The Home for Unwanted Girls

by Joanna Goodman

  She passes the bins of seeds on her way to the attic, stopping to open one of the drawers and let a handful of Indian strawberries slide through her fingers; then she climbs the stairs, thinking how one day James will weigh the seeds on Saturdays, just like she did.

  Upstairs, it’s unchanged. The scale, the stack of tiny yellow envelopes, the metal scoop. She gazes out into the alley, remembering who she was back then, the pubescent girl with high ambitions and a crush on Daddy’s worst nightmare. Even the smell is the same—damp earth, mildew.

  She goes back downstairs to her father’s office, which is now hers: the place where her father agonized over his bills, tallied his invoices, ordered the seeds; where Maggie caught him with Clémentine. She sits down at the big desk. There are neat piles of file folders laid out for her: Accounts Payable. Inventory. Overdue Invoices. Orders Pending.

  Tomorrow she will meet with the store manager to review her father’s systems and learn the ropes. He’s the one who’s been in charge while her father was at home dying. He’s the one who’s kept the business organized and afloat. Maggie will have to be careful not to step on his toes, or anyone else’s. Her biggest challenge will be the saleswoman. One of the last things her father said to her was, “If you decide to stay and run the store, do it with humility. Give them all time to adjust to you.”

  A funny thing to say, coming from him. Humility was never his strong suit, but she understood it would have to be hers if she was going to earn the respect of her employees and her customers. Sitting here now, with the reality of the task laid out before her, she feels nervous and slightly sick. What if she fails? What if the business goes bankrupt in her inexperienced hands?

  She reminds herself that her father had enough faith in her to leave his most prized possession in her care. She has a mind for business and she’s always loved a challenge, and now she’s poised to take it over before the age of thirty. She opens the top drawer of his desk, which smells musty, like wet wood, and there in the otherwise empty drawer is a seed envelope with her name on it, Maggie, written in her father’s neat, square handwriting. She opens the envelope. Inside, she finds the key to his filing cabinet with a short note. You always were my wildflower.

  She wastes no time getting back to Dunham. The house is dark and everyone is asleep. She quietly lets herself into her father’s sanctuary and opens the filing cabinet.

  In the bottom drawer, she discovers a neatly folded white flannel baby blanket. As she unfolds it, she sees the words property of brome-missisquoi-perkins hospital printed on the fabric. She shakes it out, and a tiny plastic hospital bracelet lands in her lap. There’s no name on it, only a date: 03–06–50. She presses the blanket to her nose and smells it. Elodie’s blanket.

  Her father was more sentimental than she realized.

  Beneath the blanket, there’s a large manila envelope from Sonny Goldbaum.

  She sits cross-legged on the floor and tears open the envelope. There’s a birth record from Brome-Missisquoi-Perkins hospital and a number of letters on thin blue stationery.

  From the desk of Sonny H. Goldbaum

  Sept 9 1949

  Thank you for driving into the city for our appointment, Mr. Hughes. It was a pleasure to meet you. I will start my search immediately for a suitable placement. Please keep me informed as to the progress of your daughter’s pregnancy, health, due date, etc. As per our conversation, the adoptive family will be Jewish, but rest assured the families I agree to represent are of the very highest caliber.

  Dec 12 1949

  Good news, Mr. Hughes, I’ve found a young couple thrilled to adopt your daughter’s baby. They have not been able to conceive and have had a difficult time going through the usual channels. You are helping to make their dreams come true. They’ve agreed to your fee. I will be in touch with more details. How is the pregnancy progressing?

  Feb 4 1950

  Mr. Hughes,

  Here are the logistics: you will deliver the infant to Sister Jeanne-Edmoure at Mercy Hospital. She will bring the infant to me. You will be paid in advance, as will the doctor and nun at Mercy. No money is to be exchanged between you and any of the parties. You will not see the adoptive parents or know their names. It’s understood there is to be no contact.

  March 18 1950

  Mr. Hughes,

  I have not succeeded in convincing the couple to take the baby, due to her poor health. I will continue my search for a new placement, though as per our earlier conversation, the jaundice and low birth weight are both obstacles. I will keep you informed.

  Maggie sifts through the correspondence and finds a yellowed newspaper clipping from La Presse, dated February 1954.

  Montreal lawyer Sonny Hyman Goldbaum was taken into custody yesterday and arraigned on charges of falsifying birth certificates and giving counsel in an indictable offense, in association with an international ring dealing in black market babies. Goldbaum, 31, pleaded not guilty to the charges, but evidence so far reveals that more than 1,000 French-Canadian babies born in Montreal have been sold illegally to Jewish families in the United States.

  According to sources, a family wishing to adopt a child in New York would contact a lawyer there who would then refer them to Goldbaum. Once the financial details were agreed upon, the ring would obtain a baby from a home for unwed mothers, with or without the birth mother’s consent. The baby would then be delivered to its destination with a falsified visa and passport. More arrests are expected in what sources describe as a multimillion-dollar ring of doctors, lawyers, nurses, and others.

  Maggie rifles through the filing cabinet and retrieves the remaining items her father left for her. Among them, some business books—The Entrepreneur’s Bible, Drucker’s The Practice of Management, Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich—as well as some gardening books and old catalogues, and an essay Maggie wrote in third grade.

  The Person I Admire Most

  My father is called the Seed Man in town because he has the largest selection of seeds in the Eastern Townships. His store is called Semences Supérieures/Superior Seeds. The sign is written in French and English . . .

  Sniffling and wiping tears, she comes upon the galleys of her first translation, We Shall Overcome. When she reaches for one of the gardening books, Wildflowers of Eastern Canada, she discovers pressed between its pages the dried rosinweed flowers she gave her father the day she moved to Montreal. She remembers him setting the bouquet down on the front counter at the store and thinking he would forget about them.

  She presses Elodie’s blanket to her face and pulls her knees to her chest. Sitting amidst the precious tokens and mementos her father saved for her over the years, Maggie realizes just how much he really loved her. He didn’t often express it or even seem to approve of her, but her findings today prove otherwise.

  Flipping once more through the worn pages of the wildflower book, Maggie comes upon two envelopes tied together with an elastic band, both addressed to Wellington Hughes in swirling, old-fashioned script. She opens one of them, and a small black-and-white photograph slips out onto the floor, of a little girl standing in the middle of someone’s backyard. She has a bowl haircut and is wearing a pinafore dress with saddle shoes; she’s holding a bedraggled baby doll in one hand and what looks like a drawing in the other. The date on the white border of the photograph is June 17, 1953.

  Maggie stares at the picture for a moment, and then pulls out the letter.

  Dear M. Hughes,

  The child you and your wife have expressed interest in is a bright, friendly girl who has been with us since birth. She is in perfect health, progressing nicely through all the milestones. As you requested, I am enclosing a photograph. If you would like to visit her again, we would be happy to welcome you at your convenience and discuss possible arrangements for her adoption.

  Sincerely,

  Sister Alberta

  Maggie reaches numbly for the other letter, which is dated November 1955.

  M. Hughes,

 
; You may not be aware that as the result of a recent government mandate, the former Saint-Sulpice Orphanage is now L’Hôpital Mentale Saint-Sulpice. The child to whom you are referring is no longer here. I am not at liberty to disclose any other information.

  Sincerely,

  Sister Alberta

  It takes Maggie a little while to absorb what she’s just found. She returns to the photograph, staring at that little girl in awe. Her daughter.

  All at once the pieces fall into place.

  Her father not only found Elodie, but also visited her at the orphanage and pretended to want to adopt her so he could find out . . . what? That she was alive, healthy, “progressing nicely through all the milestones”? Was he merely curious about her, or had he been in search of some solace or reassurance that she was okay to assuage his own guilt?

  Once he had seen her for himself and he was satisfied that she was thriving and would likely get adopted, he seems to have abandoned interest in her until 1955, right around the time the orphanages were converted to mental hospitals.

  I’m sorry I didn’t save her when I could.

  He’d tried to get her back, but it was too late. She’d already been declared a mental patient. Sister Alberta lied in the letter; Elodie wasn’t transferred until 1957. Were they all liars, those nuns? Destroying the lives of helpless children to make as much money off them as possible and protect the church at the same time?

  Maggie clutches the picture of her daughter to her chest and folds herself over it, crying softly.

  A knock on the door startles her. She gets up, wipes her nose and eyes, and crosses the kitchen to find Gabriel standing outside. “What are you doing here?” she asks him, unlocking the door and letting him in.

  “I went to your house and you weren’t there. I figured you’d be here.”

  The door closes behind him and he follows her back to her father’s office.

  “You look like you’ve been crying,” he says, touching her cheek. “It’s been a hard week for you.”

  “You could say that.”

  She looks away so he won’t see a fresh outpouring of tears.

  “I’m not sure how long it will take me,” he says.

  “How long what will take you?” she asks him.

  “To quit my job, pack up my things, and sell my land.”

  She looks up at him, confused. “Sell your land?”

  He nods.

  “But you love your job,” she says. “You love the seaside—”

  “I can fish here, Maggie. It’s just land. I want to be with you, and I want to raise our son. I’ve thought of nothing else since I got here.”

  “Really?”

  “We belong together. Here, in the Townships, just like you said. We always did.”

  Without a word, she falls into him, sobbing.

  “Are these happy tears?” he asks her, brushing her hair from her face.

  Maggie pulls away and hands him the photograph.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s a picture of Elodie,” she says. “I found it in my father’s things. There was a letter, too. Gabriel, she wasn’t sick.”

  He looks confused.

  “That nun at Saint-Nazarius lied to us. Look.”

  She gives him the letter to read for himself.

  “Elodie was never sick,” she says fiercely, rereading it over his shoulder. “The government has no death certificate. Why would we believe she’s dead?”

  Chapter 45

  Elodie

  1967

  Elodie is lying awake on her cot, looking up at the ceiling she’s come to despise. It doesn’t matter that Ward A is called the Freedom Ward and living here is a huge improvement over Ward B; she still hates every square inch of this hospital. And although life on Ward A—where she’s been since 1964—has afforded her more freedom to come and go within the hospital, more independence and no more physical abuse, Saint-Nazarius remains what it has always been for her: a prison.

  Tonight is her last night in this prison. Sister Camille has arranged for her to share an apartment with another Saint-Nazarius girl who’s been out on her own for almost a year. The girl, Marie-Claude, currently rents a one-and-a-half-room basement apartment in Pointe Saint-Charles. Elodie remembers her from Saint-Nazarius—a tall, quiet girl whose accommodating, subservient disposition spared her at least some of the torture and punishments suffered by the others. Marie-Claude and Elodie were not exactly friends, but they knew each other from Ward B and coexisted without incident.

  Elodie rolls onto her side and closes her eyes. Tomorrow, she will walk out of this place into her future. As surreal as it feels, her dominant emotion tonight is fear. The truth is, she’d almost rather stay here. Almost.

  She knows what to expect here, what’s expected of her. There’s a certain simple rhythm to her days, a familiarity and predictability she’s not quite ready to leave. Who knows what awaits her out there in the world?

  After Sister Camille found her a place to live in the city, the medical superintendent at Saint-Nazarius invited Elodie to his office and tried to convince her to stay. “What can you possibly do in the world?” he asked her.

  She shrugged; she had no idea. He offered her a private room—not on the mental ward—and a job with pay at the hospital pharmacy and the freedom to come and go as she pleased.

  It was a tempting offer and Elodie promised to think about it, which she did. His question plagued her for days. What can you possibly do in the world?

  She has no education, no skills, no money, no family or friends. Aside from the orphanage and a couple of outings by bus into a nearby town, she’s never left the Saint-Nazarius grounds. She’s been institutionalized since the age of five, most of her seventeen years.

  At least here she has Sister Camille. Sister Camille has become her best friend, advocate, and confidante. The one who taught her to read again by practicing with the Bible, the one who got her transferred to Ward A. And now the one to set her free.

  What if the real world is no better than Saint-Nazarius? Certainly she won’t be able to hide her stupidity and lack of experience, and everyone will know she’s grown up in a mental hospital.

  When the sun finally rises in the west window of her dorm, Elodie rises with it. She removes the small suitcase Sister Camille gave her last night from beneath her cot and lays it on the mattress, taking care not to wake the others. Into it she neatly places her two dresses, nightgowns, undergarments, and socks—all donated over the years—and the Bible Sister Camille gave her. She pads softly to the washroom to change out of her nightgown, brush her teeth and hair, gaze at herself one last time in the chipped mirror above the porcelain sink.

  The girl she sees staring back at her fills her with self-loathing. Her short bobbed hair lies flat and colorless against her scalp; her skin is sallow, her eyes lifeless. That’s the first thing people will notice—that she looks crazy.

  She adds her nightgown and toiletries to the suitcase and closes it. You should be happy today, she tells herself. This is the day you’ve dreamt of your whole life.

  She pulls the blanket up over her bed and has one last look around the room.

  The corridors are quiet. Elodie half hopes one of the nuns will appear so she can look her in the eye and say, None of you will ever tell me what to do again. But not one of the sisters shows up to see her off. In some ways, this final display of indifference is almost as upsetting as some of the crueler punishments she endured.

  She contemplates dashing over to Ward B to bid Sister Ignatia a triumphant good-bye and then spit in her face, but she wisely concludes that Sister Ignatia would probably have her thrown in a cell and locked up, left to rot. With that in mind, Elodie hurries to the stairwell.

  Downstairs in the lobby, she remembers the night she first arrived, how terrified she’d been, how unsuspecting. Throwing open the doors, she steps outside into the cold morning, gasping for breath. She squints against the brightness of the sun reflecting off the snow
.

  I’m free.

  “Elo!”

  It’s Sister Camille, waving from the car. Elodie buttons her coat to the neck; she’s forgotten how cold the winter days can be. She hasn’t been on an excursion in a long time, and they were usually in the summer. How will she afford to buy a hat? Mittens?

  Her chest tightens just thinking about it. The practical things of life.

  She doesn’t look behind her as she walks down the steps.

  “Elo! Hurry up!” Sister Camille is waving. Her brother is waiting in the driver’s seat to take them to Pointe Saint-Charles. “Are you ready?” she asks.

  Elodie swallows. She knows this is Sister Camille’s day off and she’s grateful to her, but she can’t find the words to express it. She’s seventeen years old and broken. She isn’t ready to face the world at all. As the car pulls away, she weeps.

  “Cry,” Sister Camille tells her, reaching around to take her hand. “Cry all you like.”

  And she does, loudly and without restraint, as they drive off into the bewildering unknown.

  Chapter 46

  Her new home is in the basement of a flat redbrick row house on Rue de la Congrégation, in an industrial part of the city. “You’re going to like it here,” Sister Camille says, trying to fill the silence with her usual bubbles of optimism.

  “There’s a park nearby,” Sister Camille’s brother adds. “Right there on the corner of Wellington and Liverpool.”

  “Wellington and Liverpool?” Elodie repeats in broken English.

  “It’s mostly Irish around here.”

  “And French, too,” Sister Camille adds, glaring at her brother. “Griffintown over on the other side of the canal is all Irish, but don’t worry, here in the Pointe there are just as many French.”