The Home for Unwanted Girls

by Joanna Goodman

  In the end, Elodie manages to slip into her seat at the sewing machine precisely on time and gets to work on the first sheet hem.

  “Psst.”

  Elodie looks over and Marigot is grinning.

  “What?” Elodie whispers.

  “I found something.”

  “What?”

  Sister Calvert is moving up the aisles, supervising all the girls’ work, commenting here and there. It’s crooked. Start over. You’re too slow. There’s a pillowcase on the floor.

  When she’s out of earshot, Marigot holds out her hand and opens up her palm to reveal a small brown square that Elodie does not recognize.

  “What is that?”

  “It’s chocolate.”

  “Chocolate?”

  “Smell.”

  Elodie glances behind her to make sure Sister Calvert is still preoccupied reprimanding one of the other sewers, and then she sneaks a furtive sniff. Her eyes roll back. The smell is heavenly, sweet and pleasing in a way that jolts all her senses to life.

  “Sister must have dropped it,” Marigot whispers. “Here. Quick.”

  Marigot breaks the small piece in two, pops one half in her mouth and hands the other to Elodie. Elodie puts it on her tongue, closes her eyes, and savors the taste of it as it melts. “It’s sweet, but not like molasses,” she moans, enjoying the way it sticks to the roof of her mouth while she sucks it.

  “Mam’selle de Saint-Sulpice?” Sister calls out.

  “Yes, Sister?”

  “What are you up to?”

  “Nothing, Sister. Just sewing.”

  Sister Calvert harrumphs and moves on. She’s not nearly as interested in goading or torturing the girls as some of the other nuns. She isn’t kind or friendly in any way, but her sternness rarely crosses over into abuse. She just wants to get the job done.

  “Thank you, Marigot,” Elodie whispers.

  Marigot winks. Today is a good day.

  Chapter 31

  Maggie

  In the middle of a muggy autumn night, Maggie is awakened by a strong wave of nausea. It’s her first night back in the Townships as a separated woman, and she opted to sleep at her parents’ house instead of alone in Knowlton. In spite of their disappointment over her decision to leave Roland, her parents did not turn her away.

  She creeps downstairs and rifles around the pantry for some crackers. She grabs a handful, throws on one of her mother’s scratchy cardigans, and goes outside. Her father is standing in the small vegetable garden, surveying it as though it’s perfectly logical to be out gardening at midnight in October.

  “What are you doing, Daddy?”

  He turns and looks up at her, illuminated by the yellow glow of the floodlight above the back door. His eyes take a moment to focus, and she knows he’s drunk. “Checking on your mother’s herbs,” he says, in his twilight slur.

  “Now?”

  “It’s a waxing moon,” he says, tipping his head up to the sky. “One must always sow seeds under a waxing moon, never waning.”

  She sits down on a white wrought iron garden chair and inhales the crisp autumn air.

  “The scientists are beginning to discover the effects of lunar rhythms on the earth’s magnetic fields,” he says. “Which of course affects growth.”

  He crouches down and digs around in the soil, pulling out a small potato. “They say a potato grown in a laboratory will still show a growth rhythm that reflects the lunar pattern.”

  He attempts to stand up but wobbles a bit and has to reach for the chair to steady himself. She notices his hands are trembling and his entire body seems to sway with every passing breeze, as though it’s not firmly rooted to the ground.

  “I love the smell of thyme,” Maggie says, inhaling the scent of the herbs. The air is warm and muggy for October.

  “I must plant some parsley for your mother,” he says, more to himself. “It’s good for enhancing the smell of roses, too.”

  Maggie stands up and stretches. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

  “You should go back to Roland,” he tells her. “This baby is exactly what you two need.”

  What you two need. As though it’s a blender or a vacuum cleaner. A thing. That’s how Roland described it, too.

  “We’re both moving on, Daddy. It was mutual.”

  “You have everything, Maggie. I don’t understand you.”

  “You don’t understand that I want to be happy?”

  “It takes more courage to stay.”

  “I disagree,” she says wearily. “I’m sorry if that hurts you.” She kisses his forehead, which is damp and thinly beaded with sweat.

  He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a silver flask. She watches him take a sip and then tuck it back in his pocket.

  “Good night, Daddy.”

  He doesn’t answer, just continues staring straight ahead, his face etched with exhaustion and disappointment. There’s such despair in his eyes it almost makes Maggie wish she could have made it work with Roland, for her father’s sake.

  Maggie still hasn’t reached Gabriel, nor has he materialized. Her dream of having this child with him is beginning to dim. And yet, in spite of these frequent undulations of despair, a stubborn fissure of faith—or possibly blind delusion—has persisted. She will not give up on him, which is why she will do it alone rather than go running back to Roland for security. She believes it to be an act of faith more than anything.

  She leaves her father standing there with his herbs and his flask, and she goes back inside. She wanders past his sanctuary and stops, noticing that the door is slightly ajar. For as long as she’s lived in this house, she’s never known him to leave it open. Either he’s drunker than usual, or he just assumed everyone was asleep and there was no need.

  Maggie lightly pushes the door open and slips inside. She stands there for a moment, breathing in the scent of her father. His well-worn book, Operating a Garden Center, is open to the chapter called “Attracting Customers,” which means the store is having a slow season. Her eyes sweep over the rest of his books, his radio parts, the mess of his papers and pending projects, the steel gray file cabinet in the corner of the room.

  Without thinking and before even registering what she’s doing, she finds the key in the top drawer of his desk, poorly hidden in an empty cigar box. She kneels in front of the file cabinet and opens it. She flips through the files—mostly bills—until her hand comes to rest on a thick manila envelope in the bottom drawer. There’s an address stamped in the corner. Maggie reaches for it just as her father comes up behind her. “What do you think you’re doing?” he cries.

  She jumps to her feet, dropping the envelope. All she can make out is the name Goldbaum, LLB before her father slams the drawer shut with his foot. Her gut tells her it has something to do with Elodie. “What is this?” she asks him. “Why did you have a lawyer?”

  He takes her by the wrist and forcibly shoves her out of his sanctuary. It’s the most physical he’s ever been with her. His cheeks are flushed, and the veins in his nose seem to have suddenly exploded in anger. He closes the door in her face and locks it.

  She stands outside his door for several minutes, shocked by his uncharacteristic outburst. She can hear shuffling and banging from inside.

  “Daddy!” she yells through the door. He doesn’t respond.

  Chapter 32

  Elodie

  Elodie wipes a film of sweat from her forehead and turns her face away from the steam. She’s been assigned to pressing sheets this month, a task even more tedious than sewing them. It’s also a lot more painful on her right arm, which has never been the same since she was bound to that bare bed for a week.

  “Take five minutes,” Sister Camille says. “Your face is red.”

  Sister Camille is new. She doesn’t look much older than Elodie, but she’s now the one in charge of the sewers. She’s too kind for Saint-Nazarius. It’s only a matter of time before they get rid of her.

  “Why do you stay
here?” Elodie asks her, replacing the iron in its plate. “You don’t belong here any more than I do.”

  “God put me here for a reason,” she says. “Though sometimes I can’t think why.”

  “Do you think He put me here for a reason?” Elodie asks her.

  “Of course,” Sister Camille says with certainty. “We don’t always understand what He does or why He does it. We may never, not in this lifetime. That’s what faith is.”

  “That’s not comforting,” Elodie mutters.

  Sister Camille squeezes her hand, a gesture so startling that Elodie flinches and retracts it.

  “That’s the worst part of being here,” Sister Camille says sadly. “Watching children grow up without any affection. It’s not normal. I hate not being able to hug the little ones and hold them when they’re crying.”

  “You’d be fired,” Elodie says. “Or worse.”

  “I did once, when I first started. I picked up a little girl who’d been chained to a pipe all night. She couldn’t have been more than four.”

  “What happened?” Elodie asks, wishing Sister Camille had been around when Elodie was little.

  “I was caught by Sister Laurence and banished to the cafeteria.” She looks sheepish and adds, “And then down here to the basement. I can’t be cruel like they tell me to be. I just can’t.”

  “Maybe that will change.”

  “Of course it won’t.”

  “Then why do you stay?”

  “I told you,” she says. “It’s God’s will. But between you and me, I’ll be happy when they do get rid of me.”

  “Take me with you, Sister—”

  “I wish I could,” Sister Camille says, taking Elodie by the hand and leading her out into the corridor. “Listen to me,” she says, lowering her voice. “They’re changing the law.”

  “What law?”

  “The law that put you here.”

  Elodie shrugs, bewildered.

  “The government is starting to investigate these hospitals,” Sister Camille explains. “They know about the orphans and they’re doing something about it. They know you’re not mental patients.”

  Tears spring to Elodie’s eyes and she collapses against Sister Camille’s chest. “When?” she cries. “When can I leave?”

  “The doctors have already started interviewing the children.”

  A surge of panic charges through Elodie’s body.

  “What’s wrong?” Sister Camille asks her. “It’s a good thing, Elodie.”

  “The last time a doctor interviewed me I wound up here,” she whimpers, remembering that day at the orphanage. “I failed!”

  “Just be yourself,” Sister Camille reassures her. “You’re not retarded. We both know that. These doctors are on your side.”

  Elodie is skeptical. The doctors are never on her side; they only pretend to be.

  “They’re going to find that most of the children here are of normal intelligence,” Sister Camille says. “If anything, you’re disturbed from being locked up in here and from all the abuse. You’re smart, Elodie, but ignorant.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you don’t know anything about the world. Basic things. You’re backwards, that’s all. But not crazy.”

  “That’s true.”

  “If you poor things weren’t retarded when you came in, you surely will be when you get out.”

  “Do you think I’ll be able to find my mother?”

  “Anything is possible with God,” Sister Camille says, but the look in her eyes belies her words. Elodie does not see faith in them, only pity. Or maybe it’s Elodie’s own doubt, her ambivalence about God.

  “Where will I go?” Elodie wants to know. “I don’t know anything other than this place—”

  “The younger kids will probably go into foster homes or proper orphanages. The older ones will just be released, I imagine.”

  “Released?”

  Sister Camille nods. And then, reading the look of alarm on Elodie’s face, she adds, “Don’t worry, you’re not old enough to be on your own.”

  “Do you think they’ll send me back to the orphanage in Farnham?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Elodie’s mind is buzzing. The very possibility of escaping Saint-Nazarius—of never having to see Sister Ignatia’s face again—fills her with a burst of fresh hope, something she hasn’t felt in years.

  “You’re going to have to be patient,” Sister Camille warns. “It won’t happen quickly.”

  “But it will happen?”

  “I believe it will. It’s already happening at other hospitals.”

  Elodie beams, her whole body trembling with excitement and relief. There’s a fissure of fear—she still has to convince the doctors she isn’t crazy or retarded—and some trepidation about where she’ll be sent, but nothing that can possibly outweigh her joy.

  Chapter 33

  Maggie

  Maggie arrives at her father’s seed store with breakfast for both of them. The window is decorated with fake snow and a shiny red Christmas banner that says joyeux noël merry christmas. She hasn’t spoken to him in weeks. She tried to reach out several times, but he refuses to speak to her.

  Today she’s determined to make amends for breaking into his filing cabinet. She’s brought the galleys of her first translation as a peace offering. We Shall Overcome represents not just the fifty thousand or so words she managed to coax from French into English, but also the successful assimilation of her French and English selves. Godbout’s encouragement along the way has surprised and bolstered her. If not for him, she would have quit the project.

  “You’ve captured the struggle,” he told her when they were reviewing an early draft of her manuscript. “I believe you.”

  “You wrote the words,” she deflected.

  “I wrote them in French, Larsson. You’re writing them in English. I was worried your version might come off inauthentic. Or, worse, academic. But your writing is honest and real. I buy it.”

  “Thank you,” she said, blushing. She was thrilled. In the absence of her father’s support, Godbout’s approval was profoundly reaffirming.

  “We’re not so different, you and I,” he told her, rolling one of his homemade cigarettes. “Being a woman in a man’s world is not much easier than being a French Canadian in an English world, is it?”

  “I suppose you’re right,” she said, having never made the comparison before.

  She appreciates that he notices such things and consistently credits her for her efforts and resilience. He sees something in her that few men do and genuinely respects her. She attributes this generosity of spirit to his being a man with a deep allegiance to the subjugated and the downtrodden across all walks of life.

  Still, in spite of Godbout’s praise, she worries what people will think of her work. She still cares too much how people will judge her. She wonders if Gabriel will stumble upon her translation at a bookstore. Say to someone, Hey, I used to know that woman. Maybe think she didn’t manage to capture Godbout’s passion after all.

  She opens the door and steps inside the store. The smell of earth wafts around her. Vi no longer weighs the seeds; she works as a secretary at the Small Bros. Company, where they make the evaporating pans for boiling syrup. It sounds so dull, but then Vi never had grand aspirations for herself. She’s moved into Peter’s old room so she doesn’t have to share a bed with the others, and she’s still got no prospects for a husband. Nicole is the one who weighs the seeds now.

  Maggie’s father glances up from a bin of seeds and immediately withdraws his friendly expression. He’s still upset with her. She has her own reasons for being angry with him, but right now she cares more about getting answers. She found a lawyer in Montreal named Sonny Goldbaum, but hasn’t been able to reach him because of the holidays. In the meantime, she is determined to find out what was in that manila envelope.

  Her father looks thinner, pale. He’s getting too old to work this hard, she thin
ks, stomping light snow off her boots. “I brought you something,” she tells him.

  When he fails to respond, she holds up a grease-stained paper bag in one hand and the galleys in the other. “Breakfast and . . . ta-da . . . my book!”

  He offers a wan smile and mutters, “Congratulations.”

  “It’s a peace offering,” she says, extending it to him.

  Reluctantly, he comes over to her and examines it. “Well done,” he says, admiring the thick manuscript.

  “Godbout says that what makes me a misfit is exactly what allows me to do such good work.”

  “Misfit?” her father says. “I never saw you that way.”

  She follows him to his office and he pulls out a chair for her to sit down. She hands him a fried-egg sandwich. “How’s the new saleswoman working out?” she asks him.

  “She likes to give discounts to make a sale,” he complains. “I keep telling her it cuts into the margins.”

  Maggie nibbles on a strip of bacon. When she first found out he’d hired a woman to sell on the showroom floor, she was crushed. She felt betrayed, as though he were cheating on her. At least having Godbout’s book to translate helped to soften the blow. By then she was well into it, distracted and plodding along with a renewed sense of purpose. Now her father’s slight only stings if she lets herself think about it for too long.

  “The customers seem to like her well enough,” her father goes on. “She’s got spunk.”

  Maggie doesn’t say anything. She glances up at a framed slogan above his desk, reading it with a swell of longing. Whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together. —Jonathan Swift

  “What can I do for you?” he asks her, treating her like she’s a customer.

  “I just wanted to give you the galleys,” she says, handing them to him. “Keep them. I have another copy.”