Nora didn’t appear to recognize what she said. Her friend trudged back to her station.
The Mother Superior was still watching when Teagan left the railing. In the southwest corner, where the dead children lay buried, a voice caught her ear. She stopped—not sure she had heard it—and shivered in the sun.
Good luck, Teagan. I’ll miss you.
She rocked on her feet, convinced she had heard Lea’s voice. In the corner, something shimmered in the light. Rippling waves, evanescent, melted like a rainbow obscured by clouds.
“I’ll miss you, too,” she said to the air. “I’ll make sure someone knows about the children. They won’t have died in vain.”
She returned to the taxi and slid into the backseat with her aunt. Florence clutched her hand as the vehicle accelerated down the driveway. Teagan hardly gave a glance to Mr. Roche, who opened the gate. She looked back over her shoulder in time to see the iron enclosure swing shut.
* * *
Little had changed in the house since she had been there. Florence had shifted a few things around, and marked a few plates to be sent to America. This time Teagan was determined to stay in her own room. It felt different, not as threatening as before. It would be her last night there.
Her aunt took her out to dinner at a neighborhood restaurant, where Teagan spotted several of her parents’ friends. Most didn’t recognize her. The few who did came by and offered condolences, adding that they had “missed her.” They had wondered where she had been. She thanked them, but didn’t want to talk about the past. In fact, she had a hard time talking about the present.
She was exhausted when they got back to the house. She plopped down on the living room couch. Nothing seemed real. Most of her mother’s decorative items, the bric-a-brac, the furnishings, the plants, the house itself, would soon belong to someone else. What was it all for? Why had it ended this way?
“Why so quiet?” Florence asked, sitting in a chair across from her.
“I can’t believe I’m going to America, and that our house will belong to someone else. Ballsbridge is all I’ve ever known, except for—”
“Don’t think about it. It’s over now.” Florence leaned back. Her aunt seemed so composed compared to the nervous anxiety that tied Teagan in knots. “I suppose you could back out of going to New York, but I hope you don’t. Where would you stay? What would you do?”
Teagan shook her head. Her life had been turned upside down because of a priest. Nothing made sense since her father had ripped her away from home. “I don’t know.” She paused. “I hate those words. Life should be more than not knowing.”
“Well, tomorrow’s flight reservations have been made.” Her aunt’s voice vibrated with excitement. “You’ll love New York. There’s so much to do—to see. There’s a little Catholic church in the neighborhood. You can go to temple with us if you wish, but we certainly don’t expect it.” Her eyes brightened. “Harold is very excited about your move.”
She hadn’t even considered religion. She’d had her fill of it. In the past, her father had grumbled about Florence’s conversion to Judaism, but it wasn’t an issue with her. In fact, she didn’t want to think about it. No more religion. Only making friends and going to school. Cullen flashed through her mind, and she blanched.
“Everything’s taken care of,” Florence continued. “I’ll handle it all from New York, with your consent and advice, of course. It’ll give us something to do.” Her aunt explained how the sale would be handled through the solicitor and his agents, how the funds would be wired to the trust in New York, what needed to be done to complete the guardianship, even how she had arranged for a “rush” passport to be issued tomorrow morning.
It all seemed too good to be true—but as if it was meant to be—something that she had experienced little of during her life. The feeling that everything was falling into place was foreign to her. But as her aunt spoke, a dull ache cradled her heart.
“I’ve got to phone Cullen,” she said when her aunt finished.
“I’m going to get ready for bed,” Florence said. Teagan knew it was an excuse to leave her alone for the call. Her aunt kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll see you in the morning. We have a lot of packing to do before we get on that plane.”
As Florence headed upstairs, Teagan made her way to the kitchen. She sat at the small table near the window and admired her mother’s plants. She hoped they wouldn’t die from neglect after they left, but her aunt had assured her that the smallest details would be handled with care.
The green wall phone stared at her. She reached for it several times, her heart pounding, before getting up the nerve to actually dial the number. A man answered—Cullen’s father. When she identified herself, a chill spread over the line. Despite his frosty reception, he called out for his son. In a few seconds, Cullen, excited and eager, was on the line. He greeted her.
“Hello,” was all she could say.
A rocky silence grew between them.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“I know you, Teagan,” Cullen replied. “At least I think I do. Are you at home? I heard the rumors.”
“Yes,” she said, dreading what she had to tell him.
His voice dropped. “When can I see you?”
“It’ll be a while.”
He was silent.
“Cullen? Are you there? Cullen? Please don’t do this.”
“You’re going away, aren’t you?”
She nodded, even though he couldn’t see what she was doing. A tear rolled down her cheek. “I have to. I need some time away from Dublin—to sort things out. Things are too raw right now. I hope you understand.” She wanted to say something to ease Cullen’s pain. It resonated through the line. “I’ll be back soon.”
His breath caught; she heard it clearly and pictured the anguish on his face. “No, you won’t.”
She swiped another tear away and tried to laugh. “Don’t talk like that. You know I keep my word, especially when it comes to friends.”
“When are you leaving?”
“About nine, tomorrow evening. We land in New York the same night.”
Cullen coughed and his voice tightened. “Listen, I’ve got to go. Da doesn’t like it when I spend too much time on the phone.”
“All right. I’ll call you in a couple of days, after I’ve had a chance to settle in.”
“Sure,” he said and hung up.
She sat at the table for a half hour brushing away tears, thinking of Cullen and contemplating a life-to-be. She hoped the nightmare that had been her life was evaporating like fog in the sun. Finally, she’d had enough moping about. She turned off the lights and climbed the stairs. Her parents’ door was closed. She stepped into her room and left the door ajar. She didn’t want to be shut in; that feeling of claustrophobia was too much like the convent. Rain fell outside. A cool breeze brushed through the window.
She lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. The textured plaster, in various places, reminded her of objects: the surface of the moon; a cathedral; a building at Trinity College, where she had hoped to go. When she blinked, they popped into focus as the swirls, circles, and lines they were.
The transistor radio her father had given her lay near the pillow. She turned it on and listened to several current tunes before an “oldie” came on. It was a big hit before she had been whisked away. She’d first heard it in the bedroom where she slept tonight. Somehow, it meant more in this moment.
“I Can’t Stop Loving You.”
EPILOGUE
From her aunt and uncle’s penthouse balcony on the East Side, she could look north toward the Queensboro Bridge and the gray-green expanse of the East River. To the right, the glittering tower of the United Nations Headquarters came into view.
She had been introduced to Florence and Harold’s friends—all nice and all more than willing to welcome her to New York. A world of shopping, galleries, museums, restaurants, practically any
thing she wanted to do day or night, opened before her.
Her bedroom was half as big as the first floor of the Dublin house. Her aunt had placed a wide desk before the window that looked out over the East River. There she could read, study, decide upon schools, think about the choices she had to make, and forget about the past. For once, the tension that had permeated her life seemed to have lifted. She no longer had to deal with her father when he was drunk, her mother’s slavish obedience to her father, the Church, or grapple with her feelings about men—Cullen and Father Mark included.
A withered rose sat in a cut-crystal vase on her desk. The yellow petals had turned brown. Cullen had given it to her when she and Florence were about to leave the house. He had unexpectedly shown up with the rose in hand and apologized for being upset on the phone. He understood her decision to leave, to sort things out, and wanted her to know he would be in Dublin if she needed a friend. She kissed him on the cheek. Florence seemed impressed and called him a “handsome young man.”
They parted with no tears.
When the runway disappeared beneath the 737 and they were thrust into the air, Florence breathed a sigh of relief. Teagan watched Dublin drop away. As they jetted west over the countryside, she thought of Lea and her Celbridge home. The last she saw of Ireland were the high cliffs jutting above the coast and the thin lines of cresting waves that crept toward the shore in slow motion.
At her desk in New York, she took pen in hand to write to Cullen. It had been several weeks since they had corresponded. She wrote a few words and then looked out the window. A fast-moving line of clouds approached from the northwest. Teagan had never seen anything like it in Ireland. The storm clouds in America were different: sharper, linear, brutal. She stepped out on the balcony to take a look. The weather reminded her of the turmoil she had left behind—Sister Anne, her parents, and Nora and Lea. The wind wrapped its cool fingers around her. The warm days of fall were vanishing. Winter approached, but she was settled and comfortable in her aunt’s New York apartment.
Several blocks away, a patch of grass grew between two high-rises. A leafy tree stood encircled by lush green. The verdant sight dimmed, obscured from the sun by flowing clouds.
That was the way of life, she thought, bright one moment and dim the next.
She left the terrace and shut the sliding doors, closing out the chill.
It was green in that little patch of New York, and still green in Ireland, despite their differences in location.
Someday she would see green Ireland again. Cullen might be waiting, and Nora needed her help. Nothing mattered more than a promise to a friend.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The history of the Catholic Church has been fraught with war, religious intolerance, and scandal, yet in fairness, the institution has been tempered throughout the centuries by its charitable actions, the lives of its saints, and the devotion of its faithful. In recent years, the Church has been scrutinized for financial malfeasance, priestly overindulgence, and sexual abuse. The story of the Magdalen Laundries has only come into the cultural spotlight within the past two decades.
Perhaps this story has not been as exploited as something so overtly inflammatory as the sexual abuse scandal of priests because of the nature of the Magdalens’ “crimes.” The girls and women under servitude were mostly categorized as “fallen women.” Could our own cultural biases have served to favor their punishment? They deserved what they got, many might say. Girls and women were sent to the laundries for being mentally unfit or too pretty, too attractive, inducing sin by the very nature of their looks. Others ended up there because of promiscuity or their involvement in prostitution.
The Magdalen Girls is set in Dublin in 1962. It should be noted that the laundries were not confined to Ireland. In fact, the asylums, as they were also known, existed in England, Scotland, the United States, Canada, and elsewhere. They were also not solely under the province of the Catholic Church. Secular interests, as well as other religious entities outside Catholicism, developed laundries to rehabilitate prostitutes.
The first reported laundry opened in 1758. The last closed in 1996. Once incarcerated, a woman’s reputation was often ruined. Many stayed in the institution for years, calling it home, because there was no other option for the “penitent.” Through its strict doctrine, the institution often managed to make the Magdalen unfit to adjust to a normal life outside the laundry. They were, in effect, prisoners both inside and outside its structure.
In 1993, a mass grave of children was found on the grounds of a Dublin laundry. This led to a formal state apology nearly two decades later. As far as I know, no compensation or formal apology has ever been given by the Church. The history of the laundries remains a contentious subject on both sides of the debate, one calling the actions criminal, and the other portraying them as beneficial and rehabilitative.
Despite the arguments, there is no doubt that the lives of many thousands of girls and women were changed by their time in servitude. Some lived, some died, but their stories continue to touch us all.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Debts are owed to many people who made this book better than the author ever could have. Thanks go out to my beta readers, Michael Grenier, Bob Pinsky, and Charlie Roche; my critique partners, Heidi Lynn Anderson and Lloyd A. Meeker; and the literary talents of Traci E. Hall and Christopher Hawke of CommunityAuthors.com. This novel would not have been possible without the vision of John Scognamiglio, my editor at Kensington Books. And, finally, thanks to Alyssa Maxwell and my agent, Evan Marshall, for believing in me.
A READING GROUP GUIDE
The Magdalen Girls
V. S. ALEXANDER
About This Guide
The suggested questions are included to enhance your group’s reading of V. S. Alexander’s The Magdalen Girls.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. The book is set in Dublin in 1962. What political, cultural, and musical changes occurring at that time would have affected the characters?
2. How does Teagan Tiernan’s relationship with her parents affect the outcome of the story?
3. Do you think Father Mark should have entered the priesthood considering his background and thoughts about Teagan?
4. Do you think Teagan left her sweater in the parish house basement on purpose?
5. How would you describe the differences between the home lives of Teagan and Nora Craven?
6. Why would Sister Anne base her punishment of the Magdalens on “love”?
7. Each of the nuns portrayed in the book has a different set of characteristics. Which one did you find to be most sympathetic to the Magdalens? Besides Sister Anne, who was least sympathetic?
8. Why do you think Nora’s and Teagan’s escapes from the laundries were doomed to failure?
9. Father Mark tries to make amends with Teagan. Do you think his apology and offer went far enough?
10. Teagan leaves Ireland with her aunt Florence. What do you see in her future?
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