Love, Alice
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PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF
BARBARA DAVIS
“Powerful, emotional, and illuminating.”
—Diane Chamberlain, USA Today bestselling author of Pretending to Dance
“A beautifully crafted page-turner. . . . Part contemporary women’s fiction, part historical novel, the plot moves seamlessly back and forth in time to unlock family secrets that bind four generations of women. . . . This novel has it all.”
—Barbara Claypole White, award-winning author of The Perfect Son
“Everything I love in a novel . . . elegant and haunting.”
—Erika Marks, author of The Last Treasure
“A book about love and loss and finding your way forward. I could not read it fast enough!”
—Anita Hughes, author of Island in the Sea
“One of the best stories out there, and Davis is genuinely proving herself to be one of the strongest new voices of epic romance.”
—RT Book Reviews (4½ stars)
“Davis has a gift for developing flawed characters and their emotionally wrenching dilemmas . . . a very satisfying tale.”
—Historical Novel Society
OTHER BOOKS BY BARBARA DAVIS
The Secrets She Carried
The Wishing Tide
Summer at Hideaway Key
BERKLEY
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
Copyright © 2016 by Barbara Davis
Readers Guide copyright © 2016 by Penguin Random House
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Davis, Barbara, 1961– author.
Title: Love, Alice/Barbara Davis.
Description: First edition. | New York: Berkley Books, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016019600 (print) | LCCN 2016024004 (ebook) | ISBN 9780451474810 (paperback) | ISBN 9780698191990 (ebook)
Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION/Contemporary Women. | FICTION/Family Life. | FICTION/Historical.
Classification: LCC PS3604.A95554 L68 2016 (print) | LCC PS3604.A95554 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016019600
First Edition: December 2016
Cover art: flowers © Ola-la/Shutterstock Images; envelope © Photosiber/Shutterstock Images
Cover design by Daniela Medina
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.
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This book is dedicated to Philomenas everywhere,
the faceless, voiceless young women
of the Magdalene laundries
and similar institutions who were branded, shamed,
and made to suffer the unthinkable,
and who continue the fight to be seen and heard.
Acknowledgments
I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that each of my books is a labor of love, but I promise you it’s absolutely true. Like children, each novel I write is unique and extraordinarily personal, as is the process of bringing them into the world. And that’s why there’s always a long list of people to thank at the end of each “book pregnancy”—because no book is ever truly written alone.
And so I’ll start by thanking the wonderful folks at Penguin, from my editor, Jennifer Fisher, who nudged me to get just a little more from my characters, and in doing so helped make Love, Alice the book I wanted it to be, to the design team and art department, who continue to astound me with their stunning covers. You guys just keep outdoing yourselves.
I also think it’s safe to say that none of this would be possible without my amazing agent, Nalini Akolekar of Spencerhill Literary Agency, who is never too busy to field a question, share her wisdom, or go to bat for her writers. I’m both lucky and proud to be a member of your fan club.
To the love of my life, and my soon to be hubby, Tom Kelley, who kept us fed and clothed during deadlines and assorted freak-outs, what can I say? Without you I’d be in weeds, mon petite fromage. (It’s code—don’t worry; he gets it.)
To friend and fellow writer Barbara Claypole White, who continues to be both an inspiration and a sounding board on this crazy journey called writing—at the risk of sounding corny, thank heavens I had you to light the way.
To Diane Chamberlain, Kim Boykin, Karen White, Cynthia Lott, Erika Marks, Susan Crandall, Normandie Ward Fisher, and Anita Hughes, thank you for your support and your wonderfully inspiring work. Your kindness and generosity have meant more than you know.
To my original critique partners, Matt King, Lisa Cameron, and Doug Simpson, who were with me in the beginning and continue to be the voices in my head no matter how many miles separate us. I miss you guys something terrible, and can’t wait for the day we can get the band back together.
And, of course, I have to thank independently owned bookstores everywhere who support emerging authors with events, publicity, and precious, precious shelf space. I’d also like to give a special shout-out to Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, who gave me my first “home” as a debut author; Page After Page in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, who make me feel like family; FoxTale Book Shoppe in Woodstock, Georgia, who always welcome me with open arms; and finally to Water Street Bookstore in Exeter, New Hampshire, who gave me a home when I moved to New England last year. To put it mildly, you guys rock!
And, last but not least, I’d be remiss if I didn’t offer heartfelt thanks to the victims and survivors of Magdalene laundries and similar institutions around the world, who over the years have bravely shared their stories, and continue their fight to be seen and heard. Your courage and strength are what inspired me to tell Alice Tandy’s story.
Contents
Praise for the Novels of Barbara Davis
Other Books by Barbara Davis
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
/> Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
Chapter Forty-eight
Chapter Forty-nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-one
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Readers Guide
Recipes
About the Author
PROLOGUE
BLACKHURST ASYLUM FOR UNWED MOTHERS
CORNWALL, ENGLAND
JANUARY 6, 1962
The place smells of sickness and damp—of tears and misery and shame.
Alice places a hand on her belly as the familiar flutter comes again, soft beatings like an angel’s wings against her insides. Her baby. Her angel. The wave of sickness comes next, as it always does after the flutterings, a clammy surge of heat and nausea that threatens to buckle her knees. She swallows it down, scrubs the sudden moistness from her palms, and turns one last time to glance over her shoulder, praying Mam has changed her mind about leaving her in this terrible place, with its cold walls and colder faces.
She hasn’t.
“This way, girl,” comes a disembodied voice from the nameless black-clad nun in front of her. “There’s more here than just you to tend, so be quick.”
Tears threaten again, scorching lids already raw with days of crying, of begging, of pleading. Alice blinks them away, then drags a hand over her eyes for good measure. She has found no mercy at home, and she’ll find none here, so what good are her tears? She won’t cry again. Not for Mam, or for Sennen Cove, either, with its sweeping coast and Cornish blue sea, or even for Johnny, who is long past tears now, lost somewhere at the bottom of the sea he loved so well. And tears aren’t good for the baby. Besides, her heart is too torn to think of Johnny just now, too hollowed out by the terrible words her mother has flung at her. Words meant to judge and shame. Words Alice can never forget—never forgive.
The nameless sister is moving away now. Alice has no choice but to scurry after her. The nun’s feet are invisible beneath the folds of her black habit, strangely silent on the uneven stone floor. Finally, they halt before a heavy gray door with a small pane of glass near the top.
The door is pushed open and the nun stands aside, waiting, chilly and stiff jawed, for Alice to enter. Alice steps forward, eyeing the long room, with its tall drafty windows and bare iron cots. And then there’s a hand on her back and a rough shove that nearly sends her toppling.
“This is where they’ve put you, and we’ll have no trouble. There’s uniforms in the trunk there at the foot of the cot. Change out of your clothes and leave them on the bed to be collected. You’ll get them back after.”
After.
Alice bristles at the word, left to dangle in the air with all its ominous meanings. After she has done her penance for her swollen belly. After she has been delivered of her mistake, as the Sisters of Mercy call the babies born at Blackhurst. After her child has been taken from her and handed over to strangers.
There is a ceaseless drumming at the windows, a dull gray rain blowing in off the sea, lashing at the loose panes. Alice registers the cold then, slicing through her as she moves deeper into the room, the kind that finds its way through every patched place and seam, clinging to skin and curling damply into bone, taking root in a place—or in a soul. Instinctively, her arms curl around the small bulge of her belly, quiet now, as if the child, too, is holding its breath.
There are a handful of girls in the room, sad-eyed creatures of every age and color with bellies of every shape and size, all dressed in identical brown pinnies and white cotton blouses. They are as plain as little field sparrows, stripped of the vanity that has led them to their downfall, and to Blackhurst. None look up at her as she enters.
“You’ll be given new uniforms as need arises,” comes the gruff voice again, jolting Alice from her staring. The nun’s gaze slides with pointed disdain to Alice’s belly. “You’ve a while yet, by the look of things. You’re up at dawn for prayers, then breakfast, then work. Tomorrow you’ll learn where they’ve put you—the laundry, maybe, or the kitchens, depending on what they need. And you’ll do as you’re told. No exceptions and no nonsense, or you’ll be sternly dealt with. You’re not here to make friends, but to repent of your sins and earn your keep while doing so. Do you understand me, girl?”
Alice doesn’t answer. She wants to say that she’s committed no sin, except to love a boy who loved her in return, a boy who wanted to marry her when he had saved up a few pounds. But she can’t form the words. Instead, her eyes are fastened to the ponderous ring of keys at the nun’s waist. So many keys. So many doors. Surely one of them—
The nun’s eyes narrow, a merciless gray stare that seems to cut straight to Alice’s backbone. “Don’t go getting any ideas, you hear? We’re careful with the doors at night, though there’s been more than one girl who’s ended up smashed to pieces after slipping out and losing her way in the dark. It’s a straight drop off those cliffs, with nothing but rock and sea below, so you’d best take care.”
Alice makes no reply as the nun turns away, slipping back out into the corridor with her silent feet and jangling keys. For a while there is only the sound of the rain and the sudden awareness that she is alone in this terrible place. The sparrows don’t count. They’re alone, too. All the girls at Blackhurst are alone. Finally, she lets herself think of Johnny as she cradles the little mound of her belly with both hands. A boy—she’s almost certain—with brown curls and eyes the color of the sea. And they were going to take him. How would she ever bear it?
Without any awareness of her legs carrying her, she is at one of the windows, her breath fogging the rain-spattered glass. She took little notice of the landscape as Mam’s old Hemsby coughed its way up the wooded drive, then passed through Blackhurst’s heavy iron gates, but she takes notice now and sees it’s rocky and spare where the woods peter out, desolate. And in the distance, the cliffs the nun talked about—or at least the place where they fall away—and she can’t help wondering if maybe a few of the girls who’d smashed themselves to bits had known exactly where they were going when they slipped out at night.
ONE
MAGNOLIA GROVE CEMETERY
CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA
SEPTEMBER 27, 2005
Saturday’s roses were already beginning to fade.
She’d known better when she bought them—too delicate for the Carolina sun, even in late September—but she’d wanted something special. They would have been celebrating their one-year anniversary today if William hadn’t chosen to end his life just two weeks before they were set to walk down the aisle.
His father’s bourbon and his mother’s sleeping pills—that’s how he’d done it. Nice and neat. No note of explanation, no clue of any kind as to why he’d chosen death over the life they’d planned together. Just . . . gone. And now, fifty-two withered bouquets later, Dovie Larkin still had no idea what had happened. Or why.
She stared at William’s headstone, nestled among the
other Prescott dead, carefully tended by Magnolia Grove’s crew of expert groundskeepers. He would have detested the cold granite slab his parents had selected, declaring it altogether lacking in originality—an affront to his artistic tastes. But then, he hadn’t bothered to leave instructions about his final arrangements. He hadn’t left anything—except her.
With concerted effort, Dovie shifted her attention to her surroundings, canopy oaks and shade-dappled lawns stretching as far as the eye could see, burbling fountains, granite benches, and the curved mulch path that bordered it all. But for the neat rows of headstones, one could almost mistake Magnolia Grove for a park.
Almost.
Fishing a chicken salad sandwich and a small bag of grapes from her tote, she proceeded to spread her little picnic out on the bench beside her, pretending not to notice the scandalized double take of a woman strolling past with a fistful of cellophane-wrapped daisies.
She should be used to it by now, the scowls and pinched expressions of strangers silently scolding her for being disrespectful. She’d heard the whispers, too—words like morbid and obsession—from family and coworkers who couldn’t understand why she had taken to eating her lunch every day on a cemetery bench, or why her only friend of late seemed to be Josiah Ramsey, Magnolia Grove’s eighty-year-old groundskeeper.
She didn’t blame them for not understanding. How could they? Only someone who’d gotten the call she had could know what it was like to lie awake, night after night, replaying a thousand conversations in your head, looking for the thing, the one thing, you’d somehow missed—the thing that might have kept your world from crashing down around your ears.
Grief was a messy thing. It was inconvenient and intrusive, not quite contagious but the next thing to it. It made people uncomfortable, and thoughtless in ways they never intended. They didn’t know what to say, and so they invariably said the wrong thing. She didn’t blame them. Only someone who’d suffered such a loss could understand that there are simply no words, no platitudes or pep talks, to heal the broken place left when someone you love is suddenly and explicably gone.