Love, Alice

by Barbara Davis

  After Blackhurst the work seemed almost easy, despite being seasick most of the voyage. I even made friends with one of the other girls in the laundry, Cathy Gardiner, who was fleeing Liverpool to escape her great bully of a boyfriend, and who now shares a room with me at the boardinghouse, where Mrs. Riddle lets me clean and do laundry for half board. It’s cheap and passably clean, but best of all, no one here asks questions. I have told no one about you, and say only that I have just left a convent in Cornwall and have come to find work. It’s not that I’m ashamed of you, little one. I’m not, and never will be. But people here are very pious. They spend five days out of seven at church, and are forever quoting the Bible. And they have a way of looking at you—or perhaps I should say looking through you—that makes me anxious. An unmarried girl in search of her baby isn’t likely to be welcome among such vigorous Christians.

  At times I fear I have embarked on a fool’s errand, that I’ve come all this way only to have my hopes dashed. It’s only my promise to you that has kept me going, and soon I will make good on that promise. I have looked up the address of the Sacred Heart Children’s Society, and as soon as I am strong enough I’ll go to talk to someone. I know once they hear my story, about how you were taken from me against my will, and sent all the way across the ocean, they’ll give you back to me. Good night, my darling. I will dream of you tonight and, God willing, be with you soon.

  All my love,

  Mam

  Riddle’s Boardinghouse

  Charleston, South Carolina

  January 12, 1963

  Little one,

  I doubt you will ever see this letter. There are things a mother should not share with her child, things that are best left unsaid. And so I suppose I am writing this particular letter for myself, because I cannot bear to keep it inside any longer.

  As promised, I have been to Sacred Heart. I got there early and had to wait, huddled in the doorway until someone came to let me in. And finally someone did come, although by then I was blue with cold, my teeth chattering so badly I could barely tell them why I was there. I wore a dress I borrowed from Cathy, and Mam’s gold watch and chain. I wanted to look respectable, like the kind of woman who could be trusted with a baby, but I must have fallen short. The iron-haired woman behind the counter—Mrs. Jennings—looked me up and down over her black-framed glasses like I was something that had blown in off the street.

  I suppose I did look a bit dodgy after walking all that way, and I’m still so thin from being sick on the ship. I don’t think my cough helped, either, or the tears that wouldn’t stop. Before I could finish, Mrs. Jennings jerked a tissue from the box on the counter and handed it to me with a chilly sniff. She then removed her glasses and fixed me with what must pass for sympathy at Sacred Heart.

  “Before we could begin any kind of records search, we’ll need some sort of proof that the child you’re seeking is actually yours. Something tangible, like a birth certificate or hospital records.” She drummed her fingers on the scarred wooden counter. “Do you have those documents with you?”

  I stared back at her across the counter, scrambling for a way to make her understand the way things worked at Blackhurst. “No. I don’t have anything. They took my child the moment it was born and they made me sign some papers. I wasn’t even told if it was a boy or a girl!”

  “You signed papers relinquishing the child?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t want to. They said there were worse places than Blackhurst and that’s where I’d end up if I didn’t sign. They told us all that.”

  Mrs. Jennings’s sympathy became annoyance. “Do you think you’re the first girl to change her mind? We see one like you at least once a month. You get yourselves in trouble, then run to the church for help, only to change your mind a few months down the road.”

  I felt something like hysteria bubbling up in my throat as I again tried to make her understand. “I didn’t run to Blackhurst. I was sent there against my will. My child was taken against my will! And I want it back!”

  “Young woman, if you don’t lower your voice and speak in a civil manner, I’ll have to ask you to leave. Now, I’ve told you what is required to open a case like yours, and you’re apparently unable to comply.”

  “Please,” I begged her. “Isn’t there anything you can do? There must be records of some kind, something that says where the babies come from.” And then I remembered. “There was a letter! They made us all write one and sign it. They told us it would be sent to the baby’s new home. Surely that’s a place to start.”

  Mrs. Jennings sniffed at me again as she looked down her nose. “Miss . . . Tandy, is it? Such letters, if existent, would be strictly confidential, as would any adoption paperwork you might have signed.”

  “How can they be confidential? I wrote that letter. It’s my signature on those papers!”

  “Precisely. You gave the child up voluntarily, which means you relinquished all parental rights, including the right to know the identity and whereabouts of the adoptive parents.”

  I felt myself coming apart at the seams. It wasn’t possible that I had come all this way only to have my heart broken again. “I didn’t come to learn the identity of the adoptive parents, Mrs. Jennings. I came to get my child back!”

  “Under the circumstances, I’m afraid that isn’t possible. You’ve just told me you’re unmarried, which, based on this agency’s criteria, or any agency, really, makes you an unsuitable candidate for raising a child.”

  I blinked at her, trying to understand. “How can I be unsuitable? I’m its mother. Isn’t a child always better off with its mother?”

  Mrs. Jennings sighed, her face a mask of rehearsed benevolence. “Children, Miss Tandy, are always better off in a stable home with a family of means, and by family I mean both a mother and a father. Only in a two-parent home can a child thrive and reach its God-given potential.” She paused, pasting on a sickly smile. “And that’s what we all want, isn’t it—for your child to thrive? You might not realize it now, but you were doing your Christian duty when you signed those papers. In time, I’m sure you’ll see that and be glad you did the right thing.”

  They were Marianne’s words—or very nearly. But they were threadbare platitudes delivered by a woman whose heart had clearly never been robbed of a child. She no doubt repeated them daily to girls like me, a feeble attempt at comfort. But I refused to take comfort from them, any more than I had when Marianne had whispered them in the chapel at Blackhurst.

  Desolate, I watched Mrs. Jennings turn away, directing her attention to a woman in a fur-trimmed coat who had just stepped up to the counter. I had been dismissed, without answers, without hope, and without you, my angel.

  I barely remember moving to the door, or descending the cracked brick steps to the sidewalk, but I do remember feeling the pressure of a hand on my shoulder when I had gone a few steps. The man’s face was a blur when I turned, a watery smear of greasy hair, crooked nose, and heavy dark stubble. I shook off his hand and mopped my eyes on my sleeve, then regarded him again. I dimly registered dirty boots and gray coveralls that buttoned down the front. “What do you want?”

  He grinned as he dropped a half-smoked cigarette and ground it out on the sidewalk. His front tooth was chipped and a dark shade of yellow. “Name’s Danny.”

  Something about his smile made me angry. “I didn’t ask your name. I asked what you wanted.”

  He narrowed one eye, sizing me up. “The feisty type. And not from the good old U.S. of A., either. Doesn’t matter. I saw old Jennings show you the door a minute ago.” His eyes were inky dark and glinted when he spoke, like hard little stones at the bottom of a river. “She likes doing that.”

  “How do you know what—”

  He jerked his head back toward the front of Sacred Heart. “I work in there. I’m the janitor, mostly, but I do other stuff, too. I run errands, pick up lunch, deliver pape
rs. All kinds of papers.”

  He drew the last words out, thick and slow, as if there was something I should understand but didn’t. I could feel the tears coming again, and turned away, too heartsick to respond. I had just taken a step when he caught me by the wrist.

  “I can help you find that baby of yours.”

  I spun back around, my throat so tight I could barely breathe. “How?”

  “Like I said . . . papers.”

  I shook my head, trying to make sense of the single word. “I don’t understand.”

  “They got whole filing cabinets full of ’em in there, and there’s me, all alone at night with my mop and bucket—knowing right where they keep the keys.”

  I felt my mouth working like a fish out of water. “What . . . how . . . what are you saying?”

  After a furtive glance over one shoulder, he leaned in close and dropped his voice. “I’m saying we might be able to do a little business.”

  “You know where my baby is?”

  “Not at the moment. But I could . . . if the price was right.”

  My heart sank. After paying for my passage and two weeks in advance for my room and board, Mam’s under-the-sink money was already running low. “How much?”

  “Well, now. Let me see. Information like that don’t come cheap. I mean, I’d be putting my job on the line.”

  I waited while he pretended to do his calculations, though somehow I knew I wasn’t the first girl he’d offered to help. Nor would I be the last.

  “A hundred,” he announced finally. “Not sure how much that is in pounds or whatever it is you Brits use, but over here it’ll cost you a hundred bucks.”

  I stood there, gaping. It was an enormous sum, an impossible sum, nearly every cent I had left. But how could I say no? I came to Charleston with one purpose in mind—to find you, my darling, and get you back—and this man with his stubbled chin and grimy coveralls was offering me hope. Still, there was a pang of doubt, a sense that it was all too good to be true. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

  “You’ll know when I give you what you want—a name and an address—and I’ll give you that when you give me the hundred bucks.”

  “How would it work?”

  “You tell me your name, where the kid was born, and when. Then you show up tonight after the place closes. Say seven o’clock, and we do the deal. Just that easy.”

  But it wasn’t easy.

  I left Mrs. Riddle’s as soon as I cleared away the dinner dishes. We had agreed to meet in the small lot behind Sacred Heart. It was dark by the time I arrived, and there was only one car left in the lot. He got out when he saw me walk up, approaching with his hands in his pockets.

  “Got the hundred?”

  I swallowed, near tears. How on earth could I tell him no? I had rehearsed what I would say all the way there, but suddenly my throat went dry. “I don’t have all of it. I thought I did, but when I went back and counted I realized I was short. I had to pay in advance when I moved in last week, and I haven’t found a job yet. I . . . I was wondering if you’d take eighty-five.”

  “I said a hundred.”

  “Please. I’m desperate. It’s every penny I have in the world.”

  “What else have you got?”

  “Nothing. I haven’t got anything else.”

  His eyes slid to my chest, lingering there. “The watch. Throw that in and we’ll call it even.”

  My hand flew to Mam’s watch, covering it protectively. “It isn’t mine. It belongs to my mother.”

  “Eighty-five dollars and an old watch. A fair exchange for a baby, I’d say.”

  For a moment I was tempted to hand the thing over, but in the end I couldn’t do it. I still don’t know why. “I could pay you a little each week,” I offered desperately. “Until I make up the difference.”

  “I’m not a bank, darlin’. Pay me, or I’m going home.”

  “Please. There’s got to be a way. Some way.”

  He was silent for a moment, and I held my breath, praying with every cell in my body that this greasy man would take pity on me.

  “Maybe there is,” he said, his voice suddenly soft in the dark. “But only ’cause I’m bighearted.”

  “What?” I asked, grabbing at whatever bit of hope he was offering. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it.”

  “I’m parked right over there,” he said, jerking his thumb toward the shadowy lot. “You could come back to the car with me and . . . make up the difference that way.”

  “You want me to . . .” I looked away. I couldn’t make myself say it.

  “You ain’t exactly my type, honey. I like my women with a little meat on their bones, but under the circumstances I guess I’d be willing to call it even.”

  I don’t remember much after that, don’t remember saying yes, or saying anything at all, but I must have, because all of a sudden I felt his hand between my shoulder blades, shoving me into the back of an old green Chevy that reeked of cigarette smoke and stale beer.

  It was over quickly, or maybe it wasn’t. I only remember the steamy, fuggy air and a brief bit of fumbling before finally counting the bills out into his sweaty palm. He grinned as he folded them in half and stuffed them into his shirt pocket, then fished out a small scrap of paper and handed it to me.

  “Pleasure doing business,” he drawled as he reached over and threw open the car door.

  I barely registered the sound of the car starting behind me. I was too busy scurrying to the streetlight out near the curb, hands trembling as I unfolded the paper he’d given me and read the three crooked lines written there.

  Mr. and Mrs. Harley Tate

  9 East Battery Street

  Charleston, S.C.

  Even now, my heart soars to think of it. To know where you are, my angel, to know how close I am to you at this very moment, is a joy I thought I would never feel again. And as for how I came by this knowledge, I haven’t the luxury of being squeamish. It was an exchange and nothing more, something for something, like buying milk or a newspaper. At least that’s how I’ve chosen to think of it. Tomorrow, I will take the bus downtown and go to East Battery Street. I don’t know what I’ll say when I get there, but somehow I’ll find a way to make them understand that you belong to me. And then, sweet angel, we will be together.

  All my love,

  Mam

  TWENTY-SIX

  Dovie returned the letter to its envelope, shuddering as she dropped it back into the desk drawer with the others. Just when she thought Alice’s journey couldn’t possibly get any worse—there was Danny. How could she ever share such a thing with Dora? And yet she had promised to do just that when she agreed to hold nothing back. It was a promise she was beginning to regret more and more every day.

  In the kitchen, she rustled up some dinner—if cold chicken and asparagus eaten over the sink could be called dinner—then slipped out onto the back porch with a glass of chardonnay, hoping to shake the gloom that was suddenly threatening to engulf her.

  It was a glorious evening, balmy and fragrant the way only a Lowcountry evening could be, the sun sinking into the golden grasses, shadows playing tag with the light as night slowly settled over the marsh. It was the time of day she enjoyed most, in the place she loved best, but tonight, as she closed her eyes and pulled in a lungful of dusk-scented air, she couldn’t relax.

  Every time she tried to thrust thoughts of Alice from her mind, the ugly events of this afternoon crowded in to fill the space, along with the nebulous disquiet that had been niggling at her from the moment she slid back into the passenger’s seat of Kristopher’s car—like a pebble in her shoe. She still couldn’t put a name to the sense of unrest, but she was pretty sure it had to do with the look on Kristopher’s face when Mr. Prescott had referred to William’s sculpture as a silly piece of plaster. He’d been astonished that the man kn
ew so little about William’s work, so little he hadn’t the first clue what his son had been working on when he died. And neither did she—and still wouldn’t if she hadn’t chanced to meet Kristopher in the cemetery that day. The realization hit her like a dash of cold water. And suddenly she knew. The pebble in her shoe was guilt. The kind that didn’t go away just because you discovered it.

  It was that same guilt that finally nudged Dovie into retrieving the little-used key from the bowl on her dresser and driving across town to the old brick warehouse on Church Street where William owned a studio apartment on the third floor. It was almost nine by the time she arrived, the street deserted.

  Standing on the curb, she began to question her decision to come. What difference could any of it make now? William was gone, and had been for more than a year. For all she knew, his apartment had been emptied and sold to someone else, the lock changed.

  There was only one way to know for sure. Digging the key from her pocket, she stepped into the dingy hallway, climbed two sets of groaning stairs, and stopped in front of apartment 306. The key slid home so easily she was almost surprised, probably because she’d never actually used it. There was never a reason for her to come by when William was away, no plants to water, no cat to feed. In fact, she’d rarely visited the studio at all. It had been William’s, and William’s alone, the creative hallowed ground to which he would retreat, often for days at a time, turning off the phone and living on takeout while the muse was upon him. And then, without warning, he would reappear, sheepish and freshly shaven, with a bottle of wine in one hand and a fistful of flowers in the other. And now she was here, lurking in the hallway, like a thief or a spy.