Anne caught Emmeline’s attention and gestured toward me, and Emmeline understood; in a wink she’d slid her skinny arms under Charlotte and scooped her away. A cold spot formed on my front.
“It’s best you go quickly,” Anne instructed her. And I’d thought Anne to be a kindred soul!
Emmeline stepped into the hall with her bounty and headed toward the front door. Charlotte began to bawl. Anne moved out from behind her desk, seized my upper arms, and tried to push me onto the bench so I couldn’t follow.
“We must be brave and do what’s best for the baby,” she said. “Give her the chance to overcome the disgrace of her birth.”
But I wrenched away and ran. “Come back!” I screamed at the retreating woman. “I’m not ready! I’m entitled to the full three weeks!”
And to think it was I who had initiated our early separation.
Emmeline halted and turned, her face pink with discomfort, her small gray eyes pinpointing me. She held Charlotte to her threadbare bodice, but my baby leaned her head toward me and emitted a wail. I rushed at Emmeline and reversed her trick. Instantly Charlotte gripped my wrapper with her inch-long fingers, pushed her head into my chest, and kicked her feet with excitement.
By then Anne had reached us. Her muscles were tense with disapproval. “Lilli,” she admonished. “More days won’t make this easier.”
I could only whisper, for my chest and throat were clenched. “What if they don’t love her? What if they’re cruel?”
At this, Anne’s aspect softened. To Emmeline she said, “You can bring a letter from the family, can’t you? Since this will put Miss de Jong at ease.”
Emmeline’s face went blank as thoughts transpired beneath its surface. She consulted a watch from her skirt pocket. “Our office is closing in two hours. The family expects a baby today.”
“I’m entitled to keep her longer,” I asserted. Charlotte began knocking her cheek against me, giving out her grunt-like sound that signals hunger.
“She is entitled,” Anne told Emmeline. “But taking the full allotted time won’t help. Today’s Friday; why don’t you come back Monday with that letter. We’ll make sure she’s ready.”
I raced to the recovery room and pushed shut the heavy door, then curled with Charlotte beneath the blankets. I satisfied her thirst and breathed purposefully to calm the thumping in my chest. Then the door opened, and Anne walked in. She sat on the bed formerly occupied by Nancy. A weariness settled over her, and her back slumped.
“I don’t know what I should do,” I began, intending to apologize. “It may—”
Anne straightened. “I expect you to comply with our agreement when the agent returns on Monday. And despite your being in recovery, you must go to chapel with the others on Sunday, to be reminded of what’s right. The cook can take the baby.”
I agreed.
Meanwhile, I have Charlotte for a few more days.
I do hope to find assurance enough in the family’s letter and at chapel to strengthen me, for she will surely find a better life without her mother’s disgraced company.
Fourth Month 15, First Day
The hours at chapel have only worsened my dilemma.
I took a seat beside Gina in a foul state of mind, only slightly improved by an early bath and a change of dress. The sight of the other girls neatened and wearing clean clothes did cheer me, however. And fortunately it was the elder Reverend Williams’s week to preach. He never smirks or jests at our expense or castigates us, as his son does.
“Ah, but you are bright and fresh today,” he called over his lectern—though most would have viewed our group as stained and ruined. “It is well that I bring you a message of hope.”
Hope? Every leaning head perked up to listen.
“For just as spring comes to the land,” he intoned, “as insects and mammals awaken in the dirt, and plants begin their pilgrimage toward the sun, so each human life has its springtime. You must every one of you remember, whatever your misfortunes and missteps have been, that this is—yes, this is the springtime of your lives.”
Delivered in the crackling voice of a gray-haired man with a hunched back and a cane, this counsel was affecting. Certainly we do have youth on our side. In the bodies around me, I sensed an easing. Perhaps all the former freshness in our hearts is not decayed by sorrow. Perhaps something new and untainted might arise!
Reverend Williams moved his sparkling eyes from one to another of us, promising: “If you will live in service of God, then you will find happiness. Indeed, and this is my message for you today, you will find more happiness than the woman who has never strayed.”
Breaths were taken in or released through his small crowd of listeners. He raised his arms and lowered them, as if suppressing our potential errors. His voice acquired a singer’s earnestness. “For when the sinner repents, her belief is far more fervent!” he called. “Her hunger for good has been fed by its absence. Do you think the truly repentant can sin again?” We awaited his answer. “The repentant sinner can bear only to pursue good. Only to pursue good! And she will be redeemed.”
He paused to push unruly curls from his angular face. Beside me, Gina gave out a sigh and straightened her spine as if relieved of a weight, despite being filled to bursting with her baby. Others shifted in their seats, loosening their limbs; some wiped moistness from their eyes.
I wished I could share in their relief. Though I had no desire to be disrespectful and even loved this man for his intentions, I found myself beset by irritation at his constructs, which struck me all at once as flawed beyond repair.
For one, most of the young women who pass through here are not sinners, but victims; what did Nancy and Sophie, for instance, do wrong? So why should they be told to seek redemption?
For another, what of the men who put us into our condition? Shouldn’t they be made to kneel before the Lord and spend their coming years in repentance? Who searches out their souls and makes them pay?
And what of the families who’ve let us bear our crosses alone, the families who’ve chosen appearances over love? Surely they too ought to consider their sins.
The reverend raised his half-bent arms and waved them about, continuing to illustrate his points. A younger man’s vigor came to his face; his voice gained force and clarity. The faces around me grew flushed with gratitude and hope, just as he wished them to. But I couldn’t join them. Instead, I mourned the weary, twisted nature of my heart. I marveled at the simplistic notions of well-meaning people that grow ever more tiresome. I wondered how Gina could accept his words, how her eyes could glow adoringly, when she’d so recently bemoaned the lies that will underpin her new life.