CHAPTER 10 Evelyn 
SPRING 1961
Evelyn’s head snaps back as Sister Teresa wallops her across the face with a powerful open palm.
“With our Lord as my witness, if you do not quiet down this instant, you will lose your privilege to say goodbye to the baby. Calm yourself, Evelyn!”
Evelyn absorbs the nun’s blow, gripping the arms of the chair she’s sitting on in the Goodbye Room.
The Goodbye Room, as the girls have come to call it, is little more than a closet at the end of the hall up on the third floor. There isn’t even a rug, just a bare wooden floor supporting the creaking weight of a pair of large oak rocking chairs, their worn blue cushions sagging sadly over the edges of their seats. It’s the room they sequester each of the girls in for their last goodbye to their baby. A designated, separate room they’ll never have to set foot in ever again, ostensibly so they won’t have to be reminded of the pain of parting from their child. As if such visceral anguish could ever be contained within four paper-thin walls. The pain leaks through all the tiniest cracks. It seeps up from between the worn floorboards like floodwater, muddy with silt and carrying the stench of regret.
They’ve moved the other girls out of the upstairs floors to their chores and into the parlor so they don’t bear witness to Evelyn’s tragedy, knowing that their own time will come just as surely, in only a matter of weeks. But this protocol isn’t a sign of compassion for the girls.
It’s riot control.
Through the shock and sting of the slap, Evelyn still registers Sister Teresa’s language. Not her baby. Never her baby. The baby. The couple’s baby. The product. A retort stabs at the back of Evelyn’s throat, but her eyes flash down to the whip in the Watchdog’s belt loop.
“Good. Now, here—sign this.” Sister Teresa thrusts a piece of paper and pen at Evelyn.
“What is it?”
“It is a document swearing that you will never go looking for the baby. A standard contract.”
“I already signed something at the hospital.”
“Those were the adoption papers. This is to confirm that in choosing to relinquish the child, you are forfeiting all future contact.”
Evelyn can feel the cold smoothness of the pen in her clammy hand. She feels hate rising like fire in her throat, but it scorches her tongue before she can spit in the Watchdog’s face.
“I didn’t choose this,” she says.
“Oh yes, you did. Do not delude yourself. You must sign it, Evelyn, or you will not see the baby.”
Evelyn smooths the piece of paper out on her lap. It’s a typed document with her name on it. Her daughter is listed as Baby Taylor. Underneath that are the words Father unknown. A surge of grief for Leo, of anger that he has been so unceremoniously erased from his own child’s identity, clutches her heart. Evelyn licks her lips, then holds her breath and, swearing a silent oath that she has no intention of adhering to this contract, signs her name on the line. The ink hasn’t even dried before the Watchdog snatches it out of her hand and leaves the Goodbye Room, shutting the door behind her.
Evelyn hears Maggie’s voice on the other side. The nun says something to her, and the door opens again. Maggie slips inside, her face pale underneath a sad smile.
“Hi,” she says, taking a seat in the chair across from Evelyn.
“Thank you for being here, Maggie. I know it’s not—it can’t be easy for you to be here again.” Evelyn’s voice catches.
Maggie’s chest rises and falls on a deep breath. The sunlight pouring in through the window illuminates her hair like a halo. “No. But I wish someone could have been with me.”
Sister Teresa’s house rule allows the girls to have another inmate with them for moral support in the Goodbye Room, but only if the other girl has already said goodbye to her own baby first. Maggie gave birth to her daughter before her due date, just days after Evelyn was discharged. The adoptive family came for Maggie’s baby the same night she returned from the hospital. She was sent up to the Goodbye Room straightaway after dinner. Since Evelyn hadn’t yet relinquished her own daughter to the adoptive parents—who were still, she was told, preparing their nursery—she wasn’t allowed to be with Maggie. She never saw her friend’s baby. Maggie was moved to the postpartum dormitory that day, but Evelyn sneaked down the hall and got into bed with her later that night, held her tightly, stroked her hair as she sobbed into Evelyn’s chest.
“I’m sorry, Maggie,” Evelyn says now, reaching out to squeeze her friend’s hand.
Maggie returns the pressure with stony eyes. She’s closed herself off the past few days, and she’s visibly thinner. “It’s okay. It was bad timing. All of this is just bad timing.”
Evelyn nods, rolls her shoulders back. She has to get a handle on her emotions, like Maggie has, or her baby will be gone and she’ll never get to say a proper goodbye.
If only her brother had responded to any of her letters. She could be bringing her baby home to him and his wife, to be raised as their child. Evelyn has dreamed of the iced lemon birthday cakes, paper hats, and gifts from the woman her daughter might have called auntie. Of the pretty dresses she would sew for the little girl. Helping her through her first heartbreak and toasting a glass of champagne at her wedding, all disguised as the love of an aunt so fond of her only niece. Hiding in plain sight.
If only.
If only she had something she could give to her daughter as a token, a reminder that her mother had lived and breathed, labored for her and birthed her, held her close and whispered, “I love you,” in her ear.
“Here, I came prepared.” As though reading Evelyn’s mind, Maggie leans forward and hands her a piece of paper and a pen that she withdraws from the pocket of her linen skirt.
“I wrote my baby a note and shoved it into the toe of those booties I knitted. I stuffed them inside the swaddling blanket. I doubt she’ll ever get to read it, but I didn’t know what else to do. I just couldn’t let her go without some piece of me.” She pinches her lips.
Evelyn’s heart is hammering. She glances at the door.
“I don’t—I don’t know what to say.”
“Just tell her you love her. That’s all she needs to know. That’s what I wrote to my little girl.” Maggie clears her throat. “That I would always love her.”
Evelyn scribbles a few words, fighting back tears, but several fall, hitting the paper. She’ll send along a piece of her broken heart with the little bundle that will, in mere hours, be held by another woman who handed over a bag of money in order to call herself a mother. Evelyn gags on the thought as she folds the paper into the tiniest square she can and stuffs it under her thigh as the door to the Goodbye Room clicks open.
It’s Sister Agatha with the baby, and Evelyn is grateful. She can’t bear to see her daughter in the arms of the Watchdog at a time like this. Agatha holds the baby with the same amount of care Evelyn does, gazing at her soft forehead, unwrinkled and perfect underneath a fuzz of silky hair. She’s wrapped in a nicer blanket than usual. It’s actually beautiful, a hand-knitted swaddling blanket in the palest pink, like a kitten’s nose. Evelyn notes it grimly; the home must put up a front to the adoptive parents when they come to pick up their purchase.
“Hello, girls,” Agatha says as she passes Evelyn the pink bundle. “Here you go, Miss Evelyn. It’s only supposed to be five minutes, but I’ll give you as long as I can.” She whispers it. Like a secret, or her deepest fear.
Evelyn can’t speak.
“Thank you, Sister Agatha,” Maggie says, her own voice thick.
Agatha nods. She can’t meet the girls’ eyes, although they’re only a foot apart. “I’m so sorry.”
She leaves, shutting the door with a soft thud, and Evelyn gazes down into the face of her daughter for the last time.
“Sweet little one,” she murmurs into the sleeping baby’s ear. Her face is serene, and Evelyn realizes, in an explosion of panic, that she must commit every detail to memory: the curve of her little chin, the long lashes so dark they seem wet. Her high cheekbones and steeply curved nose. She swears she’ll watch for that chin, those lashes, that nose in the face of every child, teenage girl, and young woman she passes on the street for the rest of her life. One day, she wants to look into the face of her daughter and say: I know you. You’re mine.
Evelyn wishes her daughter were awake so that she could see her eyes, but she can’t bear to disturb her when she’s so peaceful. Instead, Evelyn rests her little body gently against her own chest. She hasn’t been allowed to breastfeed since the hospital, but she holds the baby against her anyway, hoping with vain desperation that her daughter will remember the thump of her mother’s heartbeat, the smell of her breath, the feel of her skin at the base of her throat.
Something. Anything.
She takes a shaky breath, then lets it out as steadily as she can. She can hear the voices of the other girls downstairs in the kitchen, the jangling of pot lids as they prepare for lunch. Moving on with their day.
“She’s beautiful, Evelyn,” Maggie says.
Evelyn tears her eyes away from her baby to meet her friend’s. “I’m sure yours was, too.”
The tears finally fall from Maggie’s chin into her lap. Sunlight pours in through the window. Everything is glowing.
Evelyn reaches under her thigh for the folded note. She gently unwraps half of the blanket and tucks the piece of paper into the bottom of the swaddling folds as tightly as she can. She wraps her daughter up again and manages a smile.
“Ten fingers, ten toes, two eyes, two ears, a mouth, and a nose,” Evelyn says, reciting the little rhyme she made up during their stay in the hospital. She runs the tip of her index finger from the top of her baby’s forehead, between her eyes, then down the bridge of her nose to the little button tip.
She brushes her hand across the top of her daughter’s head, leans down, and breathes in her smell. The clock on the wall relentlessly ticks away the cruel minutes, reminding her that every second is precious right now.
Don’t look away from her, it says.
Tick.
This is it.
Tock.
This is all you get.
Tick.
Pay attention.
Tock.
Click. The spell is broken as Sister Agatha sweeps quietly back into the room.
“It’s time, Miss Evelyn.”
“Okay.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Okay. It’s okay.” Evelyn nods, blinking rapidly against the tears, but there’s no stopping them now.
She takes one last look at her daughter, feasting on the little face through her own swollen eyes, forcing down the panic. She catches herself glancing toward the window, but of course it’s locked, and they’re on the third floor. This prison is, as Maggie said, well designed, a series of snares and cages laid out inside a maze of confusion and lies. There’s only one exit, and the prisoners can’t leave until they make their final payment.
Evelyn’s arms are shaking, she can’t control it, and she worries for a moment she might drop her daughter. But Sister Agatha reaches out and takes the baby. The transaction is complete.
“Goodbye, baby girl,” Evelyn whispers, her arms now empty in her lap. “I love you, sweetheart. Please forgive me. Please forgive me…”
All she can do is watch as Agatha carries her baby to the door and shuts it again behind her. She fights against the heat that’s building in her chest. She doesn’t want her daughter to hear this, to have any memory of her mother’s pain, of her voice rising above anything but a gentle murmur. The door closes and she crumples to the floor. Maggie is crying, too, and Evelyn feels a surge of intense gratitude for her friend’s sacrifice. Maggie kneels on the wooden floorboards and Evelyn lays her head in her friend’s lap as Maggie strokes her hair back from her wet face.
Once she’s sure Sister Agatha must be downstairs, Evelyn takes a shaky breath, then howls a scream of agony that’s too big to be absorbed by the tiny Goodbye Room. It permeates the walls and ceiling, reverberates inside Evelyn’s chest with nowhere else to go. It consumes her heart and lungs with fire as her face crumples against the burn.
“Shh shh shh, it’s over now,” Maggie whispers, wiping the tears from Evelyn’s cheeks with a cold hand. “It’ll be okay. One day, it’ll all be okay. We have to believe that.”
Downstairs in the tiny nursery near the Watchdog’s office, Sister Agatha closes her eyes and holds her little hands over the baby’s ears. The girls in the kitchen pause their work, suspended in tableau as they freeze at the sound. The imagined faces of their own babies flash into their minds. Their hands lower to their bellies until the scream dissipates, then they exhale with relief and try to push away thoughts of the inevitable.
But the barbed edges of those thoughts hook into their minds and latch on. They hear the clip-clop of the Watchdog’s shoes ascending the stairs, and quickly return to their work. They go about their business as the commotion upstairs plays out in the background. Evelyn lets fly a different kind of scream now. Maggie is shouting her protest, trying to protect her friend. Evelyn keeps shrieking. And the girls in the kitchen dry the dishes and sweep the floors as the repeated snap of the Watchdog’s whip drives them on.
Evelyn knows she should be dressed already.
It’s a Wednesday morning, three weeks after her baby was taken from her. She’s still lying in bed with the covers pulled right up over her head, her knees bent into the fetal position to make sure her feet stay covered under the inadequate blanket. The Watchdog’s lashings left welts on her forearms that haven’t fully disappeared, but her stitches have mostly healed, although the skin still sometimes aches with a dull longing at the memory of her daughter’s birth.
Her milk has dried up now, and her body is beginning to feel a bit like her own again. The thought makes Evelyn want to weep. She would give anything to share her body with her baby once more. How did she not know how lucky she was to be pregnant? That the constant discomfort, exhaustion, and sleepless nights punctuated by her baby’s kicks and rolls were a gift? She wished away the time as though the state of pregnancy were a curse to be thrown off in triumph, missing it for the blessing that it was. She wonders vaguely if her baby longs, in some unconscious way, for her own mother’s breast, for the scent of her skin and the comfort of her arms.
What a foolish dream, Evelyn thinks. Her baby will never remember her.
The mornings have all been much like this, ever since she said goodbye. She hoped that over time she might start to feel a little more like her old self, but her old self is gone. Dead. And good riddance. That girl knew nothing of joy or love or loss. She understands now why their housemate Emma used to cry in the mornings, her sobs echoing down the hallway from the postpartum dormitory where Evelyn and Maggie now sleep. They felt badly for her, yes, but Evelyn had no idea it would feel like this. She remembers how Emma’s eyes became like caverns after they took her baby. Evelyn saw her coming in the front door when she returned from the hospital, and she looked like a different person. She wandered like a lost spirit through these halls until she paid off her debt and was finally free to leave. Evelyn suspects she probably appears as departed and insubstantial now as Emma did. She wishes she had been kinder to her.
“Evelyn,” Maggie says from their bedroom door. Evelyn squeezes her eyes shut tight. “It’s nearly breakfast time. If you don’t get downstairs soon the Watchdog’ll be up. Come on, now.”
Evelyn pulls the covers down a little to expose her face. Maggie is standing over her bed now with her hands on her thin hips.
“I’m not hungry,” Evelyn says. “But you should eat. You’re so skinny, Maggie.”
Maggie sighs and sits on the edge of the bed. “You can’t keep doing this. You have to get up.”
“It’s so hard.”
“I know. I really do.”
Evelyn clears the phlegm from her throat. “But you seem so strong, Maggie. Why can’t I be more like you?”
“I’m not, really. Jane is still on my mind constantly…” She trails off, staring at her lap.
“Girls?” Sister Agatha appears in the doorway, her expression strained. “You’re nearly late for breakfast.”
“We’re sorry, Sister Agatha,” Maggie says. “We’re coming now.”
The nun frowns at Evelyn and hesitates before turning on her heel and disappearing down the hall.
“You named your baby?” Evelyn whispers.
“Yes.”
“But we aren’t supposed to.”
“I know. I did anyway.”
The moment feels like the time they revealed their last names to one another, a miniature rebellion that catches them both off guard.
“Sometimes I wish we had tried to get out, back when you first suggested it,” Maggie says, picking at a little hole in the bedcover, avoiding Evelyn’s eyes. “You were right, I think.”
“No, you were right,” Evelyn says. “We had nowhere to go.”
“No,” Maggie agrees. “But I guess I mean you were being strong then. You can be again. You have it in you. I’ve seen it.” She looks down at Evelyn now. “We have to keep on pushing forward, Evelyn. Once we get out of here, maybe there will be a way to find our girls. But railing against the Watchdog while we’re trapped inside these walls… it’s only going to harm us in the short term, and it won’t do any good in the long run. Like I told you before up in the Goodbye Room, we just have to believe it’ll be okay one day. We’ll never stop looking for them, Evelyn. We will find them. We just have to be patient.” Her voice drops. “This isn’t the end. I promise you.”
Maggie stands up and pulls the bedcovers all the way back. Evelyn groans into her pillow but doesn’t move. “It may as well be,” she says.
Two weeks later, Evelyn finally finds an opportunity to speak to Sister Agatha on her own. The damn house is so crowded, the girls and staff are practically tripping over one another. There’s never any privacy to be had.
She spots the nun out in the garden during the afternoon outdoor time. It’s a chilly, wet day and the drizzle has driven most of the girls indoors for the hour-long break, but Sister Agatha is in a corner of the small yard, trimming the hedge with a pair of rusted shears.
Evelyn approaches her from behind. “Sister Agatha?” she asks timidly.
Agatha turns. She’s wearing an apron and rain jacket over her habit, and oversized Wellington boots on her small feet. She looks like a child playing dress-up. “Hello, Miss Evelyn.”
Evelyn has practiced this speech in her head as she’s gone about her chores over the past few days, imagined the conversation as she tosses and turns in bed at night, unable to sleep. But she decides to skip right to the point. She has a plan and she needs Agatha’s help.
“Sister Agatha, I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. All I can think about is my baby, and where she is, whether she’s happy, and, you know… loved.” Her throat is so tight she’s not sure she can get the words out. “I need to know where she is. I need to know who has her. I just don’t think…” She shifts her weight to the other foot and her boot squelches into the soggy grass. “I can’t see myself being able to move on if I don’t know where she is. I need to know. I need your help.”
The nun clutches the garden shears tightly in her gloved hand. “I think you just need to give it some more time, Miss Evelyn.”
“I can’t.”
“But you must. It’s early days, yet. This happens to most of the girls, right at first. It’s very difficult. But given time, things usually start to look a little brighter. Especially after you go home.”
Evelyn scoffs. “I need you to help me find out where she is.”
“Oh, Miss Evelyn, I can’t.”
Evelyn watches the nun’s eyes closely and starts to see a change in them. They droop somehow, weighed down. Her shoulders fall in defeat.
“Do you know something?” Evelyn’s heart is racing now. “What is it?”
“I can’t say,” she says, glancing nervously back toward the house.
“Sister Agatha, please.”
Agatha searches Evelyn’s face, looking for something. Finally, she takes a deep, shuddering breath. “Your baby… your baby didn’t make it, Miss Evelyn. She—she died.”
The world stops moving, and all Evelyn can feel is the misty rain, blurring her vision. “She’s… dead? But… how?”
Agatha takes a step toward Evelyn. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said.” She looks agonized. “It’s just one of those things. She was small, remember. But you can move on now, Miss Evelyn. There’s nothing to chase or worry about. You can put all this behind you. You can… move on,” she finishes weakly.
Evelyn starts to shake as the shock sets in. She can’t process what she’s just heard. She feels nothing and everything and all the things in between. She holds Sister Agatha’s gaze in an iron stare as the young nun shrinks back, then turns on her slippery heel and staggers back toward the house.