Home for Erring and Outcast Girls Read online

  She wanted her Docie. She wanted her dope. She got neither.

  It went on and on, with no difference between morning or night, between one day or another, until finally, she sank into a dark hole, absent the energy or desire to reject what kept her alive, for good or evil. She had nothing left. Nothing…

  Then, slowly, she became aware of a soft surface beneath her shoulders and hips as she drifted—nearly so soft as the shape of Docie’s still-feverish body, finally pressed against Lizzie’s side.

  Later, more awake, she saw she was raised high again, above the floor of a dimly lit room, and she reckoned she lay in a bed with springs and a ticked mattress—to her recollection, the first real bed she’d ever slept on in all of her nineteen years. She’d generally passed her nights on pallets over dirt floors—at best, a rope cot, and once, the back of a wagon after birthing Docie. Often, in fact, she had no more than the ground itself, inside or out. Beds were for better folk. Beneath her now, this real one felt strangely unstable, jigging up and down and back and forth at the slightest movement, so she kept still, afraid she’d roll off one side or knock her girl off the other. She hadn’t the strength to catch either of them.

  As the fog cleared her brain, she registered a woman pressing crockery filled with rich broth or cool water to her blistered lips, or cleaning her face and hands with a cloth warmed in a basin next to the bed. At another point, she woke in a panic to realize Docie was gone again, and she screamed hoarsely until someone rushed to carry her daughter to her from a small, nearby cot.

  She struggled to recall how they’d gotten there. Had they walked? She was short, but thick, and even in her poorly state she would not be easily carried. How many nights had they passed in this place? She couldn’t even guess.

  The next time she woke, they got her and Docie up, first settling Docie in a small chair with a rail at her waist, then back to the bed to help Lizzie shift her legs, one by one and dragging like logs from under the bedclothes until her feet rested on the floor. She’d never felt a floor finished so smooth. She rubbed her toes against it, eyeing the fineness of everything. The small room was papered in cabbage roses, and drapes softened the tall windows. The bedclothes were snowy, except where they were rumpled and grimy from their skin. A fancy-stitched coverlet draped the foot of the shiny bedstead. If she hadn’t been gripping the edge of the bed, lightheaded from being flat for days, she’d have pinched her arms to check she wasn’t dreaming.

  The woman peered close, silver spectacles perched on her nose, hair thin at the part, and too young for so much gray. “How do you feel, dear?”

  Breathing no longer felt so harsh or stole her voice, so Lizzie opened her mouth, though she doubted sensible words would come. “Feel right fine.” It was garbled, as if her mouth were stuffed with stones. She’d never been quick, but this was worse. It was also not quite true.

  “Can you stand?” The woman grasped her hands. Lizzie’s limbs quivered like scrawny branches in a storm, and she stood a spell until her legs steadied. She took cautious steps as the woman led her to a sturdy chair by the hearth. Embers glowed from a fire set that morning when the early winter sun rose, its rays too weak to take the chill off the room. She was used to the cold, having never lived where wood was plentiful for cooking—much less for waking. The extravagance plain puzzled her. She could see it for her child, maybe. But for her too?

  Docie opened her mouth like a baby bird as another woman, young and rosy-cheeked, scooped mush in with a child-sized spoon. She dabbed Docie’s face with a towel, no concern for dirtying the bright cloth, and clapped her hands as Docie swallowed. “Look at you, hungry girl!”

  Lizzie’s face burned with shame. Those playful words spoke truth. They’d verged on starving for most of her girl’s life. Food was even harder to come by than wood, which they could sometimes gather for free where it fell dead from the trees. Food was earned another way—trading what was never used up. Used up was how she felt.

  The bespectacled woman placed a tray before her with steaming porridge, toasted bread, and warm milk. “Can you eat? You’re improved this morning. We thought we’d lost you two nights back. God is good!”

  Lizzie eased pieces of milk-soaked toast down her throat—until her innards cramped. She feared she might not make the pot. The woman led her quickly to help her squat.

  “You’ll struggle a while to keep a meal in you. Disease and coming off heroin is hard on the bowels. It’ll take time.” The woman spoke so matter-of-fact, even dressed fine like a genteel lady. In the worst places, folks were ashamed to admit to their business, doing it in secret as if they hadn’t.

  This was all too easy. Perhaps she had died. Or maybe, it occurred to her, she’d been taken by one of the good whorehouses, with their rumored luxuries and comforts. But she was too worn for that….

  “Miss,” she croaked, tucked under her warm covers again. “What’s this place? We can’t pay. And I don’t know when I’ll be—”

  The woman interrupted. “For the time being, you needn’t worry about anything but reclaiming your health. You’ll be plenty busy later. I’m Susie Singletary, and you may call me Sister Susie. This is the Berachah Industrial Home for the Redemption of Erring Girls. Do you remember agreeing to come when you and your daughter were in the Tyler jail? Perhaps not. You were nearly delirious. But we’re thrilled you’ve joined us.”

  Lizzie vaguely recalled saying she’d go with those ladies in white, but not that foreign-sounding word. And what was meant by erring and industrial? By redemption, most of all?

  They’d surely confused her and Docie for another lady and child. They could not mean to waste such pure goodness on the likes of a girl who paid for food and shelter on her back, letting men have their way nearly longer than she could recall. She knew her place.

  Nothing was hers to keep.

  Lizzie’s one wish, though, going on four years, was something different for her daughter. If they turned Lizzie back out in the streets, they’d likely care for Docie better than she ever could.

  But then she gazed at Docie, playing pat-a-cake with the younger woman and giggling. Lizzie tried to imagine leaving her here, and her stomach cramped again, just with the pain of thinking it. As if Docie read her mind, she threw her head round and wailed, reaching with spindly arms. “Mama! Mama!”

  No. She’d never leave her. Never again. She couldn’t mess up this chance.

  But still, her heart pounded. “When I get better, you going to make me leave? I won’t let you keep her,” she said, jerking her head toward Docie. “She’s mine. You can’t have her.” She sat up again, as if to go to Docie, though she was still so weak, she gasped for breath.

  “Goodness, no,” the woman exclaimed, looking at Lizzie with surprise—nearly disbelief. “We won’t take her from you. We don’t do that here. God gave you this child. Even if the circumstances weren’t ideal, you’re the best mother for her.”

  Lizzie gaped. She’d never been called the best at anything, and surely not at mothering. “You swear to God? Because we’ll leave now if you’ve a mind to take her away. She ain’t going with anybody but me.” She tried to swing a leg over the side of the bed on her own strength.

  “I won’t swear,” Sister Susie said. “The Lord doesn’t want us to. But I do promise.”

  Could she trust this woman? Trusting wasn’t safe. But what else was she to do, when she could hardly get herself out of the bed, even with her claims. Slowly, Lizzie nodded. “All right, then. I’m Elizabeth Bates…Lizzie. Howdy do. This here’s Docia May, but I call her Docie.”

  Sister Susie smiled warmly, chuckling, and reached to shake Lizzie’s outstretched hand.

  * * *

  —

  When she thought to ask for her snuff, the woman said they didn’t allow it. Long before the dope, Lizzie had taken a whole jar of the fine tobacco a week, finding ways even if she couldn’t
pay. Some days, the little pick-me-up from spooning a pinch behind her lip was what kept her going. All her life, she’d seen her ma take her snuff as regular as coffee. Every woman she knew used it, and she’d never imagined folks might frown on it.

  After coming off the dope during the worst of her illness, she wanted to believe she could make do without either now, but her skin itched constantly, as if ants bit her. Even when sidetracked, she craved a pinch of snuff at the least. But she thought better of asking again.

  Eventually, she and Docie ventured to the wide porch that ran clear around the house on the second level, same as on the first. The children grinned up at them, eager to play, but Docie hardly knew what to make of the creatures running and playing at a distance. She couldn’t do much beyond stare from her mother’s lap anyway. The last of the sickness made her eyes burn and blur, and walking was hard from lying in bed for days. Fussy or sluggish by turn, she wanted little more than her mother. Lizzie wanted her close, too, though her own bones ached as she carried Docie to a settee on the porch.

  Along with the middle-aged matron, Sister Susie, who cared for her and Docie the most, she’d learned several young women lived in the house, some with infants or children. Brother JT Upchurch, the preacher man who’d built the Home a year ago, lived near the grounds and was in and out of his first-floor study, sometimes accompanied by his wife or the secretary who wrote the newsletter. Sister Susie had shown Lizzie one, and she’d paged through, though she couldn’t read the words. Her mother had only taught her counting coins for small goods or train fare, and even then, she mostly held out a hand with her coins on it, trusting the merchant to take his due without cheating her—or trusting a john to place his there, the same.

  Sister Susie had said she and Docie could attend Bible reading and prayers when they could no longer pass on their sickness, but she reckoned the other girls would poke fun at her for being stupid, no different from her own people when she’d attempted things and failed so soundly. She’d always hoped Docie would learn her letters. Now maybe she’d have the chance.

  Each girl rotated through the Home’s industries, learning a skill until she could perform it well, increasing her chances for making a living without having to resort to indecent acts to feed, clothe, and house herself and any children she had. Some took to specific skills and kept at them. One girl had worked for a large printing outfit before, and after birthing her baby in the Home, she helped Mr. Ferry, who printed things on a donated press. Mabel typeset page upon page with few errors. The girls took pride in their work, Sister Susie said, in spite of humbling circumstances.

  But what if they couldn’t find Lizzie a skill to earn her keep? The first and only thing she’d prided herself on was soothing Docie, holding her and rocking her gently. Even so, she hadn’t always done a good job mothering. It haunted her. Who’d trust her with another woman’s child if they knew what she’d done?

  There seemed no hurry to put her to work, though. She’d keep quiet while they got their health back and care for Docie properly now. They’d see what she could do. She held on to Sister Susie’s words, repeating them every morning before she even left the bed—

  “I am the best mother for Docie.”

  Everything she did, from here on out, was all for Docie’s sake.

  CATE

  Arlington, Texas

  2017

  After I’ve been at my new job a few weeks, Laurel Medina walks through the doors to University Collections and stands there like a lost child. I feel as if I know her—her eyes, her hair, and maybe even how she winds a long dark strand of it around her finger while her other hand taps a nervous rhythm against her backpack strap—but I’m positive we’ve never met.

  I’m the person, though, who recognizes faces I saw ten years ago in a grocery store—only a slight exaggeration—and familiar voices haunt me. Easily recalling faces and voices is a gift when it’s convenient, and a curse when I want to be anonymous.

  I like being anonymous. It makes life easier—and more complicated all at once.

  “Laurel?” I say, emerging from where I’m half hidden behind a rolling shelf, reviewing her résumé. She nods and smiles nervously, all while her guarded brown eyes seem to note every detail. She’s dressed in worn but clean skinny jeans, and I spy tape wrapped around one of the temples of her glasses.

  I remember being a poor college student.

  “I’m Cate Sutton, the assistant librarian.” I reach to shake her hand, and she accepts it tentatively. “Have a seat.” I point toward a round table and sit at an angle to her, carefully tucking my full skirt beneath me. I feel exposed here, in full view of a sunny atrium where meetings are held or students study, just beyond our glass entrance doors. But it’s the best place for an interview. I can keep an eye on the front desk as I chat with work-study candidates.

  I explain what we do, though in truth, I’m still wrapping my brain around it myself. My previous positions were general reference, in public libraries or junior colleges, but I’ve always wanted to work with archives. This is an exciting change—so exciting I’ve bought a house in spite of my usual reservations.

  University Collections is on the top floor, set apart from general foot traffic and unlike anywhere else in the main library. Dark paneling. Dim lights. Spotless surfaces, absent the organic aromas that permeate the rest of the building—coffee, sandwiches, sweat. And usually silent except for keyboard clicks from the front desk and a subtle hum when the doors open and close. The austerity can be unnerving unless you’re accustomed to it. I’m not surprised students are baffled when they enter. They find us by accident—or more often, seeking something a professor insists can only be found here instead of on the Internet. We’re a museum of sorts, filled with rare and even one-of-a-kind treasures the university has accumulated, many related to its own history, and others purchased or acquired through donations—often when people die. Donations are hit-and-miss. Sometimes we can’t use things. We pass them on or dispose of them appropriately.

  But sometimes, I’ve learned, our acquisitions change lives.

  I ask Laurel if it’s her first year in college. She gives a noncommittal shrug. “I took college-level classes in high school, but I’m technically a freshman.”

  “What’s your major?”

  “I’m…not sure yet,” she says, as though she feels guilty—maybe even stupid.

  I rush to reassure her. I know what it’s like to be new at something. “It’s okay. You’ll figure it out. What are you enjoying so far?”

  Laurel tilts her head to study the ceiling. “My archaeology class is interesting, but I’m not sure I could make a career out of it and eat too.”

  She’s clever. But she’s not off the hook. “I have a master’s in library science, but my bachelor’s degree is history. Don’t judge so-called useless degrees too quickly. If you’re passionate about something, you can nearly always make it pay. I’m not rich, but I love what I do and have what I need.”

  After I finish my speech, I suspect my soapbox is parked a little too close. I mentally back up. “What do you like about archaeology?”

  She hesitates. I wonder if she even knows. But suddenly she talks. “Maybe that it’s about the past? That there isn’t anything you can do about it. It feels…finished. Does that sound weird?” Her cheeks flush, and she looks down, allowing her bangs to hide her eyes.

  “No. That sounds a lot like history, actually. The funny thing is, both history and archaeology have a great capacity for change—if new information comes to light, it can transform what we know about what or why things happened.”

  Laurel stills, as if she can’t decide whether the concept is good or bad, and her mind goes elsewhere. But then she shakes herself so slightly I almost miss it.

  “That’s why archives are important.” I point to our surroundings. “We save things that might otherwise disappear. Sometimes, s
omething small and forgotten is exactly what we need to see a bigger picture. By the way, the job’s yours if you want it.”

  Laurel’s eyes narrow at my quick offer. She’s a little zipped up, and more than a little unsure of herself. But I like her. And I can’t help feeling, still, as if I already know her. As if I already trust her.

  After only a few shifts, my instincts prove correct. Laurel takes a strong interest in what we do. Her initiative and curiosity are miles beyond those of the other students we’ve hired, who mostly want paychecks—and preferably, jobs where they can text or scroll social media between duties.

  Still, I haven’t shown Laurel the Berachah Home Collection or even mentioned it. One day, though, after I’ve placed one of the boxes back on the cart to be returned to the stacks, she asks, “How do you pronounce this?” She points to the label on the small carton. The entire collection would fit inside a carry-on suitcase. Maybe even in Laurel’s backpack, considering how much she manages to cram inside the thing.

  I shrug. “However you like, really. Nobody seems to agree. But I tend to think of our former president. Barack-uh.”

  She doesn’t laugh, even when I do. “What is the…Berachah Home?”

  I hesitate. My boss showed me the collection after I asked her about the cemetery. I’ve taken oddly personal ownership of it. I almost want to keep the collection to myself, as though if I share, my pleasure in exploring the ledgers and the journals and the photographs might be ruined. But Laurel’s curious and careful expression hints that maybe, just maybe, she’ll appreciate the subject—and the materials—the same way I have.

  It’s a slow day. Her regular tasks are finished, and she’s hardly had a chance to dig around in the collections since we hired her. The Berachah Home is not a terrible place to start. I can already answer nearly any question she has.

  Except the ones that keep me searching incessantly, beyond the collection itself…