Muriel closed her eyes and smiled. “Is he handsome?”
“Promise you won’t tell?”
Muriel nodded so vigorously that her wimple and veil slid off her head, down onto her pillow.
“I couldn’t say.” She leaned in and whispered, “I’ve never been able to get past the hand.”
“What’s wrong with his hand?” Muriel scooted toward the edge of her mattress, closer to Lily.
“It isn’t there.” Lily drew back and shivered. “For as long as I’ve known him, he’s always just had the one.”
“Born that way? I’ve heard of that. A woman oughtn’t look at a crone or a cripple when she’s in the family way. It’ll mark the baby for sure.”
Lily considered the warning. “It’s different with Stanley. Lost his hand in the mine when he was a boy. Came this close to dying.” She pressed a half-inch of air between her thumb and forefinger. “He swears it was Violet’s voice that brought him back.”
“Now there’s a romance story if I ever heard one. And what about you?” Muriel rolled her copy of Movie Monthly and rapped it against Lily’s headboard. “Do you have a sweetheart waiting for you back home?”
Lily considered the question. She loved George Sherman Jr., but that didn’t make him her sweetheart. Or her his. He’d told her to come back in a few years after she’d “grown up some,” but that hardly meant he was waiting for her. She’d seen him around town with those other girls. And he’d certainly never want her now if he knew she was expecting. “I can’t say for sure.” Her eyes teared up. “How about you? Do you have a beau?”
“Promise you won’t tell?” Muriel leaned in.
“Cross my heart.”
“I’m a married woman,” she said, stretching out a ringless hand. “All very proper.”
Lily examined Muriel’s unadorned fingers out of politeness. “Why not tell?”
“Pa would kill him.”
“Is he mean?”
“My pa? He’s wonderful to me. Says I’m his little princess.” Muriel wrapped her arms around her stomach. “I’m the only girl in a family of nine.” She trembled. “So naturally he favors me.”
“What’re you going to do when the baby comes?”
“Take him home, of course. Raise him with his daddy.”
“Or her. Could just as easily be a girl. Even Carol what’s-her-name said so.”
Muriel winced. “It’s a boy,” she directed toward her belly, as if issuing a command, “no matter what Carol Kochis says.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Just has to be, is all.” Muriel shivered again.
“What’s he like?” Lily asked. “This husband of yours?”
“He married me for my green eyes.” Muriel tipped her head, batted her lashes, and laughed. “Men always notice my green eyes.”
“Same 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