Love, Alice

by Barbara Davis

  William’s suicide had come as a complete surprise, like a bolt of lightning on a perfectly sunny day. How could anyone expect a thing like that when there hadn’t been so much as a cloud on the horizon? And there hadn’t been—had there?

  If the looks on the faces of William’s parents the day of his funeral were any indication, they hadn’t seen it coming, either. His brother, however, was a different story. He’d looked more resigned than stunned, as if finding his brother cold and unresponsive on the bathroom floor had somehow been inevitable. She hadn’t mentioned it at the time. Now she wished she had.

  “You’re late today.”

  Dovie looked up to find Josiah approaching, a trowel and bucket in his gloved hands. She shook off her dark thoughts and reached for a smile. “Hey, Josiah.”

  “Looked for you around lunchtime. Thought maybe you were sick or something.”

  “No, I just had some work to get through, so I ate at my desk.”

  He nodded, slow, thoughtful. “You still got a job, then. That’s good.”

  “For now, yes.”

  “That old lady still around?”

  “Dora? Yes, she’s still around. Why?”

  “’Cause I got something the two of you just might be interested in.”

  Dovie sat up a little straighter, shielding her eyes with one hand to get a better look at his face. “What is it?”

  “Just what you think it is. Two more letters. Same writing, so I expect it’s the girl who wrote ’em.” He eased down beside her, slipping the letters from his pocket. “One looks like it’s been gnawed a little bit at the corner. We had mice there for a while. Might have got hold to ’em.”

  Dovie stared at the envelopes, trying not to think of some small-eyed rodent making a meal of Alice’s words. “Where did you find them?”

  “Office. Same as the others. Picked up an old schoolbook someone left behind, and there they was. Like they was just waiting to be found.”

  Dovie wanted to hug him but knew it would make him uncomfortable. “Did you read them?” she asked instead.

  “Nope. Way I see it, one of us snooping around in a dead girl’s business is enough.”

  “Then why bring them to me at all?”

  Josiah lifted his hat, rubbing a palm over his grizzled head. “Not sure, exactly. Maybe I’m hoping there’s enough in ’em to keep you from sticking your nose somewhere that’s gonna get you fired.”

  Dovie ducked her head. “You mean I shouldn’t bother Mrs. Tate again.”

  “I mean you shouldn’t bother any of them. Just steer clear of the whole family. Nothing good’s gonna come from you poking around in rich folks’ business. You know that, don’t you?”

  Dovie let her gaze slide from his. “I had dinner with Austin Tate last night.”

  Josiah’s eyes shot wide. “Now you’re pestering the son?”

  “I’m not pestering him. It was a business dinner. Sort of.” Perhaps it was best not to share the fact that they hadn’t discussed anything remotely businesslike, or that she’d ended up walking out, leaving him sitting alone in one of Charleston’s trendiest restaurants.

  Josiah was shaking his head now, mumbling something about playing with fire.

  “You don’t have to worry, Josiah. I’m all through with Austin Tate. We left things . . . Well, let’s just say I’ll be steering clear of him from now on.”

  “You make him mad?”

  “No, I didn’t make him mad. He made me mad. That’s allowed, right? I’m allowed to get mad when the rich playboy crosses the line?”

  Josiah stiffened. “He get fresh with you?”

  Dovie blinked at him. “Fresh? No. No, he just asked a lot of questions about things that were none of his business.”

  “Like what?”

  “Things about William, about our relationship. He asked if I thought he’d had any secrets—like he knew something I didn’t.”

  “He know your William?”

  “No. He was just being nosy.”

  “And how is that different from what you’ve been doing? Dropping in on his mama, asking her about that girl? How is that your business?”

  “It’s not. It’s Dora’s business. I’m doing it for her.”

  “You say that, but you haven’t shown her the letters. How is that helping her?”

  “Josiah, we’ve had this conversation. I know what I’m doing—and why.”

  “Maybe. But I wonder if you don’t have this woman’s grief all mixed up with yours, and if you think helping her answer her questions will somehow help you answer yours.”

  “That doesn’t even make sense, Josiah.”

  Josiah nodded, then dropped his hat back on his head. “Long as you know that.”

  Dora seemed surprised when Dovie knocked on her door at a little after six. She slid the chain and pulled back the door, her expression one of faint alarm. “I didn’t expect to see you this evening. Is anything the matter?”

  Dovie just stood there, trying to figure out how to answer. “We need to talk, Dora. About Alice.”

  “Have you found something, then?”

  “Yes, actually. But I need to explain how I found it, before I tell you anything more. Why don’t I fix us both some tea before we sit down?”

  Ten minutes later, they were seated at the tiny table in the little kitchenette, sipping Earl Grey while Dovie fumbled for where to begin. In the end, she decided there was only one place to begin. “I have something I need to tell you, something I need to . . . confess.”

  Dora sat very still, preparing herself for whatever was coming.

  “The day you left the letter on Alice’s grave, I was there. I watched you leave it. And then, after you were gone, I . . . took it.”

  Rather than being angry, Dora seemed confused. “Why?”

  “I wanted to know what someone wrote in a letter to a dead person. It was wrong, I know, but when I saw you, so sad and . . . so much like me, I felt a kind of attachment to you. My friend Theda thinks I’m losing my mind, and she might be right, because I’ve never done anything like this before.”

  “Why are you telling me now?”

  “Because of something another friend said to me today, about me mixing up my grief with yours. I think he might be right. That’s why I needed to tell you, and to give you this.” Reaching into her tote, she extracted Dora’s letter and slid it across the table. “I’m so sorry, Dora. Truly sorry.”

  Dora laid a hand on the letter, eyes closed, as if remembering the words contained in its pages. “I didn’t know she was dead when I wrote it. I only wanted forgiveness.”

  “I know. Dora, there’s more I need to tell you.”

  Dora’s fingers tightened around her mug as she waited.

  “I have a friend who works at Magnolia Grove, and after I read your letter I asked him if anyone else had ever left letters at the cemetery. I’m pretty sure he thought I was crazy for asking, but a few days later he brought me several that had turned up in the office. Today he brought me two more.”

  Dora’s face went blank.

  Dovie tried again. “They were written by Alice, Dora. And somehow they ended up in the cemetery’s lost and found.”

  “Letters? From my Alice?”

  “Yes, from Alice.”

  Dora’s gray eyes kindled with hope. “Were they . . . to me?”

  “They were to her child—the one she gave up at Blackhurst. She started writing them almost as soon as she arrived, and apparently kept on writing them after she left.”

  “She wrote . . . to the baby?” Her voice broke and she began to cry.

  “Yes, she did.” Dovie reached for her hand, giving it a squeeze. “I didn’t know how to tell you, or if I even should.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they’re . . . terrible. They’re about Blackhu
rst, and the things that happened there, and I just didn’t want you to blame yourself any more than you already do.”

  Dora lifted her head, her expression one of astonishment. “Who else is there to blame? I sent her there, didn’t I? Why should I be spared the truth?”

  “I have them with me,” Dovie said, already dreading what would come next. Reaching into her tote, she pulled out the stack of faded envelopes and placed them on the table beside Dora’s mug.

  Dora stared at them for what felt like a very long time. Finally, she lifted her gaze to Dovie’s. “Will you read them to me? I seem to have misplaced my glasses.”

  NINETEEN

  Blackhurst Asylum for Unwed Mothers

  Cornwall, England

  August 20, 1962

  My dearest little one,

  This will be my last letter from Blackhurst. Sister Mary Agnes informed me this morning that I am to be returned to my family, like a parcel that has gone astray and is to be returned to its sender, a bit battered after its travels, but returned nonetheless. I could see in her dour old face that she thought I should be glad—or at least grateful. I am neither. Home is an empty word now. There can be no home for me without you.

  How I miss you, my little one, and pray for you morning and night. I pray that you are well, wherever you are, and that the woman in whose care you have been placed will endeavour to love you as I do, with a mother’s true heart. It’s hard to imagine a stranger being able to love you properly, when your flesh and hers have always been separate, when the blood in her veins and the blood in yours have never mingled. How I wish they had let me hold you just once so I could look into your tiny face. I could close my eyes and imagine you then, as the years stretched out, growing tall and strong somewhere in the world. Instead, I’m left with a blank where your face should be, and a terrible hole in my heart. Forgive me, little one. I have grown morose, which was not my intent when I began to write.

  I am mostly well now. Only a small cough and the occasional shortness of breath remain of my chest infection, as the sisters still insist on calling the devastation that has swept through Blackhurst over the last several months. In all, seven girls died, along with their unborn babes, but the word “tuberculosis” is still not uttered here—at least not by the nuns—though everyone knows that’s what it was. Denial and death, it seems, are preferable to the truth, if that truth means someone might get wind of what life is really like for the girls sent to Blackhurst. The last thing the good sisters want is a lot of godless do-gooders poking their noses into church business and upsetting their profitable little apple cart, though I very much doubt anyone cares what girls like us are made to suffer.

  The innocents, though, in the cistern behind the kitchen, might raise a brow or two. Or perhaps not. Sins of the father, and all that. Or in this case, sins of the mother might excuse turning a blind eye. I don’t know. I only know I put no faith in kindness or mercy, qualities grudgingly bestowed at Blackhurst, and in the world in general, I suppose. I’ve become hardened during my time here, as one must in a place of such ugly truths.

  How long, I wonder, will I carry the memories of this place—the dull faces and crushed spirits, the harsh words and grueling days, the empty, brokenhearted nights? But I already know the answer. I’ll carry them as long as I carry my memories of you, dear one, which will be for all my life.

  I’m set to leave the morning after next. Mam was going to come and fetch me, but I rang her and told her not to come. I’ll walk to the train instead. The day can’t come soon enough. And yet I dread it, too. I suppose I should be happy to be leaving at all. Many of the girls here never leave. They have nowhere to go, you see, no one willing to take in a disgraced girl of low character. Girls like Marianne, who have lived so long inside these merciless walls that they’ve forgotten what it’s like to love and be loved, who replace the missing parts of themselves with platitudes and prayers.

  Mam is eager to have me back home, though, now that my belly is flat and no one is the wiser. But I am not eager. There’s nothing left for me in Sennen Cove. No future, and no forgetting, either, when everything I see will remind me of how much I’ve lost. Besides, there’s you, my little one, somewhere out there, waiting for me to keep my promise. And I will keep it.

  I went to Marianne when I learned I was leaving. We hadn’t spoken in weeks—since I had called her a traitor—which must be why she seemed surprised when I sought her out in the chapel. She looked up and gave me one of her beatific smiles, ready to forgive, but I pulled away. I needed her to know how deeply she hurt me when she refused to help me find you, and to know there was only one way I would ever forgive her. I waited impatiently, knees aching, while the chapel slowly emptied, all the little brown birds filing out of their pews and off to their day’s work. Marianne continued to finger her beads, lips moving soundlessly. It took a moment to realize she wanted me to pretend I was praying, in case anyone had remained behind. I laced my fingers together and bowed my head.

  “I’m going home tomorrow.”

  Marianne’s eyes remained closed, but her fingers went quiet on her beads. “Yes, they told me. I’m glad for you.”

  I drew a deep breath, tamping down my impatience. It wasn’t her gladness I wanted. “I need your help, Marianne. I need to know where they’ve sent my baby. I need to get my child back.”

  “I can’t,” she hissed, her fingers moving once again, beads clicking. “You know I can’t. And even if I could, there’s nothing to be done now.”

  “There is. There has to be!”

  Marianne’s eyes opened a fraction, flashing me a sidelong warning.

  I lowered my voice, but the intensity was still there. “Tell me where. Please. I’ll go. I’ll find him—or her. No matter what I have to do, where I have to go. Just tell me.”

  Marianne’s eyes opened but remained fixed on her rosary. I could see that she knew, that she could help me if she wanted to. I could also see that she wasn’t going to.

  “Alice . . .” She sighed the name, like someone reaching for words of comfort. “You brought the child into this world, gave it blood and bone and breath. That was your work. And now it is another woman’s work to raise it, to love it, and care for it—to tend its soul for God. What’s happened has happened for the best. You have to try to find peace in that.”

  Marianne’s words seem to hang in the candle-scented air. I waited a moment for them to land, and then to sink in, like a blow that needed to be absorbed. How could I find peace when I knew you were without your mother—not the stranger who had paid the necessary fees and signed the proper papers, but the woman who carried you in her body, who bled and cried and railed when they took you from her?

  “Have you forgotten what this feels like?” I demanded, fighting to keep the reins on my tongue. “Have you? To have the child you wanted with all your heart torn away and given to strangers?”

  “You know I haven’t.”

  There were tears in her eyes now, threatening to spill down her cheeks, but I didn’t care. I needed her to break, to tell me what I needed to know. “Do you ever think about it, wonder whether it was a boy or girl, if it looks like its father?”

  Her chin began to quiver and she turned away. “Every hour of every day.”

  “Then how can you sit there and tell me to find peace? Have you?”

  “I’m trying,” she said, gulping down a sob. “Every day, I’m trying.”

  “How?” The word exploded against the silence, echoing off the chapel’s stone walls. I didn’t care that Jesus was looking down from behind the altar, glowering at me with his tortured face and bloody brow. I had to make her understand. “How can you even think of finding peace when every day must be a reminder of what they took from you? And then to become one of them, to become a part of it—how can you?”

  She turned to face me, her eyes moist, but queerly empty now. “Because God has a
plan for us, Alice. For you and me, and our children. We, each of us, have our work to do. That’s what I mean by finding peace. Accepting our place, and doing God’s work.”

  I was unnerved by her stillness, and by the eerie flatness of her words, delivered by rote, like a child’s catechism. “Please tell me you don’t believe that, Marianne. Please tell me you don’t believe the things that happen here are part of God’s grand plan.”

  Her face crumpled then, breaking into a thousand miserable shards. “I have to, Alice. I have to believe it, or I’ll never be able to forgive myself.”

  I left her then, sitting in the pew with her tears and her beads. I had done what I set out to do. I had broken her. And come away with nothing to show for my cruelty. She has made her choice, chosen her way, and I have chosen mine. I have no idea where to begin looking for you, my little one, or how I’ll ever manage it. I only know I have to try.

  All my love,

  Mam

  Blackhurst Asylum for Unwed Mothers

  Cornwall, England

  August 29, 1962

  Dearest little one,

  I’m home again, in Sennen Cove, though it scarcely feels like home now. It’s hard to believe I was happy here once, that I had friends and a life I never once thought about leaving. Now all I think about is leaving.

  I walked the six miles from the station, too weary to pay any mind to the steady drizzle, or the muddy puddles that soaked my shoes and stockings through. I could have called Mam to pick me up, but I didn’t. I was in no hurry to see her. I said terrible things the day she drove me to Blackhurst, hateful, unforgivable things—and I knew I had plenty more to say. I’d been storing them up, you see, rehearsing them in my head every day while bent over my washtub or my sewing, and then again at night, while I lay in the dark, rolling them over in my head until they were as hard and polished as stones, waiting to be flung.