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 infant quickly fell into a satisfied rhythm of suck, swallow, breathe. In ten minutes, he’d finished the bottle and expelled a boisterous burp without any coaxing.
The Reverend Mother tickled the boy’s chin and looked at Violet. “Now, keep doing that every three to four hours, and he’ll get some weight on him in no time.” She stood up and grabbed the washcloth to wipe his face.
“But I’m here to look after Lily,” Violet said, keeping her eyes on the boy.
“A little late for that.”
“If you’re suggesting . . .”
“I’m sure you won’t mind helping out.” The nun’s words rolled over Violet’s. “Babies get born here.” She nodded in the direction of the front entrance. “Or left in that cradle. Either way, we don’t have enough hands.” The infant started to fuss a little, and Mother Mary Joseph walked over to the cupboard on the wall opposite the sink. “People losing jobs every day. Can’t afford another mouth to feed. It would break your heart if you let it.” The earthy smell of potatoes and onions wafted up as she searched the shelves. She found a bottle of vanilla extract, tipped it onto her finger, and ran it along the baby’s gums. “We’re full up,” the nun continued, “but God as my witness, the Good Shepherd has never refused a mother or a child, and as long as I’m alive, we never will.” She turned as the doctor strolled into the kitchen.
Violet looked up. “Speak of the devil.”
“Thank you again for all your help this evening, Dr. Peters. We might have lost Judith and her newborn if you hadn’t come when you did.” The Reverend Mother cleared a spot at the end of the table. “Sit.”
“Another time. Good Shepherd babies don’t arrive during bankers’ hours,” the doctor cackled. A bit of spittle caught at the corner of his beard and hung there. He set his medical bag on the table and put on his topcoat. “And once again,” he placed his hand on Violet’s shoulder and squeezed, “I apologize for any misunderstanding. When I saw you with that,” he paused as if considering his next word, “child, I assumed . . .”
Violet bristled and opened her mouth to speak.
“No harm done.” The Reverend Mother turned to Violet. “Dr. Peters has been with us for nearly ten years. And I daresay, he loves our unfortunates as much as we do.”
“Happy to do the Lord’s work,” he said.
Just then, the infant started to cry. Violet tipped the neck of the vanilla bottle onto her finger and rubbed the liquid along the baby’s gums. Glaring at the doctor, she shrugged his hand off her shoulder without another word.
* * *
Violet tiptoed through the dormitory doorway and headed down the aisle. She stopped to tuck the blanket around Lily’s bared feet before continuing past her own bed to the window. Puffs of frigid air invaded the room where expectant mothers either slept or tried to. Violet pushed her thumb against a pane, melting tendrils of frost. She pressed again with her other thumb, and a heart appeared in the midst of the icy strands.
“Vi, is that you?” Lily squinted toward the moonlight.
“Go back to sleep,” Violet said, flattening her palm against the window, supplanting her flimsy heart with a sturdy handprint. “It’ll be morning soon enough.”
Lily mumbled something incomprehensible and closed her eyes.
Shrill winds raged outside; the frosty glass shivered against its tired frame. Stanley, Violet thought. How was it that a person could be so close, and yet so far away?
If he’d married her early on like she’d wanted, married her before going off to law school to save the world (and her reputation, or so he’d said: “Let me prove to your father that I’m worthy of your hand”), Stanley would be with her now. He’d help her make sense of a world where mothers abandoned their babies in the name of duty, or selfishness, or God. If he’d married her before going to the University of Pennsylvania, as he used to say he would, she’d be surrounded by her own children now, and not the Good Shepherd’s brood. So what if her parents spurned her? It wouldn’t be the first time. She’d spent the better part of a year as an outcast after Daisy’s death.
Daisy. Everyone had blamed Violet for the tragedy, except Stanley. Even her mother thought she threw that lit sparkler out of jealousy. Violet had been jealous of her sister, it was true. With one year between them, Daisy got the store-bought dress, since it was she who was being baptized that morning, while Violet wore one of her sister’s hand-me-downs. But they’d made up that afternoon when they’d found the fireworks their father had bought for the evening’s Fourth of July celebration. It was Daisy who told Violet to hold them while she lit the match. It was Daisy who said the first one wouldn’t light. And Daisy who told her to keep a lookout for their parents and that nosey Mrs. Evans, causing Violet to turn away when the sparkler unexpectedly caught fire. She didn’t throw that firework out of jealously. She tossed it out of instinct when the flame burned her fingers. Daisy knew that. Violet saw forgiveness in those blue eyes the moment the sparkler touched the hem of her sister’s dress. Folks around Scranton still talked about Daisy—the little Morgan girl who sang hymns for three days as she lay dying. God called home an angel, they’d concluded, as if they knew God’s ways. Yet, for months, many of those same good Christians assumed Violet had hurt Daisy on purpose. Assumed an eight-year-old girl could kill her sister. Was that God’s way?
Violet had spent the rest of that year looking in from the outside. As awful as it was, she learned early on she could endure it, endure almost anything with Stanley close by. How ironic that Stanley should be so near, as Violet stood in the mothers’ ward of an infant asylum, sworn to secrecy.