The Family Way (Molly Murphy, #12)

“Oh, but I’d like to bid her farewell.”


“Molly, Blanche is a highly emotional young woman. We don’t want to set her off crying again, do we? Go and fix her a tray, Aggie.”

I was not going to be allowed to join her, whatever I said. I waited until Sister moved away and then I wandered through into the kitchen. Aggie was ladling potatoes onto a plate. I crept up beside her. “Aggie,” I whispered. “I have to get a note out to friends. It’s really important. Can you give it to Blanche to post for me?”

“Put it on the tray, under the plate,” she said. I put down the letter and the plate came down on it in an instant. She picked up the tray and set off with it. I heaved a sigh of relief. In the hallway a bell rang and we were summoned to supper. The sisters came in to join us, standing at the head of the table. We said grace and then we sat down. Plates of food were carried in—liver and onions, beans and potatoes. Not bad at all. I glanced at the head of the table and saw that Sister Jerome had a large pork chop instead of our liver. What’s more she was tucking into it with relish, smacking her lips as she ate.

I had barely taken two bites when I heard the sound of running feet and a horrible wail echoing down the hallway. Aggie burst into the dining room.

“Sister, come quickly,” she shouted. “It’s Blanche. She’s hanged herself.”

Sister Jerome jumped up. “Sister, come with me,” she said. “You girls stay where you are. Get on with your meal.”

Aggie was as white as a sheet, her hand over her mouth, and breathing heavily. Other girls helped her to sit down and poured her a mug of milk.

“It was awful,” she gasped at last. “I’ll never get that picture out of my mind. Never. I went in and there she was—hanging from a stone buttress on the wall. All blue her face was and her tongue all swollen and sticking out. Horrible.”

And she started to sob. Arms came around her. She sat there with her head in her hands, her whole body heaving.

“I can’t say I’m surprised, can you?” Elaine said.

“Sister was wrong to make her leave before she was ready,” one of the other girls muttered. “Anyone could tell she wasn’t strong enough to face the outside world alone.”

I felt sick. I could sense the other girls staring at me and I knew what they were thinking. I told myself I had not forced Blanche to leave, but it was my coming that had precipitated things. So I couldn’t help feeling responsible. I also realized something else. Aggie had come back without Blanche’s tray.

“What happened to the tray you took?” I asked.

“I think I just dropped it. I was so shocked. There’s probably food everywhere and I’ll get into trouble.”

“No you won’t,” Elaine said. “Of course you were shocked. Anyone would be.”

So my letter to Sid and Gus was somewhere on the floor of that room with the spilled food. It would be only a matter of time before it was found and then Sister would know the truth about me. I didn’t have time to wait for rescue by Sid and Gus, or to find out about Maureen. I had to save myself somehow tonight.

“Do you think someone ought to go and clean up that tray?” I asked.

“I’m not going back in there,” Aggie said.

“I think we all ought to stay well away,” Gerda said. “They won’t want us getting under their feet and spilled food is the least of their worries.”

I just prayed that a letter hidden under liver and gravy would be the least of their worries enough to be overlooked until morning.