By the end of June, the ice and snow was a distant memory, as were her days at the Dakota and the hope that Theo might come to her rescue. To her astonishment, the baby had survived Nurse Garelick’s onslaught and was active, especially at night. A few days earlier, she’d swapped dresses with one of the women in her ward who’d lost a good deal of weight from the terrible diet. The new dress draped around her with plenty of room to spare. Natalia had given her a pointed look as they went into breakfast but hadn’t asked any questions.
During the weekly bath, she used a towel to cover herself as she dipped in and out of the dirty water left by the other women. No one changed the water in between inmates, so if a woman got stuck at the end of the line, it was a brown soup. But Sara deliberately hung back so the previous occupants of the tub would be busy dressing and she could do her ablutions without an audience.
One bright morning, she and Natalia waited with the others to get their daily work assignments.
“Mrs. Smythe and Mrs. Fabiano.” The nurse checked their names off on her clipboard. “Report to the mat factory.”
Natalia and Sara shared a look of wonder. The factory was a move up, for the more docile and well-behaved patients. Sara stifled a squeal until they were outside, walking with the other women to the building that housed the workplaces: scrub brush making, mat making, and the laundry. The orderly pointed to a large, sunny room at the back, where rags had been piled on top of wooden tables. “The others will show you how.”
“At least we won’t have to work with lye anymore,” murmured Natalia.
Sara’s hands were raw from the soap, and she imagined the jar of hand cream that once stood on her bureau at the Dakota. She could picture it perfectly in her mind, the pretty label covered with faded roses. Hopefully, Daisy had been able to take it so it hadn’t been wasted. The thought made her sad. What had happened to her meager possessions? Had the spoils been divided up among the housemaids? Or had they been summarily tossed out or burned in the furnace?
“You all right?” asked Natalia.
When Sara’s thoughts ran away like this, the darkness in her head would begin to grow, like a tumor. She pointed in the direction of the worktables. “Imagine, we even get our own stools to sit on.”
“Like a queen’s throne.”
They sat at a table near the window, and one of the women guided them through the process of ripping the rags into long shreds, coiling them up before stitching them around and around to create an oval. Sara reveled in holding a thread and needle in her hand. The only sign that this was an asylum versus a true factory was the quiet gibberish that occasionally erupted from a few of the women.
“I’m beginning to understand what they’re saying,” said Natalia, after they’d been at it for an hour.
“The way I see it, we’re all sane and the rest of the staff and doctors and superintendent are the lunatics.” Sara pointed at the head nurse, who was asleep at her desk. “Completely daft.”
“I like looking at it that way.” Natalia glanced over at Sara, who instinctively pulled in her stomach. “You won’t be able to hide it very soon.”
Sara put a hand over her belly in a protective motion. “What do you mean?”
“You are with child.”
The simple statement brought pricks of tears to Sara’s eyes. “Yes.” The past couple of nights, in the depths of the bitter darkness, she’d imagined another world, one where she hadn’t ventured to the States. Where she’d stayed as head housekeeper at the Langham and never faced the corrosive effect of her own shame, her downfall. But she could no longer deny the truth, even to herself.
“What are you going to do?” Natalia leaned in, her frown deepening the furrow between her eyebrows.
“I’m not sure what I can do. I’m amazed it survived Nurse Garelick’s attack. But it’s moving, growing.”
“He or she, not an it.”
“I can’t think about it that way.” Her chest seized up and she fought to breathe. “What will I do? What will they do with me once they find out?”
Natalia placed her hand on Sara’s, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “I believe there’s a place at the Charity Hospital for unwed mothers on the island. Maybe you can go there to have the baby?”
“I heard the nurses talking about it. For ‘husbandless women and fatherless children,’ they said. Always defined by a man, as if it weren’t enough to be simply a woman or a child.”
“Who is the father?”
She shuddered, unable to say his name. “He doesn’t know about it, or that I’m here. And he’s not free.”
“You will need help, when the time comes.”
“What do they do with the babies that are born at the hospital? Do you know?”
Natalia shook her head. “I’m sure they don’t want the baby on their hands, another mouth to feed. This could be your key to getting out of here.”
“Or it could be an excuse for them to lock me up for good and take the child away. As a way of further punishment.”
A couple of the women sitting at the adjacent table glanced in their direction. Sara was certain they were foreign and didn’t understand English, but she lowered her voice. “I don’t know what to do. What should I do?”
Natalia reached up and patted her cheek, her touch a cool salve. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out. Do you know when the baby will be coming?”
In spite of her determination not to think ahead, she’d done the calculation over and over. “Middle of August, I believe.”
“I’ll ask around, try to find out if this has happened before. Nurse Alden is the kind one; I’ll bring it up with her.”
“Would you?” It took everything Sara had to not fall into Natalia’s arms and burst into tears.
“Yes. We’ve made it this far; let’s see if we can make your situation work to your advantage.”
A week later, during their walk, Natalia pulled Sara around the corner of the asylum, out of view of the nurses and other inmates.
“What is it? Is something wrong?”
Natalia’s eyes sparkled. “No, not wrong at all. Yesterday, I found Nurse Alden sitting in one of the offices working. Alone.”
“Tell me what you learned.”
“She said that any inmate with child—and they have a few each year—is indeed sent to the Charity Hospital on the island, to the ward for unwed mothers.”
“The hospital is for the people in the workhouse, right?”
“Yes. It’s going to be rough. But less rough than here, I would guess.”
“How do we know, though? What if it’s worse? The orderlies there are used to vagrants and drunkards and the like.”
Natalia lifted her chin and laughed. “We are madwomen, don’t you remember? Do you think they are below us?”
“What are you ladies doing here?” Superintendent Dent strode over, pipe in hand. “You’re not supposed to be off on your own.”
“Sorry, Superintendent Dent.” Natalia did a combination head bow and curtsy, which seemed to mollify him slightly.
He waved a hand. “Off you go. Breathe in the fresh air; it will help clear the mind.”
“Yes, sir.”
The next week, as they were at the beginning of their shift in the mat-making factory, the head nurse called out from the doorway and motioned for Natalia and Sara to grab one of the baskets of completed mats.
“These need to go to the penitentiary. Leave them by the front gate. Don’t go inside. Here’s a note in case anyone asks what you’re doing.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Sara could hardly believe her good luck. They each took a basket handle and followed the road south. The walk provided a long-forgotten taste of freedom.
A fresh breeze blew in from the west as they trod down the dusty road. The prison resembled a castle, with tiny square windows and turreted roofs. A rough wooden fence extended around the front entrance, with an iron gate in the center. Together they peered in.
Men in black-and-white-striped uniforms marched by in tight formation, each man pressed into the back of the one in front of him, while guards with rifles and sticks watched. One of the men noticed the women and whistled, and the guard lifted his stick and beat him soundly across the shoulders.
Unwilling to draw any further attention to themselves, Sara and Natalia crept away. Natalia pointed to the building next door. “The hospital.”
Indeed, women in nurse uniforms stood outside the front entrance, enjoying the warm summer sun.