CHAPTER 6 Evelyn 
WINTER 1960–1961
The worst part of Christmas is the fact that the girls of St. Agnes’s are spending the month of December clutching embossed red hymnals in their young, ringless hands while reluctantly belting out odes to a virgin and her baby.
On a snowy Sunday morning during the second week of Advent, Evelyn and Maggie sit side by side, their eyes on Father Leclerc at the front of the room, halfheartedly mouthing the words to “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” Evelyn wonders how much conscious thought went into planning the carol sings and Advent Sunday hymns, and whether it had occurred to Father Leclerc at any point in the proceedings that singing about Mary and the Christ child might be reinforcing a sense of romantic longing in a group of girls who are meant to be giving up their own babies in a matter of weeks. The home’s resident priest is a pale, doughy man with a voice like cold oatmeal. He shares their table to lead the saying of grace at mealtimes, serves Communion, conducts Bible study on Sundays, and offers confessionals for those who desire it, though Evelyn can’t imagine why any of the girls would want to spend ten minutes alone with the man, expounding on their sins.
They finish the hymn and are permitted to sit down again. For the girls whose bellies are in full bloom now, the relief makes itself known in a chorus of sighs and grunts. Father Leclerc surveys them with the air of a man about to dig into a hearty meal, then begins his sermon.
“Everything that has happened to you in your life, everything that has happened at this home, and your time leading up to it, is God’s will,” he says with a smile. “Remember that, girls. Like Mary, your bodies are undertaking God’s work…”
“Maybe we should have claimed our pregnancies were immaculate conception,” one of the girls, Etheline, mutters under her breath from the row in front of Maggie and Evelyn. Her words are met with appreciative tittering from the others, but Evelyn looks around to check whether Sister Teresa might have overheard behind her. The Watchdog glares back at her through her thick glasses, fingers the whip in her belt loop, and gestures for Evelyn to face the front. She doesn’t need telling twice.
“You are fulfilling the needs and desires of women who are not able to bear children,” Father Leclerc continues, “which is also God’s will. He always has His reasons for the trials that befall each and every one of us, and it is not for us to try to understand them.”
Maggie shifts in her seat, clears her throat loudly. Evelyn glances over at her and sees that her neck and face are flushed red.
“Are you all right?” she whispers to her friend.
Maggie’s jaw clenches, but she nods. “Shh.”
Father Leclerc holds his Bible close to his chest, hugging it as one would a child. “When you feel saddened or hard done by or punished, remember that God alone chose for you to bear these children for the good women who cannot conceive their own. You must always accept God’s will, fully and truly and without question. Remember that you can, clearly, conceive and bear children. At a later time in your lives, once you are married in the eyes of God, you can conceive again and bear legitimate children for your husbands.”
Evelyn considers the priest’s words as she runs her hand along her belly and feels a responsive kick from her baby—her baby who would be deemed a bastard by the Church, if she were able to keep it. She was so close to having been married in the eyes of God. Just a few more months, and her baby would have been legitimate, even if Leo had still died. If they had only been married, she would have been pitied as a mourning pregnant widow, would she not? Surely she would have been taken care of by her parents, instead of being hidden away in the dark halls and stuffy rooms of St. Agnes’s. They would have welcomed a grandchild, and Evelyn would have been allowed to hang on to all that remained of her sweet Leo.
Father Leclerc’s voice floats back to her as she fights the urge to weep. “What is one child given away, if you can go on to have more? You will see this child again in heaven. And in the meantime, he will make another good family so very happy, and that family can provide more than you ever could. Your baby could have the best life possible.” After this pronouncement, his eyes search those of his young congregation again. “And you wouldn’t want to cheat your baby out of the best, would you?”
On a Thursday afternoon in early March, Evelyn pauses from her sweeping. She straightens up and leans her weight on the broom handle, trying to relax her back muscles. Her belly is big enough that it’s weighing her down and causing strain. With only a few weeks left in her pregnancy, she’s tired all the time now, and her hips ache constantly. After a moment’s rest, she returns to her task.
She’s just finishing with the dormitories when Sister Mary Helen approaches her. She’s a heavy, stout young woman with dark brows and a brisk but pleasant enough demeanor.
“Could you sweep the offices downstairs as well, Evelyn?” she asks, shifting a teetering stack of linens from one arm to the other. “Lucille was supposed to, but she’s come down with a terrible headache.”
“Yes, okay,” Evelyn says, sighing. Lucille has a notable talent for coming down with all manner of ailments when she’s keen to avoid work.
“Thank you,” Sister Helen says. “Once you’re done, feel free to do what you like before dinner.”
“Thank you, Sister.”
Sister Mary Helen scurries down the staircase with the linens, muttering to no one in particular. Evelyn takes a moment to steady herself on the broom again before she follows the nun down the creaky stairs to the main floor. She hates going downstairs, since it means she’ll have to heave herself all the way back up again.
On the first floor, she starts sweeping at the end of the long hallway that runs beside the kitchen wall, then makes her way toward Father Leclerc and Sister Teresa’s offices near the storage closet. With a grunt, she kneels to coax the grit into the dustpan, catching a snippet of conversation through the open door of the Watchdog’s office.
“…adjust the pricing, Father. There is greater demand since last year.”
“But this system is not intended to gouge the pocketbooks of good families, Sister.”
Evelyn stops her sweeping and cranes her ear toward the office.
“Not gouging, Father, no. We would never do that, of course. All I am saying is that I think it would be prudent to… reflect the current market in our pricing scheme. Other homes are doing the same. They are charging what the market will bear. Babies are beginning to be purchased from overseas, and families will pay double for a white, Christian-born, local child. This home is a source of income for our parish and I believe we owe it to ourselves—and our parishioners—to ensure we are generating the highest possible return on our investment.”
Evelyn’s breath catches, solidifying in her lungs like cement. After a moment, Father Leclerc sighs, and Evelyn can picture him tapping his left foot, as he does during his sermons.
“I would be comfortable with a fifteen percent increase over last year, but no more. Let us see what the response is. This will not be retroactive to the families currently on the reservation list, correct?”
“No,” Sister Teresa replies. “An increase going forward.”
“All right, Sister. Well, dinner will be served soon, I imagine. I best go prepare for grace. I’ll leave you to it.”
“Thank you, Father.”
The sound of wooden chair legs scraping against the floor shocks Evelyn into movement. Stunned, she struggles to her feet and shuffles as fast as she can back down the hallway, stashing the broom and dustpan in the hall closet near the kitchen. Her lungs fight to get a full breath as she rounds the banister at the bottom of the staircase and climbs as fast as she can to the second floor. Turning the corner at the landing, she nearly collides with Sister Agatha.
“Miss Evelyn! Oh, you gave me such a fright. What—?”
Evelyn pushes past the nun and rushes to her dormitory at the end of the hall. Maggie is on her bed and looks up from her novel in alarm.
“Evelyn? What’s wrong?”
Evelyn’s face crumples. Maggie holds her arms out and Evelyn falls into them as she cries into her shoulder.
Agatha appears at the door and gently closes it against the noise wafting up from downstairs as the girls begin to convene for dinner. “What happened?” she asks, her brows knitted in concern.
Maggie just shakes her head and rubs Evelyn’s back. A minute later, Evelyn is cried out, and she sits up and turns to Agatha. “Did you know?” she demands.
Agatha frowns. “Did I know what?”
“That they’re selling them? Selling the babies. Like puppies from a kennel!”
Agatha’s hand whips up to her mouth in shock.
“What?” Maggie cries.
“Yes! I was just—” Evelyn pushes herself up off the bed, away from Maggie, and starts to pace the room. “I was just downstairs sweeping, and the Watch”—she corrects herself,—“Sister Teresa was in her office with Father Leclerc, and I overheard them talking about pricing schemes and the market and increasing the price of this year’s…” Her throat is squeezing shut against the words. “Babies.”
“Selling them?” Agatha asks, her face aghast.
“Yes!” Evelyn says, holding Agatha’s gaze. She realizes the nun isn’t much older than she is. She had always seemed older somehow. Drained, Evelyn hacks a heavy, mucus-filled cough, then slumps back on the bed.
“I swear I did not know,” Agatha says. Her eyes are wide, darting back and forth between Evelyn and Maggie, who sit in stunned silence. When she speaks again, her voice is thick with emotion. “But I confess I don’t know what to do with this information.”
“How can we stay here?” Evelyn says to Maggie, then turns to Agatha. “How can you stay here? How can you continue to…” She can’t find the words. “Adopting the babies is one thing, but selling them?”
Sister Agatha’s chest rises and falls with a deep breath. “I will pray on it. I hope God will guide me. Perhaps He had Sister Teresa assign me the upstairs cleaning tonight for a reason. So that I could run into you and know this.”
Maggie scoffs.
“I’m not sure I believe in that,” Evelyn says.
“You don’t have to.”
“We need to get out of here, Sister Agatha. I can’t let them sell my baby. Leo’s baby. Oh my God. Maggie? What do we do?”
Maggie’s eyes are heavy. “Evelyn, what do you mean, ‘get out of here’? We have nowhere else to go.”
After speaking with Agatha, Evelyn goes to bed early and without dinner. With a twinge of guilt, she ignores Maggie’s concerned inquiries, muttering that she’s feeling nauseous and doesn’t want to be disturbed. The truth is that she needs time and space to think, two things that are in short supply inside the home.
She desperately wants to confront Sister Teresa about the massive deception she’s orchestrating against all the girls, but she doesn’t even know where to begin. Her heart breaks for the other girls, for Maggie, but the selfish part of her is fixated on her own baby. What would Leo think of her, if she didn’t at least try to prevent their child from being sold to some strange family?
By the time Evelyn has come to her decision, the other girls have finished dinner. She feigns sleep, holding her round belly as her baby rolls and pushes against her hands from inside. Legitimate or not, she knows this baby is a miracle. She lies awake long after her roommates are all in their beds. Maggie often has bad dreams and wakes up in a hot sweat, but the absence of whimpers in the bed beside Evelyn tells her that her friend is chasing sleep tonight, too.
The following day, Evelyn wanders down the hallway that is now filled with nothing but the damp smell of winter slush and the memory of the terrible conversation between the Watchdog and Father Leclerc.
“You may enter,” Sister Teresa calls in response to Evelyn’s polite knock.
Evelyn takes a deep breath, hitches a stiff smile onto her face, and turns the handle. She has only been in here once, shortly after the new year for her half-term health care update, which lasted less than five minutes. Now Sister Teresa is seated at her desk, surrounded by stacks of paper and a pile of addressed envelopes that catch Evelyn’s eye; she recognizes her brother’s address in her own handwriting on the top of the pile.
“Yes, Evelyn. What do you want?” The Watchdog’s round face is tucked tightly beneath the fabric of her habit. The wire-rimmed glasses perch on top of a button nose, magnifying the coldness of the gray eyes behind them.
“Yes,” Evelyn says, noting that the nun does not invite her to sit. She intends for this to be a short meeting.
“Yes, Sister Teresa.”
“Yes, Sister Teresa.”
“What do you wish to speak to me about? Make it quick, Evelyn. I am rather busy at the moment and, if I am not mistaken, I believe you should be in the kitchen right now.”
Evelyn clears her throat and rests her hands on her large belly. “It’s about my baby, Sister. I’m not reconsidering an adoption, but I—I was rather hoping my brother and his wife might be willing to take it.”
“Mmm. I see.” Sister Teresa sets her pencil down and surveys Evelyn, who stands straighter, squaring her shoulders and trying to look more mature, like a woman who can make her own decisions. But the nun’s gaze nails her to the office wall like a pin in a butterfly specimen and she feels even smaller than before.
“Do you know, Evelyn, that while you are staying here with us, you are housed, fed, and clothed, completely free of charge?”
Evelyn wants to shift her weight but keeps her feet firmly in place. “Yes, Sister Teresa.”
“We do not charge a housing fee here because the work we do is philanthropic, driven solely by our faith and our love for God. Our mission is to reform our girls and show them a path, light the way with the love of our Lord and Savior. In return, we expect obedience, humility, adherence to the rules of our faith and this establishment, and that you work for your keep. That is all we demand in return. If you want to give your baby to your brother, then he and his wife can house you, feed you, clothe you, reform you, and provide corrective nourishment for your wayward soul. If they are, as you suggest, so interested in the prospect of adopting your child, I would assume this option was offered to them prior to your mother making the arrangement for you to stay with us?”
Evelyn’s mouth has gone dry. “I don’t know. I wasn’t—No one asked me.”
“You will relinquish your baby at the end of your term. That is all.”
“But I’ve written to my brother already.” Evelyn finds her voice again, gestures at the envelope on the warden’s desk. “I truly believe he might say yes!” Her hopeful eyes search the Watchdog’s face for some trace of compassion or understanding, some long-forgotten depth of feeling.
But the nun’s mouth twists into a sneer of a smile, revealing a straight line of pure white teeth. “Well, then. Let’s just wait and see if he responds, shall we?”
That evening, Evelyn and Maggie spend their pre-bedtime hour down in the parlor near the fireplace, huddled up against the late winter’s chill with three other girls and a pot of weak tea.
Despite the circumstances, the atmosphere of the room is quite pleasant. The fire crackles away in the grate, releasing the wintry scent of cedar and smoke into the air as the shadows from the golden flames dance across the worn rug. The other girls chat away on the couch, their teacups balanced on their bellies, their knitting forgotten, while Evelyn and Maggie engage in a heavy conversation in the wing chairs in the corner of the room. It’s the first opportunity they’ve had to discuss yesterday’s revelation in relative privacy.
“How is this allowed?” Evelyn hisses at Maggie. “It must be illegal! Don’t the adoptive parents know that?”
Maggie shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
“Surely Sister Agatha could do something if she tried—”
“I truly don’t think she can,” Maggie says, momentarily taking her eyes off the pair of yellow booties she’s been knitting. “What would become of her? This is her life. She doesn’t know anything else. She was appalled, she knows it’s wrong, but…”
Evelyn shifts; she can’t get comfortable in any position lately. “I spent my spare time before dinner writing another letter to my parents and my brother. I told them they’re selling the babies, and that they need to come get me. I think you should do the same, Maggie.”
Maggie stares at the booties in her hands, but her needles have stopped clicking. “Evelyn, they read all of our mail, remember? The Watchdog is going to see that. She must have already seen the one you sent your brother. You said it was on her desk when you went in there?”
Evelyn nods.
“Then how do we even know they’re posting our letters at all? I’ve written to my family, too, and they never write back. And besides, my parents won’t believe me. They never believe me. That’s how I ended up in here to begin with.” Maggie looks up at her now and swallows a knot that goes down like dry toast. “They didn’t believe their friend would… you know. Do such a thing.” Her face turns a blotchy red.
“Oh, Maggie,” Evelyn says. This is exactly what she suspected all along. But her friend waves a hand.
“I don’t really want to talk about it. I’m sorry. I just can’t. I’ll tell you one day, I promise.”
Evelyn nods, though she feels a rush of rage on Maggie’s behalf. “That’s okay.”
Maggie returns to her knitting. “Blast,” she curses under her breath. “Dropped a stitch.”
Evelyn looks across the room at the three other girls, chatting by the fireplace. She knows Bridget, the redheaded one in the middle of the couch, actually wants to be here. She became pregnant by her boyfriend and requested to come wait out her term at the home so as not to develop a reputation at school. Friends think she’s gone to an aunt’s to help cook and clean while her aunt copes with cancer. But Evelyn wonders what kind of secrets the other two might be hiding. People are good at keeping secrets. That’s why all these girls are at St. Agnes’s in the first place.
“Hello, girls.” Sister Agatha appears in the archway, a large brown teapot in hand. “I thought you could use a little warm-up.”
Maggie beams up at the nun, her eyes shining. “Thank you, Sister Agatha, you’re very kind.” She gives Evelyn a pointed look.
“Thank you, Sister Agatha,” Evelyn chimes in. She still doesn’t trust the nun entirely.
“Oh, it’s no bother. Lights out in a half hour, though, eh?”
“We will,” Maggie assures her.
Agatha picks up the old tepid teapot and drifts off back down the hallway to the kitchen. There’s a long pause as both Evelyn and Maggie mull over their own thoughts.
“I feel like we need to get out,” Evelyn says quietly.
Maggie looks up from her yarn. “You already said that. What do you mean, ‘get out’?”
“I mean get out. Escape.”
“The doors are dead-bolted, haven’t you noticed? They’ve designed this place so there’s nowhere to hide.”
Evelyn eyes her friend. “You were looking?”
Maggie flushes. “Back around Christmas, after Father Leclerc’s sermon that made me so angry. I had a look at the doors in the kitchen and the front hall. They have the usual locks, but also dead bolts. So who has the keys? I bet you only the Watchdog, on that ring on her belt. God help us if there’s ever a fire.”
“Be that as it may, I’ve been trying to think of a plan.” Evelyn drops her voice so low that Maggie has to move her chair closer until the arm is touching Evelyn’s. She notices Bridget glance over at them.
“Evelyn, I don’t have anywhere to go, even if we did escape,” Maggie says, her shoulders slumping.
Evelyn hesitates. “What if you came with me? To my parents’ house, I mean, or my brother’s?”
Maggie shakes her head, looks up at the clock on the mantel. It’s nearly time for bed. She pushes herself up, belly-first, from the chair. “Would you just drop it, Evelyn?” she hisses. “What you’re suggesting is a fantasy. This—here—” She gestures around the room, though her eyes are locked on Evelyn’s in the firelight. “This is my reality. I have nowhere to go. Period. We’re weeks away from delivering. There is no solution here. We just have to deal with it and hope to God we might be able to find our babies after we leave.”
“Maggie—” Evelyn begins, mortified at having upset her friend so.
Maggie snatches up the yellow booties. “Please just stop talking about it, okay? Make your own plans, do what you want, to find a way out. But I can’t ride along on the coattails of this delusion of yours, Evelyn. I’m sorry. Good night.”
And she waddles from the room, leaving Evelyn alone.