The Family Way (Molly Murphy, #12)

“Yes,” I said. “Did you know her?”


“A little. I arrived just before she was due to leave so I never got to know her well, but I got the impression that she was going back to the family she’d come from. At least I heard her say, ‘What choice do I have? Who else would take me in?’”

“But Sister says she just escaped early one morning?”

“She did. When we filed in to take our places at breakfast she wasn’t there and nobody had seen her. Sister Jerome was annoyed because nobody was allowed to sleep in late. Then when we searched and found she’d gone, Sister was really furious. She kept saying what an ungrateful girl Maureen was and how the rest of us better appreciate what was being done for us.”

“You say you didn’t know her well. Can you think of any girls who might have known her better—a girl she might have confided in what she planned to do?”

Katy chewed on her lip, making her look like a five year old. Again I was struck with how absurdly young she was. “There was Emily Robbins. Those two were thick together. I don’t know why Sister didn’t mention her.”

“And do you know where Emily was going when she left here?”

“I believe she was going home,” Katy said. “She came from a respectable family. They have a farm not too far from here. Near Cortland I think she said. So she was planning to go home and they were giving out that she’d been on a trip abroad with a family friend.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll try to pay her a visit. People usually confide in someone if they are planning something, don’t they?”

The lip was still being chewed. “That was what was so hard when I found out about the baby. There was nobody to tell. I kept it to myself until it started to show, not knowing what to do. And then my mother noticed and she told my dad and he threw me out of the house and said never to come back.” There was a long pause. “And my mom didn’t say a word. Not even good-bye.”

“Katy, I’m so sorry.” I touched her shoulder gently. “I’ll make sure you have a good home with me, all right? And you’ll have a baby to look after too.”

She managed a smile. Seth and the cart appeared between the last of the fir trees. “I have to go,” I said.

She moved closer to me. “There was one other thing that was strange,” she said. “Like Sister said, Maureen was religious. She had this little statue of Our Lady. A lovely little thing, beautifully carved, it was. She said her granddad made it for her first communion. She kept it on the table beside her bed. Well, after she’d gone, I was told to strip her bed and clean out her cubby and I found she’d left things behind.”

“What kind of things?”

“Her hairbrush, for one. It was a lovely hairbrush with a tortoiseshell back and Sister said I could keep it if I liked so I still have it. But I mean—I can understand that she left in a hurry, but who doesn’t take their hairbrush with them?”

“And the little statue of Our Lady?”

She leaned very close to me and said in a whisper. “I found it in a wastebasket. So I’m puzzled. She’d never have left that behind unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless she had to leave in a real hurry.”

“Katy?” a voice boomed from the darkness inside.

Katy shot a fearful look around. “I have to go. I’m not supposed to be out here, talking.”

“I’ll see you soon, Katy. I’ll be back,” I called as she ran inside. The big wooden door closed with a resounding boom. I went to meet Seth and hauled myself up onto the cart.

“I see they didn’t lock you in one of their cells then,” he said as he flicked a whip at the horse.

“I didn’t get a chance to see any cells. I was only allowed in the parlor.”

“I don’t understand it myself,” he said as the horse picked up speed. “Shutting themselves away from the world like that. It ain’t natural. No wonder they go funny.”

We came back into the center of Tarrytown and I met Jonah and Bridie at the appointed place.

“You’re back too soon,” Bridie complained. “We didn’t even have a chance to buy an ice cream yet.”

I glanced up at the clock on the train station and saw that I’d been away for less than an hour. It felt more like a lifetime.

*