"… deliver us from evil. Amen."
"June Engle?"
She doesn't respond, just keeps fingering the beads and praying. "Hail, Mary… blessed is the fruit of thy womb…"
"June, my name is Jacob Weinberg."
"Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death…"
"June, I want to talk to you about Dr. Adams. About the clinic."
The old woman's fingers tighten on the rosary. Slowly she turns and blinks up through tear-brimmed eyes. "The clinic?"
"Yes. And about the Gunthers. About the nursery."
"God help me. God help them." She wavers, her face pale.
"Come on, June, you'll faint if you kneel much longer. I'll help you up." You touch her appallingly fleshless arms and gently raise her to her feet. She wobbles. You hold her husk of a body against you. "The nursery. Is that why you're here, June? You're doing penance?"
"Thirty pieces of silver."
"Yes." Your voice echoes eerily. "I think I understand. Dr. Adams and the Gunthers made a lot of money. Did you make a lot of money, June? Did they pay you well?"
"Thirty pieces of silver."
"Tell me about the nursery, June. I promise you'll feel better."
"Ivy, rose, heather, iris."
You cringe, suspecting that she's gone insane. She seems to think that "the nursery" refers to a plant nursery. But she knows better. She knows that the nursery had nothing to do with plants but instead with babies from unmarried pregnant women. Or at least she ought to know unless the consequence of age and what seems to be guilt has affected her mind and her memory. She appears to be free-associating.
"Violet, lily, daisy, fern," she babbles.
Your chest cramps as you realize that those words make perfect sense in the context of… They might be… "Are those names, June? You're telling me that the women in the nursery called themselves after plants and flowers?"
"Orval Gunther chose them. Anonymous." June weeps. "Nobody would know who they really were. They could hide their shame, protect their identities."
"But how did they learn about the nursery?"
"Advertisements." June's shriveled knuckles paw at her eyes. "In big-city newspapers. The personal columns."
"Advertisements? But that was taking an awful risk. The police might have suspected."
"No. Not Orval. He never took risks. He was clever. So clever. All he promised was a rest home for unmarried pregnant women. 'Feel alone?' the ad read. 'Need a caring, trained staff to help you give birth in strictest privacy? No questions asked. We guarantee to relieve your insecurity. Let us help you with your burden.' Sweet Lord, those women understood what the ad was really about. They came here by the hundreds."
June trembles against you. Her tears soak through your jacket, as chilling as the wind-driven rain that trickles through the roof.
"Did those women get any money for the babies they gave to strangers?"
"Get? The opposite. They paid!" June stiffens, her feeble arms gaming amazing strength as she pushes from your grasp. "Orval, that son of a… He charged them room and board! Five hundred dollars!"
Her knees sag.
You grasp her. "Five hundred? And the couples who took the babies? How much did the Gunthers get from them?"
"Sometimes as high as ten thousand dollars."
The arms with which you hold her shake. Ten thousand dollars? During the Depression? Hundreds of pregnant women? Dr. Adams, Jr. hadn't exaggerated. The Gunthers had earned a fortune.
"And Orval's wife was worse than he was. Eve! She was a monster! All she cared about was… Pregnant women didn't matter! Babies didn't matter. Money mattered."
"But if you thought they were monsters… June, why did you help them?"
She clutches her rosary. "Thirty pieces of silver. Holy Mary, mother of… Ivy, Rose, Heather, Iris. Violet, Lily, Daisy, Fern."
You force her to look at you. "I told you my name was Jacob Weinberg. But I might not be… I think my mother's name was Mary Duncan. I think I was born here. In nineteen thirty-eight. Did you ever know a woman who…"
June sobs. "Mary Duncan? If she stayed with the Gunthers, she wouldn't have used her real name. So many women! She might have been Orchid or Pansy. There's no way to tell."
"She was pregnant with twins. She promised to give up both children. Do you remember a woman who…"
"Twins? Several women had twins. The Gunthers, damn them, were ecstatic. Twenty thousand instead of ten."
"But my parents" – the word sticks in your mouth – "took only me. Was that common for childless parents to separate twins?"
"Money!" June cringes. "It all depended on how much money the couples could afford. Sometimes twins were separated. There's no way to tell where the other child went."
"But weren't there records?"
"The Gunthers were smart. They never kept records. In case the police… And then the fire… Even if there had been records, secret records, the fire would have…"
Your stomach plummets. Despite your urgent need for answers, you realize you've reached a dead end.
Then June murmurs something that you barely hear, but the little you do hear chokes you. "What? I didn't… June, please say that again."
"Thirty pieces of silver. For that, I… How I paid. Seven stillborn children."
"Yours?"
"I thought, with the money the Gunthers paid me, my husband and I could raise our children in luxury, give them every advantage, send them to medical school or… God help me, what I did for the Gunthers cursed my womb. It made me worse than barren. It doomed me to carry lifeless children. My penance. It forced me to suffer. Just like – "
"The mothers who gave up their children and possibly later regretted it?"
"No! Like the…"
What you hear next makes you retch. Black-market adoptions, you told Chief Kitrick. But I don't think that's the whole story. I've got the terrible feeling that there's something more, something worse, although I'm not sure what it is.
Now you're sure what that something worse is, and the revelation makes you weep in outrage. "Show me, June," you manage to say. "Take me. I promise it'll be your salvation." You try to remember what you know about Catholicism. "You need to confess, and after that, your conscience will be at peace."
"I'll never be at peace."
"You're wrong, June. You will. You've kept your secret too long. It festers inside you. You have to let out the poison. After all these years, your prayers here in the synagogue have been sufficient. You've suffered enough. What you need now is absolution."
"You think if I go there…" June shudders.
"And pray one last time. Yes. I beg you. Show me. Your torment will finally end."
"So long! I haven't been there since…"
"Nineteen forty-one? That's what I mean, June. It's time. It's finally time."
Through biting wind and chilling rain, you escort June from the ghost of the synagogue into the sheltering warmth of your car. You're so angry that you don't bother taking an indirect route. You don't care if Chief Kitrick sees you driving past the tavern. In fact, you almost want him to. You steer left up the bumpy road out of town, its jolts diminished by the storm-soaked earth. When you reach the coastal highway, you assure June yet again and prompt her for further directions.