She had returned to work on the Monday, feeding Roisin at six o’clock in the morning as the sun rose in the sky.
They’d put her on collars and cuffs, scrubbing them, soaking them, starching them. It was one of the easier jobs, so she supposed she should be grateful for that. Four times during the morning she was sure she heard a baby cry, her baby! Sister Josepha had stared over at her, pointing at her to stop daydreaming and get on with her work.
Her breasts felt hot and sore and full as she sat at the refectory table with the rest of the women at dinner-time. They had all congratulated her, then welcomed her back. She had begun to tell them about Roisin, but then
realized that there was no point to it. She worked all afternoon, her mind lost. Finally teatime came, and the work bell sounded. She could barely eat in her haste to get back to the nursery.
Roisin lay in the grey iron cot alongside about five other babies, her eyes flying open as Esther lifted her. Her breasts had started to leak even before she had time to unbutton herself. The baby was confused by the sticky wetness and the force she used squeezing her taut nipple into her mouth. Roisin sucked strongly, her small fingers trying to grab hold of her mother’s breast.
Esther did everything she could to keep visiting and feeding the baby, but whether it was the long hours, or the hard work, or just the sheer exhaustion of it all, her milk began to dry up. Even Roisin sensed it, crying angrily at times when she fed her. The baby hungry! Within less than two weeks she had returned to sleeping in the dormitory, as Sister Bridget said that another unwed mother needed her bed, a red-faced Kerry woman now sleeping in her bed in the nursery. Anyway, she had no choice in the matter.
Then, one night after work, when she had walked across to the annexe and climbed the stairs as usual, opening the cream-coloured nursery door, she realized that Roisin was not lying in her cot with the bainin-coloured blanket she’d knitted her. A newborn lay in her place. She could tell it was Roisin’s cot because she knew the scrape that covered the top rail of it, and the way the fifth and sixth bars on the right-hand side were slightly curved. Roisin was gone!
“They took her across to the home this morning,” Jean, one of the new mothers, informed her.
Sister Bridget came out of her office in the corridor, walking towards her, fixing a bright but almost puzzled expression on her knowing face. “Don’t take on, Esther! You knew she was being given up! You always knew that!”
“Given up!”
Esther just could not believe it. Roisin was gone. Over yonder to the orphanage, where she’d never set eyes on her again!
“It was all agreed when you came here, Esther!” said the nun peevishly. “You had your baby, why, you even had plenty of time with her, but now she’s across in the home with the rest of the infants. You know the babies can’t stay here for ever. Mother Benedict and the social workers will do their very best to find a good home and family for your little girl now that you’ve given her up.”
“Let me see her!” she begged. “Ask them can I go over to the orphanage and see her tonight! Please, sister! You know how much I love her. I’m not like Myra and some of the others. I can take care of my baby. Pleeease!”
“Your child is gone!” said the nun firmly. “And there’s nothing you can do about it. If you want to talk to Sister Gabriel, well, that’s your decision, but it won’t change a thing!”
Esther returned to the dormitory. The room was empty. She undressed slowly and got into bed. She lay staring up at the ceiling. Rolling on her side, she turned away as the others started to come to bed in dribs and drabs. She couldn’t bear it.
“Esther! We heard! Sister Margaretta told us. Are you all right?”
Maura was standing beside the bed, peering down at
her, her face concerned. What would someone who was brought up for murdering her baby know about her child being taken from her? How could she understand it?
“Leave me alone!”
Esther pulled the blanket up around her. She wanted to block out the light, and the sight of the rest of them. She wanted privacy in her grief.
“It’s all right, Esther. We’re here. You’re not alone.”
She wanted to be alone. Why couldn’t they mind their own bloody business and leave her alone? Saranne and Sheila had come over too, standing over her. She wanted to tell them “Fuck off!,” the way Rita would have. Instead she just closed her eyes tight, shutting them out. The pain was worse than anything she had ever felt before. Much worse than when Conor had broken it off with her, abandoned her. Ten times worse than when Nonie had died and she had watched her laid to rest in the cold Connemara ground. The pain choked her so that she could barely speak or breathe. She had not believed that a human being could endure such pain. It ripped and tore at her heart and lungs, her veins and skin and bones, and settled somewhere deep in the part they call the soul. Her child had been taken from her and she would never ever see her daughter again. At last she had some understanding of the grief her mother had endured.
Gradually the others fell asleep, their exhausted snores filling the darkness. She could not sleep; there was only the awful blackness now that the light had been taken from her.
“Esther!” Bernice was leaning over the bed. “I know you’re awake.”
A sigh escaped her. She opened her eyes.
Bernice bent down, wrapping her large fleshy arms around her, then, wordless, climbed into the bed beside her. “I’ll stay with you tonight,” she offered.
Bernice held her all through that long night, cramped on the narrow bed beside her, not saying anything, not giving advice, just willing to share that first night of parting. “Morning will come.” That was all Bernice could promise.
The morning did come. She had faced the chapel and the mass, not praying, ignoring the priest’s Latin rigmarole and facile words. She had eaten breakfast and walked down to the laundry to begin work. She welcomed the silence, forcing herself to concentrate on the rituals of washing, the wetness of the linen, the coldness of the water. The basket after basket that was emptied, laundered and replaced. Work. The work. That was all she had left now. Obsessed, she prowled the wall between the orphanage and the laundry, searching for an opening, listening for the noise of children on the other side. Holding her breath each time she heard an infant cry, wondering was it Roisin?
She knew it. She was slipping into insanity. She would be like the Marys and Myra, the longer she stayed here. Detta had stayed all her life, was even buried here. Esther was scared. Because of Roisin was she destined never to leave this institution, to stay a Magdalen, unforgiven for ever! Each day her only thoughts were of her child, on the other side of the convent wall and yet so far away. She wished she were like Rita and could escape and climb those walls. She had to leave the laundry, get free!