Finding Ashley

by Danielle Steel

  The mother superior looked stern for a moment. “I would prefer that you not discuss this with anyone, Sister. We will say that you are going on a mission for the order, and we are sending you to visit a convent in Ireland to carry it out. Whatever you discover, you are not to discuss it with the Sisters here when you come back. This is a personal mission, which is very unusual. But I know how hard you work at the hospital, how much you do for our community, and the miracles you managed, saving children’s lives at the hospital in Kenya. I won’t agree to anything like this again. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, Mother,” she said obediently. Her heart was beating furiously in her chest. She didn’t know how she’d done it, but she had convinced her and gotten approval for the trip.

  “And anything unpleasant you discover, if that should happen, remains between us. You may go when we move to the lake house, and I want you back in two weeks, three weeks at the absolute most. And I want you to report in to me periodically while you’re away. Don’t just wander around Ireland like a free spirit. You’re to stay at the convents you visit, not in local hotels. I will give you a letter from me, sanctioning your mission, but not explaining what it is. Remember who you are, and where your loyalties lie now. We are your family. You are engaging in a compassionate mission for your sister. But she is no longer your primary allegiance. We are Sisters in Christ, as you are also with the nuns in the convents you’ll be visiting. You must remain loyal to them too. This is not a fact-finding mission, to criticize what happened in those convents long ago. You are looking for information about the child your sister gave up, and that’s all. Keep that in mind when you go.”

  “Yes, Mother, I will.” But from what she said, Hattie could easily figure out that the mother superior had heard things about those convents too. Most of it had happened before her day, but they must have still been in operation when she was young in the order herself. No matter how pure they were supposed to be, there were always rumors and gossip in the Church. Even those committed to the religious life were human too. It had been true when the rumors began about guilty priests. It was human nature to talk. And even convents weren’t exempt from gossips. In fact sometimes quite the reverse. And there had been whispers about the mother and baby homes for years.

  Hattie left her office a few minutes later, and nearly flew. She kissed the mother superior’s hand before she left the room, and smiled broadly all the way to work. There was no one for her to tell. She didn’t want Melissa to know what she was doing, in case nothing turned up other than what Melissa already knew. And she had promised not to tell her fellow nuns. Only she and the mother superior would know what she was doing.

  The nuns were talking about their upcoming vacation at the lake at dinner that night, and Hattie quietly said she couldn’t go. She said that the mother superior was sending her on a mission for the length of their stay and the others were all sorry for her to miss out on their vacation, but they praised her for the sacrifice she had agreed to make. Hattie felt guilty lying to them, but was thrilled to be going. And she prayed she’d find something out to soothe her sister’s aching heart after so many years.

  She called the bank the next day, and identified herself as Harriet Stevens, which felt strange. She hadn’t used that name in eighteen years. She explained that she needed to make a withdrawal from her trust. The amount that was available to her in her lifetime had been accruing interest for years. She was startled to learn that the amount had increased considerably. It wasn’t a large fortune, but it was more than enough for the trip, and quite a lot more. The banker asked if she wanted it put in a checking or savings account, but she didn’t have either. As a nun, she didn’t need a bank account, and wasn’t allowed to have one. She agreed to come in and open a checking account, and transfer some of the money into it that she would use to pay for her plane ticket, and have cash for her expenses on the trip. She was planning to be frugal, and would be staying at convents anyway, so she wouldn’t have to pay for meals or hotels.

  By the time the Sisters left for the lake, which was a complicated exodus with several elderly nuns in wheelchairs, and the younger nuns excited about swimming and fishing and playing tennis for two weeks, Hattie was ready for her trip. Except for the oldest nuns, they would be out of their habits for the entire time at the lake. And Hattie planned to wear ordinary clothes traveling in Ireland too.

  Hattie was packed and ready the night before they left. She packed two of her habits in case the nuns in Ireland were sticklers and insisted on it, and for the rest she had packed simple clothes, plain shirts, sneakers and jeans, and a jacket if the evenings got cool.

  She helped them onto the buses the next day, and the mother superior gave her a long look, and a hug.

  “Take care of yourself, Sister Mary Joe. And good luck.” She sounded sincere when she said it.

  “Thank you, Mother, for letting me go,” Hattie whispered to her. In many ways, being in the convent was an extension of her childhood, which was why she had taken refuge there, after her early forays as an actress. She had rapidly discovered that that world wasn’t for her, and this was the safest one she could think of. She couldn’t rely on her sister to shield her forever. Melissa had never understood it, but it suited her well. She had been cured of wanting the career she had dreamed of, and being a nurse suited her better. The order had chosen well for her. The past eighteen years had been a rewarding life she never regretted. She was a little frightened now thinking of being out in the world again, on her own. She was doing it for Melissa. Nothing else would have given her the courage to travel alone to Ireland. She lived entirely surrounded by women, except for a few priests, and it was comfortable. In her nursing habit at work, she knew she was almost invisible to the doctors at the hospital, and the male patients she nursed. They forgot she was a woman, and an attractive one. They no longer wore the habit when they weren’t working, on weekends, but she wore a starched pure white habit at work, and had worn it in Africa too. And she wore jeans and T-shirts at home on her days off. Leaving for the airport that night, she felt naked in jeans, a shirt, and blazer, with her red hair cut short. She was no longer used to blending in with other women and hadn’t thought of herself that way since she was twenty-five.

  She had purchased a seat in economy on a less expensive airline for the flight to Dublin. And she would be going from convent to convent, so she wouldn’t be alone in hotels. So she felt relatively safe. It was the first time she would be traveling alone since she entered the order. When she went to Kenya, she had gone with a group of nursing nuns, and a priest to chaperone them. And once in Africa, she lived in the confines of a religious community.

  She felt strangely free after she checked in, wandering around the airport, waiting to board her flight. She had called Melissa the night before, and told her that she would be out of touch for a few weeks. She said she was going on a retreat, and Melissa sounded annoyed.

  “I don’t see you for six years, and now you’re abandoning me to go on a retreat?”

  “I won’t be gone long,” Hattie reassured her, touched that Melissa cared. They felt closer again after her visit to the Berkshires. Everything Melissa had shared with her had spawned this trip. And just as the mother superior had said, she was on a mission, but not the one she claimed to the other nuns, or the retreat she told Melissa she was going on. Her mission was to find Ashley, a needle in a haystack, as Mother Elizabeth had said. Hattie was praying she’d be lucky, or that some miracle would occur and that she’d find some piece of information to put Melissa’s heart and mind at rest. Finding Ashley, or some trace of her, was all she cared about, hoping to bring mother and daughter together. That would have been the greatest gift of all, and Hattie’s fondest wish.

  As the plane took off, headed for Dublin, her mission had begun. Hattie closed her eyes and prayed with all her heart and soul that it would be a success.

  Chapter 5


  When the plane landed at Dublin Airport, she only had a carry-on, and walked outside the airport to catch a bus to Port Laoise an hour outside Dublin. She had exchanged emails with the office of the convent, and they had agreed to let her spend the night, and told her which bus to take to get there.

  The scenery was plain. It could have been anywhere, as they rolled along, and it occurred to her that this was the same road her sister had been on when she had come to Saint Blaise’s. Melissa must have been terrified as a pregnant teenager, banished from her home, and sent to a foreign country to give birth and relinquish her baby. Hattie’s heart ached for her as she thought about it, and how devastated she must have been. It made Hattie want to put her arms around her and hug her. She had only been ten years old at the time, with no understanding of what her sister had gone through, although she had overheard her fighting with their mother, and knew that Melissa was pregnant and had to go away. Hattie had been sworn to secrecy by their mother after she heard.

  She had seen Melissa crying uncontrollably the day she left, and begging their parents to let her stay. Their mother’s face had been hard, and she kept telling Melissa she was a disgrace. After she left, Hattie went to her room and cried too. She was going to miss her sister for the seven or eight months they said she’d be gone, nearly a whole school year. But Melissa was going to go to school at the convent in Ireland so she didn’t miss a year. It was her junior year in high school. Melissa had always wanted to go away to college in California, but in the end, she went to Columbia, so she could stay home and take care of Hattie. Her dreams of California went out the window when first their mother and then their father died, within a year of each other. Their mother died of stomach cancer, and their father of what the doctor called “liver trouble,” which years later, Hattie realized, meant he was an alcoholic. He had kept it quiet, and Hattie never suspected it, but Melissa knew. She saw him drinking at night, and their mother accused him of being an embarrassment and a failure, a useless husband and a bum, when he got fired from jobs again and again, while his inheritance from his parents continued to dwindle. He still had enough to support them and pay for private school for his daughters, but their mother worried that the money wouldn’t last forever. Hattie was aware even as a child that being married to their mother couldn’t have been easy. She was openly critical of him and demeaned him in front of the children. It was one more thing for Melissa to hate her for. Her father came from a good family, but had never been successful at anything, including his banking jobs, and went through most of his money. He left his daughters enough to get by on, if they managed carefully and weren’t extravagant. And he left a sizable life insurance policy that lasted until Hattie went into the convent, and Melissa’s books took off. After that the insurance money was gone, and except for the small trusts both sisters had received, which Hattie still had and had never touched until now.

  Their mother came from a less wealthy background, and her parents had left her nothing when they died in an accident, so she had to drop out of college and go to work as a secretary. But she had been beautiful and sexy when she was young, and caught their father’s eye when she worked at the same bank he did. His family never approved of her, and she was bitter about that too. He still managed to support them on what was left of his inheritance, despite his drinking and the jobs he lost, but he couldn’t provide the easy life and luxuries his wife had hoped for when she married him. But she never had to work during their marriage. They had also inherited his parents’ Park Avenue co-op apartment, where they lived until Melissa sold it after their parents’ deaths and moved to a small West Side apartment with Hattie. Melissa had handled their finances well.

  Their father was a gentle man, but they led a small life, while he drank heavily at night, and all day between jobs. While her parents were alive, Hattie hid in the room she shared with her sister so she didn’t have to hear their parents fight. But Melissa knew it all. Her mother blamed her father for Melissa’s pregnancy, and said that if he was a better father, supervised his daughters better, and was sober, it wouldn’t have happened. Melissa tried to tell him it wasn’t his fault. She was just looking for love, but he refused to discuss it with her and let his wife decide what to do about it. He paid to send her away, and when she came back, he acted like nothing had happened. Her mother told Melissa it was her fault she had gotten stomach cancer, from all the worry and shame she caused her. People whispered about them, because of his drinking. And to her dying day, she blamed her husband and oldest daughter for her illness. He died less than a year later, and was in a coma for the last month of his life, after a drinking binge, so the girls never got to say goodbye, and tell him they loved him. As an adult, Melissa felt her mother’s own venom had killed her. She had been a bitterly unhappy, dissatisfied woman all her life. Melissa wrote about her in her books, and about the weak father who had given up and died. Both girls felt sorry for their father. He had been a frightened, defeated, sad man, a failure in life and in his wife’s eyes. It had made Melissa a fighter, and made Hattie long for a safe haven, which she had found at last when she took her vows. Nothing could touch her in the convent.

  * * *

  —

  When they got to the bus terminal, Hattie took a cab to Saint Blaise’s, and it loomed out of the darkness like the prison Melissa had described. It made Hattie shudder. She couldn’t even imagine what it must have felt like to Melissa as a frightened teenager far from home for the first time, facing unknown terrors and agony in the months to come.

  Hattie had already missed dinner when she rang the convent bell, and an elderly nun with a cane came to answer. She had a kind smile, and Hattie explained who she was, and the old nun looked startled.

  “I thought you were a nun.”

  “I am, Sister. I’m sorry. We don’t wear the habit most of the time now. I’ve got it with me in my suitcase.”

  “Things must be very modern in America,” she said, and hobbled into the dark hallways with Hattie behind her. “You’re up the stairs, third floor, first room to the right. The door is open. The WC is at the end of the hall. Mass is at five-thirty, breakfast at six-fifteen in the refectory.”

  “Thank you, Sister,” Hattie said, as she walked up the stairs with her bag. It looked like a perfect setting for a ghost story or a horror movie. The room was grim and bare when she walked in and closed the door softly behind her. The place was every bit as dismal as Melissa had said, although she said that the girls lived in dormitories, with as many as twenty to a room, and Hattie wondered if they even existed anymore. It was a home for older nuns now, and Hattie doubted that they housed them in dormitories, but more likely in cells like the one she was in.

  She lay in bed that night, thinking of her sister, no longer surprised by how angry she had been at their mother, and how bitter about the experience ever since. She had been a happy young girl before that, although somewhat introverted and bookish, and an angry woman when she returned, seething with rage at her mother.

  Hattie set the alarm she had brought with her for five a.m., and when it woke her, she showered and dressed in her habit. Although it was August, the convent was damp and chilly. There were only two other nuns on her floor. She arrived at Mass promptly at five-thirty, slipped into a pew, and quietly observed the community of nuns who lived there, some of them her age, others much older, and a few earnest-looking young ones, about thirty-five in all. The elderly nuns who lived there now no longer came to Mass at that hour and were exempt, and there were many of them, she had been told.

  Breakfast in the refectory was a silent meal, according to ancient tradition, and a far cry from the convent where Sister Mary Joseph lived. She was used to the babble of conversation at breakfast, before everyone rushed off to their day at work in schools and hospitals around the city.

  She had an appointment with Saint Blaise’s mother superior at nine a.m., and went back to her room for two hours to
pray. She hoped for some little wisp of information that she could use to warm a trail toward Melissa’s daughter, but the meeting was discouraging. The mother superior was a woman in her early sixties who had only been there for two years, and said she knew little about the adoptions that had taken place so long ago. She confirmed that there wasn’t a shred of the records left, and told Hattie that there was no way to reconstruct them now, since there had been no copies of the records and documents, to protect everyone’s privacy, including her sister’s.

  “They didn’t want it leaking out about who had been here. And the adoptive parents wanted confidentiality too. It served everyone’s interests to keep it all secret, and dispose of the records once they no longer served any purpose to those concerned,” she said firmly, obviously convinced.

  “But what about the girls who wanted to know what had happened to their babies, or the children themselves once they became adults? It’s inhumane that they have no way of finding anything out.”

  “They gave up their babies, and signed away all right to know,” the mother superior said coldly.

  “As children themselves, the young mothers had no idea how it would impact them later. I believe that in some cases, it ruined their lives. Are there no nuns left who were here at the time and might remember something?” Hattie asked, feeling desperate. The needle in the haystack was proving to be as elusive as she had feared.

  The mother superior was pleasant but firm, and offered her no hope. Hattie changed out of her habit and went for a walk afterward to clear her head, and figure out what to do next. There were three other convents on her list to visit, one only two hours away, but Saint Blaise’s was where Melissa had been, and it frustrated her that the trail here was so cold. She was hoping that even one nun from the old days might have been transferred to one of the other convents where adoptions had taken place, and still be there, and might remember something about Melissa and her baby, and her adoptive parents. It was a long shot, to say the least. But it was all she had to go on, with no information at Saint Blaise’s.