. His eyes like glass.

  “I tried to find you,” she reminds him. “I wanted him to have a father.”

  “I know,” he murmurs. “I can’t . . . I don’t know what to say.”

  She lets him sit with the news for a little while.

  “Do you want to meet him?” she finally asks, breaking the silence.

  Gabriel’s face lights up. “Yes,” he says. “Please.” He gets up and takes a few steps toward Maggie, then pulls her in for an unexpected hug. “I’ve wondered,” he admits, releasing her. “When Angèle told me, I thought the baby might be mine.”

  “You should have come back then.”

  “It could have been your husband’s, too. I didn’t want to fuck things up any more than they already were. And I was still upset, Maggie.”

  “I’m going to feed him and then I’ll bring him down.”

  James Gabriel beams the moment he sees her face. He adores her. She is the grounding, nurturing centerpiece of his universe. “Hi,” she says. “Hi, little man.”

  Maggie scoops him up and presses her lips to his warm cheek. “Time to eat,” she whispers, putting him back in his jammies. He grabs a fistful of her hair and yanks hard. She lets out a small shriek, marveling at how strong he is. She sits with him in the rocking chair while he sucks on her nipple, draining her breasts of milk, and tries to calm herself before she introduces him to his father. How many times has she played that scene out in her mind? She can hardly believe it’s actually happening. She almost gave up.

  After the baby pulls his face away and spits up on her shoulder, she holds him against her chest and says, “Now let’s go meet your daddy.”

  She carries him downstairs and takes a deep breath before entering the kitchen. “Here he is,” she says, bursting into tears before Gabriel even has a chance to hold him.

  “What’s his name?” Gabriel asks her, reaching out his arms to take him.

  “James Gabriel.”

  Gabriel’s eyes widen, and he manages a smile.

  The baby burps as he’s passed from his mother to his father, and Maggie quickly leans in to wipe his chin with her shirtsleeve. Gabriel takes the baby in his arms with surprising confidence. “Mon Dieu,” he murmurs, rubbing his nose on top of James’s downy head and kissing his fat cheek. “He’s beautiful.”

  Gabriel looks up at Maggie and their eyes lock. He’s crying. “My son,” he says proudly. “Mon gars.”

  Maggie laughs, feeling happier than she’s felt in a long time.

  “Bonjour, mon homme,” he says softly, bouncing him in his arms. James is smiling at him. Love at first sight.

  Gabriel starts singing to him in French. “Fais dodo, bébé à Papa . . .”

  Maggie’s heart is beating fast. James is cooing and giggling.

  “Si bébé pas fais dodo, grand loup-loup va manger.”

  The phone rings and Maggie reaches for it.

  “Your father’s dead,” her mother says. Just like that.

  Chapter 40

  The Seed Man is buried in the cemetery behind the Protestant church. Just about every farmer from Frelighsburg to Granby shows up to honor him. Maggie barely recognizes any of his customers in their dark, formal trench coats and solemn faces. The men she knew always wore overalls and muddy boots, had suntans and dirt in their fingernails. But here they all are—Blais, LaPellure, O’Carroll, Cardinal, Loriot. They toss seeds at the coffin as it’s lowered into the ground, and when it’s fully immersed, swallowed whole by the earth her father loved so much, Maggie weeps.

  She thinks about his catalogues, his unrealized garden, his smoky sanctuary in the maid’s quarters; she thinks about his homemade radios, his cigars, his Dale Carnegie seminars and self-improvement books, and all the ways he ever attempted to hide from his wife and blot out the grim reality of his home life, all the while never failing to support his family no matter what toll it took on him.

  Maggie was surprised to learn that he’d made her the sole executor of his will. He also had a clause put in that gives her say as to whether the business will be sold, which felt to her like a sincere gesture of conciliation. Much to Peter’s shock and chagrin, no one in the family has a vote—not even their mother. The decision is entirely Maggie’s. It was a smart move on her father’s part, knowing Maggie as he does. He understood that she would never—could never—sell his store.

  And he was right. She never will.

  The men approach the family one by one, shaking hands and offering condolences. When it’s over, Maman takes hold of Geri’s arm and they walk purposefully back to the Packard. Gabriel and the baby follow after them, leaving Maggie to linger behind and take a moment alone with her father.

  She can’t quite believe he’s gone. A numbness has settled over her, which has diffused the grief and emptiness just enough for her to get through each day. She kneels down and touches his stone with her gloved hand, silently promising to carry on his legacy with equal passion and dedication.

  When she finally rises and turns away from his grave, Clémentine Phénix emerges from the shadows of the trees, clutching a silk paisley handkerchief to her face. She catches Maggie’s arm and gazes at her beseechingly. Her eyes are puffy and red as she comes close enough for Maggie to smell the Yardley soap on her skin. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she says, her voice broken.

  Georgette is lurking behind her, her cheeks flushed from the cold, her nose running. She’s gotten so tall, Maggie observes. She must be about seventeen, with the same freckled nose and golden hair as Clémentine. She’s wearing a tattered coat, which looks like one of Vi’s old coats from years ago. Yes, she thinks, looking more closely. It is Vi’s coat—she can tell from the missing button.

  “He was a good man,” Clémentine says.

  “Thank you,” Maggie responds cordially, still staring at the coat in confusion. How did Georgette wind up with it? she wonders.

  “Your father may have known seeds,” Clémentine states, looking Maggie directly in the eye. “But he understood nothing about flowers, did he?”

  Maggie takes a step back, not knowing what to say.

  “Our condolences to your family,” Clémentine adds, and then walks off with the snow crunching beneath her boots and Georgette trudging behind.

  Maggie returns to her parents’ house after the burial, but doesn’t stay long. Still troubled by her encounter with Clémentine, she can’t face more condolences, small talk over party sandwiches, and the absence of her father. Instead, she sends Gabriel back upstairs to put the baby down for a nap and heads where she always goes for solace, the cornfield.

  The sun slips behind the Phénix house, and the sky quickly changes from bright hyacinth blue to navy as she makes her way down. Wandering through the frozen field, Maggie adds up all the inconsequential bits and pieces that on their own have always seemed benign, but taken together now paint a picture of something far more incriminating. The signature smell of Yardley soap on Clémentine’s skin, the Handbook for Gardeners in her book shelf, the English tea set, Violet’s hand-me-downs on Georgette.

  Maggie remembers a young Clémentine fondly tending her crops, one hand on her hip, the other caressing the corn, the way Maggie has seen her do a hundred times—a woman Maggie’s father would not have been able to resist, especially right under his nose.

  It wasn’t just the one time, Maggie realizes. It must have gone on and on, long after that day Maggie caught
them.

  She turns and heads back toward the Phénix shack. She knocks on the door and Clémentine appears. “Come in,” she says, expecting her. She’s still in her black dress, still puffy-eyed and hanging on to that handkerchief.

  “Is Georgette my father’s daughter?” Maggie asks, barely through the door.

  Clémentine draws back, startled.

  “Is she?”

  “Of course not,” Clémentine responds, with a perceptible undertone of defiance.

  Maggie sits down on the couch without being invited to do so. “But you’ve been with him all these years, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “All this is him,” Maggie says, pointing to the books on her shelf, the tea set. “Our hand-me-downs . . .”

  “He was just trying to help us.”

  “Does my mother know?” Maggie asks coolly.

  “Of course not,” Clémentine responds. “I wouldn’t be alive.”

  “And Gabriel?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “He made you beg for credit at his store,” Maggie reminds her. “Even though you were lovers.”

  “I’m the one who wouldn’t take his money,” she says. “I was young and stupid, full of pride. He offered and I said no. When I asked for credit at his store that day, I think he was angry with me for doing it in front of people, instead of just letting him quietly support me. He was angry with me for being so stubborn and proud.”

  She fixes herself a Scotch and pours one for Maggie, without even asking her if she wants one.

  “Did he love you?” she asks.

  “In his own way,” Clémentine says, her eyes finally dry. “Not the way he loved your mother. Not enough to leave her. He was always driven by lust. He didn’t really understand love. He tried, though. He really did try.”

  Maggie laughs at that and Clémentine blushes.

  “I loved him,” Clémentine admits. “It’s a relief to finally say that out loud.”

  Maggie gets to her feet.

  “I’m sorry,” Clémentine murmurs.

  Maggie doesn’t respond. She’s too tired. She’s not even angry, just drained.

  She walks back to her parents’ house, feeling heavyhearted and alone. Once inside, she wanders into her father’s sanctuary and pulls on the light cord, startled to discover the room is practically bare. It smells of cleaning products and bleach. The wood floor is gleaming and freshly polished and all of his homemade radios are gone. He’s gone. He’s been scoured and scrubbed away. Maggie recognizes her mother’s handiwork right away. There are no scattered papers on the desk, no half-finished catalogues, no ashtrays, no sign of any of his hobbies. His books, which were usually piled everywhere depending on which three or four he was currently reading at the same time, are now arranged by height on the shelf. The agriculture mixed in with the business books. She skims over their spines with her finger, resting on one of his old catalogues. She makes a note to bring all of them to the seed store and keep them in what will soon be her office.

  She kneels down and opens his toolbox, which is full of his personal mementos: his diploma of horticulture, the homemade cards and drawings they’ve given him over the years, a frayed sepia portrait of his mother. She tries the file cabinet in the corner, but it’s locked. This time, the key isn’t in its usual spot.

  Maggie’s mother suddenly appears in the doorway.

  “Why did you clean out his room already?” Maggie asks, ready to take her revenge and tell her everything about Clémentine. “It smells like bleach! It doesn’t smell like him.”

  “What did you want me to do?”

  “You could have waited.”

  “For what?” Maman cries, tears springing to her black eyes. “He’s not coming back!”

  “Do you even care?” Maggie accuses.

  “Of course I care,” she says. “I loved him.”

  “Did you?”

  “I know I could be mean to him sometimes—”

  Maggie laughs. “Yes,” she says. “You could.”

  “Come out of there now,” her mother manages, wiping her eyes and nose with the bottom of her apron. “We still have guests.”

  “Where’s the key to the file cabinet?” Maggie asks her.

  “I don’t know. It wasn’t here when I cleaned the room. He probably hid it after you went through his things.”

  Of course he would have done exactly that.

  “What are you looking for anyway?” her mother asks. “You know everything there is to know.”

  Maggie turns off the light and follows her mother out of the room. She closes the door behind her, wondering where he would have hidden that key and how she will ever find it.

  She goes upstairs to Peter’s old room, where James is sleeping peacefully, surrounded by pillows to keep him from falling off the bed. She watches the small mound of his body rise and fall with every sweet breath, and she’s overcome with a powerful swell of love and inexplicable optimism. This spirit of resilience was inherited from her father, a man who never gave up; a man who endured and persevered, snatching handfuls of pleasure wherever he could.

  Chapter 41

  The sunlight spilling through the gauzy curtains gently wakes her. Everything from the day before slowly comes back—the funeral, her conversation with Clémentine. Maggie stretches, rolls onto her side, and curls up against Gabriel.

  He presses her hand to his chest and she can feel his heart beating beneath her palm. “I want you to move to the Gaspé with me,” he says, his voice hoarse from sleep. “I bought that land for us, Maggie. That’s why I came back. For a fresh start.”

  “I can’t just leave.”

  “Gaspésie is the most beautiful place,” he says, turning around to face her. “It’s the best of both worlds. Countryside by the sea.”

  “My life is here.”

  “You can translate books anywhere.”

  “My father left me the business,” she tells him. “And I want to run it. I’ve always wanted to.”

  Gabriel sighs and flops onto his back.

  “You completely disappeared from my life,” she says. “You can’t just come back a year later and expect me to give up everything. I want to be with you, but here.”

  “I want to raise my son,” he says, lighting a cigarette. “A boy needs a father in his life. My land is on the water. I can teach him to fish . . .”

  “Fatherhood is more than fishing.”

  “I know that.”

  “You don’t understand,” she says. “I want to stay here and run my father’s seed store. I was always meant to do it. I’ll be good at it.”

  “How can you work and take care of James?”

  “I’ll find a way,” she says. “Violet has offered to help me.”

  “We’re a family, Maggie. We should be together.”

  “You mean where you want to be.”

  “I love you,” he says. “I always have. Goddamn it, Maggie. Have some faith in us and choose me over your father.”

  The baby lets out a loud cry from his nursery and Gabriel instinctively jumps out of bed to get him.

  “You can’t smoke while you’re holding him!” Maggie scolds.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s not healthy! It’s bad for his lungs.”

  “Says who?”

  “He was premature. His lungs are fragile.”

  Gabriel stubs out the cigarette and leaves the room, returning moments later with James in his arms. “Do you want to come live in Gaspésie, little man?” he asks the baby, kissing his head and cheeks.

  A breeze comes in through the open window, rustling the eyelet curtains and blowing Maggie’s translation notes off her bedside table and onto the floor like softly falling leaves. She crouches down to pick them up, grateful for something to do. When she’s got them all back in order on the table, she allows herself a quick glance at Gabriel.

  He caresses his son’s fine hair. “Isn’t it strange, Maggie, how you miscarried all your husban
d’s babies, but mine is the only one that survived? How can we not believe this is right?”

  “I can’t move to the Gaspé.”

  “Everything that ever got in the way is behind us,” he tells her. “Your father is gone. You don’t need his approval anymore. Let go of his plan for your life already, Maggie.”

  “That’s what you don’t understand,” she says. “Running the store is my plan for my life. It always has been.”

  Gabriel looks unconvinced.

  “It hasn’t only been about pleasing him,” she states, with more clarity than she’s felt in a long time. Her reason for staying now is to fulfill her life’s purpose, not her father’s. “You belong here, too,” she says. “You just won’t admit it.”

  “I’ve already bought the land there, Maggie. I have a good job—”

  “Then you can see James whenever you visit.”

  “So you’ve made up your mind?” he says, staring at his son.

  “Haven’t you?”

  She turns away, not sure she can withstand another ending. After all this time, neither one of them is prepared to make the sacrifice to be together. Gabriel wants to be with her on his terms, on his turf, which is exactly what she’s always wanted from him. She realizes, as he hands the baby over to her, that she feared it would end this way the moment she opened her door to him. When it’s really mattered, neither one of them has ever been able to commit to the other. Maybe love doesn’t always prevail over who a person is at the core.

  He pulls on his black pants from the funeral, buttons up his white shirt, and stuffs his tie in his pocket without saying a word.

  “Gabriel?” she says. “Before you go back to Gaspé, there’s something I’d like us to do together.”

  Chapter 42

  It’s Sunday morning, sunny and cold. Maggie looks out the window at Saint-Nazarius Hospital and knows it’s a long shot. All she got from the government in response to her inquiries was the official copy of Elodie’s Record of Transfer from October 1957, confirming that she was one of dozens of girls between the ages of seven and twelve transferred to an unnamed institution in Montreal that year. After doing some research, Maggie was able to narrow down the three primary hospitals that bore the brunt of most of those transfers, one of which was Saint-Nazarius.