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Early December 1945
Townsville lay somnolent under a heat-hazed sky as Meg transited through on her way home. To all intents and purposes, Brisbane was now home, because that’s where Jennifer was. Geoffrey had written asking if he could meet Jennifer, and she’d agreed. If only their travel times had matched up, they could have had the conversation she was certain they would be having before she got home. If—when Geoffrey asked her to marry him, she knew what her answer would be. Jennifer deserved to have a father, and she couldn’t think of a better man to fill the role.
With time to kill before her train south departed, Meg got a ride to Currajong, where Gerry had still been stationed when the war ended. She’d stayed on to manage the soldiers being repatriated through Townsville.
Fronting up to the Medical Officer’s door, Meg enquired after her friend. Vera hadn’t replied to her last message, and Meg hoped Gerry had heard from her aunt, or better still, that she and Gerry might be travelling south together.
‘Sister Platt got a call to return to Brisbane a couple of weeks ago. Some family emergency I think it was.’ The young doctor had no more information than that and Meg passed an anxious couple of hours trying to find a phone and place a call to Vera’s home. The train’s imminent departure cut short her efforts to get through to an operator. The conductor blew his whistle, and she scurried along the platform, jumping onto a carriage step as the shuddering brown caterpillar of a train edged out of the station.
Reassuring herself that Vera would have let her know if some illness or accident had befallen Jennifer, Meg tried to recall if Gerry had mentioned other family members in Brisbane. There’d been a long-ago reference to second cousins, but beyond that, Meg drew a blank.
With no choice but to wait until she reached Brisbane, Meg settled into her seat and let the rhythmic swaying of the train and the regular clickety-clack of the wheels soothe her and lull her to sleep. She was heading home at last, and for good.
Home to Jennifer.
##
Treating herself to a taxi was perfectly reasonable, Meg decided as familiar storefronts slipped past the cab’s windows. Besides which, she was impatient to see Jennifer and cuddle her, and a cab beat walking in the humidity of an early summer’s day in Brisbane. What role would Jennifer have in this year’s Nativity play? What would be a step up for a three-year-old from the baby sheep she had been for the past two Christmases?
Excited as the taxi pulled up in front of Vera’s home, she fixed her gaze on the front door. Any moment now it would open, and Jennifer would tumble through on her chubby little legs, sandy curls caught up in a ribbon and with Vera close behind.
Meg paid off her taxi driver then hurried along the brick path and was halfway up the front stairs when the door finally swung open. Her smile grew when Gerry stepped through and stood, her hands clasped in front of her chest. ‘Hi, Gerry. I’m home at last!’
As Meg’s eyes adjusted to the deeper shade of the hallway, Gerry’s stillness hit her first. Then she noticed Gerry’s red eyes.
Meg’s smile faded. She dropped her bag beside the door and reached for Gerry’s hands. ‘What is it? What’s the matter? Is it Vera?’
Gerry pressed her lips together and nodded. ‘She’s gone, Maggie. She died of a heart attack.’
Sorrow settled over Meg that she would never again see the woman who had been more family to her than her own. In the back of her mind, she knew that wasn’t fair, that she hadn’t given them any opportunity to welcome her and Jennifer, but oh, the sadness of it threatened to overwhelm her.
‘I’m so sorry, Gerry. Have you had the funeral yet or am I too late to say goodbye?’
‘Two days ago, but Maggie—’ Gerry looked as though a puff of wind would bowl her over and now Meg’s eyes had adjusted to the dim hallway, she saw dark shadows beneath Gerry’s eyes.
‘How about I put the kettle on and then—where’s Jennifer? Is she having a nap?’
‘Maggie, they took her away when the ambulance came for Vera. I wasn’t here, and the nuns took Jennifer. They refused to let me have her back. I’m not her mother, they said. I’m not her family.’
‘Nuns?’ Her experience with Sister Rosemary was etched as clear and worrying as the day the nun had offered to adopt Meg’s baby out. A chill ran through Meg at the memory of that building, and the nun’s damning judgement on her for falling pregnant out of wedlock.
She turned back to the street but her taxi had gone. ‘We’ll get another taxi and go there now. My daughter won’t stay another minute in that place. Come on, Gerry, grab your hat and bag.’
The drive to the asylum seemed long, but at last the taxi pulled up out the front. Meg hopped out leaving Gerry to pay the fare while she strode to the front door and knocked loudly. Each knock demanded: Give me back my daughter.
A novice with a fringe of dark hair visible but clipped to one side answered her knocking and invited her and Gerry to sit while she found someone who could assist them. The same hard bench waited beside the door and the same benign statue of Jesus looked down on them, hands still raised in a blessing.
The nun who arrived was middle-aged and her headdress and manner marked her as a Mother Superior. She looked down her long, aquiline nose, which exaggerated the disdain emanating from her.
‘I understand you are enquiring about a child brought to this house two weeks ago?’
‘My daughter, Jennifer, yes. I want to collect her now and take her home with me.’
‘That is not possible.’
Gerry stepped up and slipped her arm through Meg’s. ‘I understand that you felt you couldn’t release her to me but Maggie is Jennifer’s mother. We want to take her home.’
‘Sister Rosemary explained the circumstances to me at the time the child was brought here. It doesn’t matter if this woman is the child’s mother.’
‘The child is my daughter. Her name is Jennifer. Jennifer Dorset. Please bring her to me now, or do I need to call the police to help me get my daughter back?’
A look of distaste flickered over the nun’s face before she schooled her expression into blandness again. ‘Call who you like. It won’t change matters. Your daughter is no longer here.’
‘Then tell us where you’ve sent her, and we’ll go and get her ourselves.’
‘She has been placed with a good Christian family, a married couple who have not been blessed with children but who will raise her as their own. They were prepared to overlook the unfortunate circumstance of her birth.’
‘Are you telling me you’ve adopted my daughter away?’ A shroud of darkness descended. Blindly, she reached for Gerry’s arm and sucked in a breath as though it were her last.
Breathe, Meg. Fight for her.
‘Without my knowledge or permission? Against my wishes?’
‘We have placed the child in a good Christian home where she will learn proper values and her right place in the world. Unfit mothers have no right to children when there are proper parents desperate to give them a good home.’
‘Tell me where she is, please? Tell me who has my daughter and I’ll—’
‘You’ll what? Rip the child away from two loving parents? I think not.’
‘They’ve barely had time to get to know her. I’m her mother. I have a home for her. I love her. Please?’
‘You will not see the child again. The law protects her, and her adoptive family. As it should. Good day.’ The nun disappeared down the hallway.
Meg sank to the ground, Gerry’s arm around her shoulders. There was a pounding in her ears. She saw nothing, felt nothing but a huge, gaping hole where her daughter should be. ‘They’ve stolen my Jennifer. What can I do, Gerry? How can I get her back?’