here,” Lily said, “except mine are blue.”
Muriel opened her magazine to a story called “Love Bound,” with a picture of a happy couple standing alongside a train. “My husband’s a conductor for the D&H Railroad.” She paused, then nodded. “Yes, that’s it. He travels all over the country.” Muriel closed her eyes. “Said he’d take me with him. Far away where Pa can’t ever hurt me again.”
“But I thought—”
The sound of footsteps carried up into the room. Muriel leaned over, snatched Lily’s magazine, mated it with her own, and shoved them in the drawer. “This is just between us.”
Women and girls filed in from the evening service, heads still bowed in either prayer or obligation.
A thickset nun—all girth, no stature—squeezed in behind them. “Lights out in twenty minutes.” She backed up into the hallway and disappeared.
“Sister Immaculata,” Muriel said as she grabbed for her nightclothes. “A homely sight, even for a nun.”
Lily watched as some of her roommates scurried toward the bathrooms, nightclothes in hand, while others undressed alongside their beds, Muriel among them. Lily wondered at their immodesty while she pulled her own gown out of the drawer and made her way to the washroom.
* * *
Sister Immaculata returned exactly twenty minutes later, barking, “Bed check!” She walked the length of the room, crossing off names on her clipboard. “DeLeo?” Check. “Mancini?” Check. “Kochis?” Check. “Lehman?” She looked around and called again. “Lehman?”
A rather pale-looking girl, no more than eighteen, followed her swollen belly through the doorway. She pressed one hand into her back and used the other to hold onto the footboard she passed. “Sorry, Sister.” She paused one bed away from her own to catch her breath. “I slow down a little more each day.”
The nun sneered as she marked off the name, and proceeded up the aisle. “Dennick?” she said in front of an empty bed. “Judith Dennick?”
“She’s being delivered,” someone offered from a bed in the front of the room. “Breech birth. Had to call the doctor.”
Sister Immaculata made a notation on her clipboard and took a few steps forward.
“Hartwell?” Check.
At the sound of her last name, Muriel offered up a smile that tried too hard and went unnoticed.
As the nun stepped forward, Lily focused on the three fleshy chins protruding from her wimple.
“Morgan?” Check.
“Other Morgan?” She spun toward Lily and glared. “Where’s your sister?”
When Lily froze, Muriel answered with that same smile. “I believe she’s with Mother Mary Joseph.” The nun scratched something on her clipboard. “Besides,” Muriel said, “I imagine she can come and go as she pleases, seeing it’s Lily who’s with child.”
The many-chinned nun yanked the cord on the nearest ceiling light. “We’ll see about that.” She marched toward the door, pulling each of the three subsequent cords as she passed.
Muriel crawled under the covers and turned her body in Lily’s direction. “So what did you mean when you said you couldn’t say for sure if you had a sweetheart?”
Lily tipped her head toward the empty bed. “Where do you think Violet got to?”
“Pipe down!” someone yelped from across the aisle. “Six thirty comes early.”
“Don’t worry,” Muriel whispered, “Mother Mary Joseph’s a talker. Probably running Violet through the other nine Commandments, seeing they already covered the one about honoring your parents.” She laughed lightly.
“Thanks, Muriel.” Lily grabbed a handful of sleeve and soaked up tears as they sprang to her eyes.
“Good night.” The words attached themselves to a yawn. Muriel rolled over on her side and nuzzled the pillow. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Sweet dreams.” Lily lay still, listening to the sound of the other women, a despairing dirge of prayers and whimpers. After some time, she turned toward the window and added her voice to their song.
* * *
Violet stood at the sink rinsing the infant’s soapy skin with handfuls of warm water. Stinking whore. She shook her head to loosen the words, but each spiny syllable dug into her skull like barbed wire.
Mother Mary Joseph returned to the kitchen carrying a gray two-piece sleeping suit. “It’s a little big,” she said, holding it up to the light, “but it’ll do for now.” The thick, sweet smell of Fels-Naptha soap wafted up from the nightclothes and filled the room.
Violet lifted the baby and wrapped him in a towel that had been warming on the radiator. “Reverend Mother, I think you should know—”
“Normally, we bathe the children in the nursery,” the nun interrupted, setting the sleeping suit on the already blanketed table, next to the talcum powder, rash cream, mineral oil, diaper, and pins, “but not at this hour. No sense waking the other children.”
“This Dr. Peters . . .” Violet carried the boy over to the nun and handed him in her direction.
Mother Mary Joseph walked past the pair, struck a match, and lit the front burner on the stove. “A little gruff.” She warmed a bottle of milk in a shallow pot of water. “A fine man though.” Nodding toward the mineral oil, she said, “Rub his head good. Nothing makes a baby look neglected more than cradle cap.”
Violet poured a few drops of oil on her palm and worked it gently into the boy’s yellow-crusted scalp. “Should flake off in a day or two.” She creamed, powdered, diapered, and dressed the infant with a deft hand.
“You know your way around a baby.”
“I practically raised Lily.” Violet bent down and inhaled. “Nothing smells sweeter.”
“And your mother?” The nun shook a few drops of milk onto her wrist.
“She had a hard time of it for a while.” Violet settled the boy on her lap and explored the opening in the roof of his mouth with her finger. “Now, about that doctor.”
Mother Mary Joseph handed the bottle to Violet, sat down, and caressed the baby’s sunken cheek. “Can’t be more than a month old, poor thing. He’s wasting away. Probably never had a proper feeding.”
Violet tipped the bottle toward the right side of his mouth, away from the cleft. He started sucking, but seemed to take in more air than milk. A moment later, the little bit of liquid he’d consumed leaked back out through his nose in a fit of sneezes. “You better do this.” She lifted the bundle toward the nun.
“Sit him up,” Mother Mary Joseph replied, not moving from her seat. “That’s right. Now point the nipple down a little. Good.”
The
