Debbie looked from Felicia to Lizzie, obviously puzzled. “Who is this?”
“Oh, uh, that’s my sister, Felicia. From Florida.”
“Half sister,” Felicia corrected. “Same dad. Different mamas.”
“Same for me,” Brooke said.
“Three daughters by three different women? How unusual,” Debbie said.
“Anyway, the three of us, we’re at that time in our lives, we really need some answers. For our peace of mind, and of course, to find out about our family medical history,” Lizzie went on. “You can empathize with that, can’t you?”
“Yes, but—”
“Before Dad dies,” Lizzie said.
“Ticking clock,” Felicia added.
“Dad told us the parish priest who found him took him to a Catholic orphanage here.”
“From the sound of it, that would be St. Joseph’s. It closed in the mid-1950s, and the children were moved over here to St. Elizabeth’s,” Debbie said.
“You still have all the records though, right?” Felicia said eagerly.
“As I said, those records are sealed to the general public.”
“But we’re not the general public,” Lizzie said.
“If you bring your father in here, with some proof of identity, we’d be happy to share the records with him,” Debbie offered.
“Not possible,” Felicia said.
“Or his authorized representative. If you could bring in a notarized letter, signed by your father, I could speak to my supervisor and I think we could possibly work something out,” Debbie said.
“But we want it to be a surprise,” Lizzie said.
Brooke had an idea. “Daddy said he’d heard that the priest’s name was Father Ryan? Maybe Charles Ryan? He’s the one who turned him over to the nuns at St. Joseph’s. We know it’s a slim chance, but maybe if Father Ryan were still alive…”
“What year did you say this was?” Debbie asked.
“Nineteen forty-two. We think,” Felicia said.
“I’m sure Father Ryan is long gone,” Debbie said.
Lizzie sighed heavily. “Is there, like, a roster or something in your computer that you could check?”
Debbie’s fingers danced over the keyboard of her desktop computer. “Well, just as I suspected. Father Ryan, God rest his soul, passed away in 1982. According to our records, he was pastor at Church of the Apostles until his retirement in 1976. Unfortunately, that church was closed in 1987, and its parish was absorbed into another church.”
The three women looked at each other, waiting for an idea to occur to their self-appointed leader.
“I just wish, for Dad’s sake,” Lizzie said dramatically. “I wish there were some way to find out if the story is true, about him being found under a pew. I mean, it’s so bizarre, you’d think somebody who was around back then would remember.”
“It was a very long time ago,” Debbie said.
Lizzie snapped her fingers. “All right. Let’s try this from another angle. After a good bit of prodding from us, Dad said he’s always believed his biological mother was a woman named Josephine Bettendorf Warrick. Would it be possible to see if she was a parishioner?”
“I can check, but not all the parishes in the diocese kept good records. And in some cases, when churches closed, their records were simply destroyed, which I think is a shame, don’t you?” Debbie began typing. “Spell that name, please?”
Lizzie spelled it out, then repeated it.
“No. Not in our database.”
“Dad has an old newspaper clipping from that time,” Brooke said. “He showed it to us. It shows Mrs. Warrick at the orphanage at Christmastime with a child identified as Charlie Anthony on her lap. Dad says he remembers she came every year to donate toys and gifts, and every year, he got special gifts the other children didn’t.”
“That’s right,” Lizzie said. “Why would Josephine do that, if she didn’t have a connection to our dad or to the orphanage or to the church where Dad was left?”
“Right.” Debbie’s brow was wrinkled as she considered the question. She chewed on the end of a pencil. “Maybe…,” she said slowly. “I think you should go speak to Sister Theresa. She’s the oldest nun still living in Savannah from that time. She’s ninety-nine and almost blind, but she’s still sharp as a tack. If anybody would remember this story, it would be Sister Theresa.”
“Perfect,” Felicia said eagerly. “How do we find her?”
“She lives at the Rose of Sharon Apartments, in midtown.” Debbie spun the wheel of a Rolodex and plucked a yellowing card. “One of the younger nuns from her order does all Sister’s shopping and acts as a sort of de facto caregiver. Let me call Joan and see if she thinks Sister is up for visitors today.”
A moment later, Debbie scrawled an address on a scrap of paper. “Joan says Sister loves company, and you’re welcome to go see her right away, if that’s convenient.”
“Oh!” Lizzie exclaimed. “God bless you, Debbie! We’ll all keep you in our prayers.”
“My pleasure,” Debbie said, blushing.
*
“Laying it on a little thick back there, weren’t you?” Felicia asked as they climbed back into the Volvo.
“The Lord moved me,” Lizzie said with a broad wink.
49
Sister Theresa Monahan’s grip was firm as she greeted each of her visitors. “I’m so pleased to meet you,” she said in a quavery voice that still bore traces of a Boston accent, despite having lived in the South for more than seventy years. “Now, Joanie says you girls have some questions for me?”
She was a short, plump woman, and she wore a navy-blue St. Vincent’s Academy sweatshirt and navy sweatpants. Her bright blue eyes were clouded, but her round face was miraculously unlined. She sat in an overstuffed armchair in a neat but sparsely furnished studio apartment. The television was turned to a Braves baseball game but she pointed the remote at the set and turned down the volume.
“Now. I’m all set. Ask away.”
Lizzie repeated the pertinent parts of their pretext story.
Sister Theresa nodded sympathetically. “I’ll put your father in my devotionals,” she said. “Charles Anthony, you said his name is?”
“He goes by C. D. now,” Lizzie said. “He has some memory of the nuns at St. Joseph’s telling him he was named after the priest who found him, Charles Ryan.”
“Of course. I knew Father Ryan.”
“The sisters gave him the last name of Anthony, after their favorite saint,” Brooke added.
“Goodness. I haven’t thought of this in years and years!” Sister exclaimed. “Now, I don’t remember the baby’s name, I’m afraid, but at the time, back in the war years, I went to St. Joseph’s once or twice a week to teach music to the little ones, and I do remember the story about Father Ryan finding an infant in that church. He was a scrawny little thing.”
“Yes?” Lizzie said anxiously.
Sister hesitated and picked up a string of well-worn rosary beads. “Now, I would never want to speak ill of the dead or call dear Father Ryan a liar, but I will say that we always wondered if that story was completely truthful.”
“Why is that?”
Sister Theresa smiled. “Of course, we take vows of poverty when we accept our vocations, you know. I think Father Ryan came from a very, very impoverished part of Ireland. But when he came to the States, and Savannah, he discovered he had a taste for the nicer things in life. Things that don’t come easily when you’re the pastor of one of the poorest inner-city churches in Savannah.”
“He had a black parish?” Felicia asked.
“Yes. That’s right. Many of his parishioners worked for some of the wealthiest families in Savannah as maids or gardeners or handymen. Wonderful people, but of modest means. So it did raise some eyebrows when Father started driving a shiny new Packard. Coincidentally, right around the time the sisters took in that poor little baby you mentioned.”
“Did Father Ryan say how he was able to buy such a nice car?” Felicia asked.
“A generous gift from an anonymous benefactor,” Sister said with a mischievous glint in her sightless eyes.
Wow! Felicia mouthed.