“Home sweet home,” she said. “The whole second floor is ours. Third floor belongs to the good sisters.” She looked up. “And Sadie Hope. Been widowed for forty years. I suppose if you’re going to live like a nun, you may as well live with them. Not that I could ever do it,” she chuckled. “Washrooms are at the end of the hall.” She pointed toward the back of the building, to the place just over the kitchen. “Four of ’em. Two on each side. Knock first if you know what’s good for you.”
Muriel opened the door closest to them and pulled the cord on a porcelain ceiling light, one of four centered down the length of the room. Eighteen steel beds, nine on either side, lined the walls. “Clean, anyways.”
Violet nodded to the two suitcases. “Where do we sleep?”
“Up here on the left.” Muriel waddled to the end of the room, pulling on cords, lighting the way. “Eight and nine.” She waved a hand toward two unmade beds with linens piled on blue-and-white-ticked mattresses. “I’m lucky number seven,” she said, lowering herself onto the nearest bed. “A pleasure to meet you.” She laughed again and lay against her pillow.
“How many girls are there?” Lily asked, backing out of the way so Violet could get in to make the beds.
“We’re full up.” Muriel patted the edge of her mattress, inviting Lily to sit. “Everyone’s off at chapel just now.”
Lily half-smiled. “Not everyone.”
Muriel giggled and nodded toward Lily. “I like this one,” she said to no one in particular.
When Violet finished making the beds, she set the suitcases on top.
“You can stash what’s yours in the dressers.” Muriel motioned toward the small chests of drawers to the left of each bed. “Stow the bags underneath.”
“I want to be next to Muriel.” Lily grabbed hold of the brown metal footboard and pulled herself up farther. Muriel drew up her legs to give the girl more room.
“You can’t always get your way.” Violet ran her hand along the tops of the cowhide suitcases before unbuckling the one closest to her. Matching luggage with forest-green lining. They were supposed to have been her wedding present from the widow who had shown them to Violet the day they’d arrived. “I just couldn’t wait,” the widow had said. “Act surprised when Stanley sees them. We wouldn’t want him to think we have secrets.”
But then the widow had dragged them out again that February night, with Violet’s mother and Lily in the parlor. “I thought you could use these on your holiday,” she’d said, and smiled as if she’d convinced herself that the sisters really were going to their Aunt Hattie’s in Buffalo, instead of an infant asylum in Philadelphia.
“It’s just that Muriel understands my delicate condition,” Lily explained, as Violet lifted her sister’s clothes and slid them into the dresser. Lily patted her stomach. “Anyhow, you’ll still be next to me, just like home.”
Not at all like home, Violet thought. At home, Violet slept on the left, Lily on the right. Violet had always slept on that side, even before Lily was born, back when Daisy had been alive to share the bed. Daisy, older by thirteen months. Some of the folks in Scranton used to call them Irish twins. Almost seventeen years since that tragedy, and Violet’s eyes still stung with the memory of it. She reached into her sleeve and discovered Mother Mary Joseph’s handkerchief tucked inside. She dabbed her eyes and turned to the girls. “I’ll be back.” She headed for the door, waving the hanky.
Violet made her way down the steps. Since there was no light under Mother Mary Joseph’s door, she continued down the hallway to the kitchen. When she found no one there, she decided to step outside for a breath of air. The day had been long and heavy, like every day since the first of January. New Year’s, a time for luck and second chances—the day Violet had finally understood Lily’s predicament. No monthly rags. Sick stomach every morning. Her two good dresses, her only dresses, pulling at the bosom. Lily had been sulking for the better part of December, but until that morning, Violet had never once thought Lily could be expecting.
A sharp wind cut across Violet’s face and whipped up a sudden squall of snow, slicing the stars out of the evening sky. Violet whirled around to go inside, tried the handle, and found the door locked. Gooseflesh rippled under the thin sleeves of her blouse, prompted more by fear than cold. She cradled her arms, tucked her head, and balled her body up against the fieldstone wall. Violet had been lost in the snow when she was nine years old, the night she’d helped birth Lily, and ever since, she was terrified to be alone in it. She stayed tucked for a long time before she remembered to breathe. The air raced out of her lungs so fast it seemed to push back the wind. The snow stopped falling as quickly as it had begun, and the stars repopulated the inky sky.
Violet drew in a breath and listened for the wind to circle back, but heard only the thump of her own heart. She straightened slowly and twisted the knob a second time. The door stayed put inside its frame. Try the main entrance, she thought, whether the nuns like it or not. Just as she rounded the corner, a woman, her face hidden behind a tightly drawn shawl, bolted out of the asylum’s double oak doors and down the slate front steps, vanishing into the frozen night. Violet might have thought the woman an apparition if her sobs hadn’t pierced the icy silence.
Violet scurried through the yard and up the steep steps to a large porch. She looked back to make certain the woman had disappeared before turning the knob and dashing across the threshold. Violet’s flesh prickled in the heated air; her limbs ached from the warmth of the foyer. She stood for a moment, dripping melted snow, silently thanking God for the unlocked door, when what sounded like a baby’s whimper interrupted her prayer. Violet looked around and spotted a large white cradle to her right, near the arched entrance to the chapel. A wooden sign above the cradle instructed, Go and Sin No More. The cries started again, full on, so Violet walked over and scooped a swaddled bundle into her arms. A note pinned to a moth-eaten blanket simply read, Be good to my boy. Violet offered the infant her finger to suck, and noticed his disfigurement. She’d only seen two other harelips in her life. They reminded her of a pig’s notched ear. The crying stopped momentarily, and the baby looked up with his broken expression. Violet kissed her finger and lightly traced the triangular opening from the infant’s nostril to his lip.
“I’m right here, Sister!” a male voice yelled from the hospital side of the entrance. “I’ll see to the matter.”
Violet looked to her left as a corpulent man in a bloodstained apron parted a set of pocket doors on the opposite wall.
“What is it, Dr. Peters?” Mother Mary Joseph called out.
The man stood for a moment, eyeing Violet as he would a bit of gristle on the side of his plate. “Just another whore,” he answered, in a voice too low to carry into the next room. He pushed a plug of tobacco into his bearded cheek, walked over to Violet, and whispered, “Just another stinking whore.”
Chapter three
AS SOON AS VIOLET LEFT THE ROOM with Mother Mary Joseph’s handkerchief, Lily walked to the door on Muriel’s orders and looked down the hallway in both directions. “Coast is clear!”
“Not for long,” Muriel called from the other end of the room, “what with all your yelling. Now, hurry up. Chapel will be over soon. And who knows when that sister of yours will get back.” She reached into her top drawer, pushed aside a crumple of nightclothes,
