Irish Secrets (12 page)

"No. Well, yes, Ryan is a taxi driver, but he's also a friend, so I didn't have to pay the usual fare."

"That's good. Do sit down, my dear." As Kara sat beside her, Sister Gabriel went on, "I don't have too much time, so I'll come straight to the point. Ever since baby adoptions were first highlighted in the media, about twenty years ago, our order has maintained a discreet silence. We gave a guarantee of confidentiality to the unmarried mothers, and it was, and still is, our duty to preserve that confidentiality. I believe I said as much to you when you visited our convent a few weeks ago."

Kara nodded, despite the sinking sensation inside her. Was the nun going to warn her off trying to find out anything more, and repeat the usual line about disrupting the lives the mothers may have made for themselves since committing their 'mortal sins'?

"Yes, but—"

"Hear me out, Kara. I found the letter you wrote to Sister Augusta, and the reason you received no reply was because we have no records for the years 1952 to 1962."

Her heart sank even further. "What happened to them?"

Sister Gabriel hesitated. "I shall deny ever saying this, but those records were destroyed. Let's leave it at that, shall we?"

"You mean there's no way of ever finding out anything more about my mom's birth mother?"

"That is what I would have to tell you if you visited the convent again, but we're here on the promenade, with no one else within earshot. Tell me again the date of your mother's birth."

"April 2nd, 1959."

The nun nodded. "Yes, and although I had to swear to keep this a secret until my dying day, I decided I must tell you. That was the date I gave birth to my daughter Mary."

Chapter 12

Kara struggled to find her voice. "You're Bernadette O'Brien, and your daughter was – is – my mother?"

"No."

She frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I
am
Bernadette, but my daughter died four days after she was born. She was premature, and very weak, you see. Maybe she would have survived if the nuns had sent for a doctor, but they didn't. I fed her that morning, and then I had to go and do my jobs. Light duties, they called it, for six weeks after we gave birth. My job was to clean the windows. When I went up to the nursery at lunchtime, my baby's crib was empty. She died, they told me. I screamed and cried, but they wouldn't let me see her. They made me go down to lunch, and I had to carry on cleaning the windows in the afternoon. I think I could have cleaned every last one of them with the tears that streamed down my face."

"Oh, Sister..." Kara gulped as she rested her hand on the nun's arm. "I'm so sorry."

Sister Gabriel patted her hand. "Now don't you be upsetting yourself. It was a long time ago, even though sometimes it only feels like yesterday. For sure, and it left a big hole in my heart, but in a way, I was better off than many of the other girls."

"Better off? I don't understand."

"Don't you? It was hard enough to lose my little Mary after only knowing her for a few days. Think about the girls who bonded with their babies for a year or more, saw them growing, smiling and laughing, crawling around, even walking, and one day the child was gone, taken away in a car, and they had no idea where. The nuns would only tell them the child had been adopted. I'm thinking the holes in their hearts must be much bigger than mine."

"But you became a nun. One of them."

"Oh, not immediately, no, no. Far from it. I hated them all, but I had to stay there. I was only seventeen, you see, and I had nowhere else to go. My father took me to the priest when I fell pregnant and forbade me ever to come home again. They told the neighbours I'd gone to work in Dublin, when all the time I was working in the kitchens at Ballykane to pay for my upkeep."

"Didn't you ever see your parents again?"

"Aye, but only about twenty years later, and by then I'd taken Holy Orders, so I was introduced proudly to all the neighbours and church folk as
my daughter, Sister Gabriel
."

"Did they ever ask about the baby?"

"My father, never, but my mam once asked, and when I told her she'd died, she said it was the best thing that could have happened."

Kara winced. "It's hard to believe anyone would be so heartless as to say that."

"Getting pregnant out of wedlock was the worst sin you could commit."

"Do you still think that?"

Sister Gabriel hesitated. "I think today we don't heap all the blame on the girl, which was what happened at that time. If a girl was raped, it was said she asked for it, by wearing her skirt too short or her blouse too low. And if she chose to have sex with a boy before they were married, she was a hussy, leading him on. But, in truth, many girls didn't know how babies were made. Today's teenagers are so much more knowledgeable than we were in the fifties and, of course, living together before marriage seems to be the norm now."

Aware that she hadn't answered her question about sin, Kara ventured another. "Why did you decide to become a nun?"

Sister Gabriel chuckled. "It's a long story, my dear, but after I'd run away from the home half a dozen times and been brought back by the
Gardai
, I started to think God must have a purpose in putting me there. I'd experienced what the girls in the home were going through, and I'd suffered at the hands of the harsh nuns. Except for one. Sister Monica. She was so kind and loving. Bought toys for the children in the nursery, and consoled the girls when their children were taken away. Then she got cancer and died. She was only thirty-two. So unfair, but when she died, I decided I wanted to be the kind of nun she had been, and help some of the girls in our care."

"I'm sure they appreciated it."

"I hope so, but anyhow, all this isn't helping you to find your mother, is it?"

Kara sighed. "I don't know where to go from here. I mean, why would my mother's birth date be shown as April 2nd, 1959, if that was when your baby was born?"

"I've been thinking about that, and I may have an answer. Did you know there was a law forbidding illegitimate children from being taken overseas until they were at least one year old?"

"Yes, and my mother's adoption certificate is dated April 21st, 1960, so I assumed she was born before that date in 1959."

"Not necessarily. Would an American couple be able to tell the difference between a twelve-month-old baby and one who was one or two months younger?"

Kara stared at her. "You mean she might have been born in May or June, but they put April 2nd as her date of birth so she could be sent for adoption before she was one?" Her jaw dropped as she understood the implication of what Sister Gabriel had said. "The nuns deliberately broke the law?"

"There may have been genuine errors, of course, but not always. I'm sorry, Kara, I know I should defend my Order, but as time goes on, I've realised the iniquities that were perpetrated in the past, and I wish I could put them all right."

"Is that why you called me?"

"You introduced me to Alice Vernon, and I can't begin to tell you how much that meant to me."

Kara smiled. "She was delighted to meet you, and called me the next day to thank me."

"She rang me, too, and invited me to visit her at her home."

"How wonderful. She's such a kind person."

"And so were you, which is why I felt I must repay you in some way. Especially when you told me what you thought was your mother's birthdate."

"Which you've now shown me is the wrong date."

"That's true, but I'm trying to remember some of the babies who were born around the same time as my Mary."

"We found two others in the same quarter of 1959." Kara struggled to recall the names. "One was Patricia Madden, and—"

The nun's face cleared. "Ye're right. Little Patsy. Her mother, Theresa, was one of my friends. They called her Concepta in the home. We weren't supposed to know each other's real names or where we came from but, of course, we did. Her baby was born about a month after my Mary."

"Do you know what happened to her or the baby?"

"Oh yes, I remember it clearly. A couple of weeks before Patsy's first birthday, they gave Theresa a new dress and coat for her, and told her Patsy would be leaving in an hour's time. Sister Bertha took her away but wouldn't answer any questions, and that was the last Theresa saw of her daughter."

Kara shuddered. "She must have been distraught."

"She was, and she and I ran away from the home about a week later. We got as far as Galway bus station, intending to catch the Dublin bus, but we were picked up by the
Gardai
. At least, I was, but Theresa was quicker and braver than me, because she ran off and jumped on a bus that was leaving the station. I found out later it was the Limerick bus."

"Was Theresa brought back from there?"

"No, I never saw her again, but she wrote to me after about three months. She went from Limerick to Dublin, and got a job as a cleaner in an office. She asked me to find out what had happened to her baby, and I tried, but they told me it was none of my business."

"Do you think her baby might be my mother? Patricia – Patsy – is the nearest in age to the birthdate shown on my mom's adoption certificate. Could they have used your daughter's birthdate, so she appeared to be over one year old when she was adopted?"

Sister Gabriel nodded "It's quite possible."

Kara struggled to breathe normally. "Sister, do you have any idea where Theresa is now?"

"I'm sorry, I don't. We exchanged Christmas cards for a couple of years but, in the last one I received from her, she said she was engaged to Frank and was getting married the following June. The next Christmas, I didn't receive a card from her, and the card I sent was returned, marked
Not known at this address
. I haven't heard anything from her since then, so I'm guessing she didn't want her new husband asking questions about why she was receiving a Christmas card from a nun in Ballykane."

Kara's heart sank as quickly as it had risen a few moments before. "So there's no way of tracing her."

"Have you considered the possibility that she may not wish to be traced?"

"You mean because she never told her husband about her baby?"

"The sin and stigma were drummed into us by the nuns, and we were threatened with the fires of hell if we ever breathed a word to anyone about our guilty secret."

Kara frowned. "But you've told me about it."

"I believe Our Father is a loving and forgiving God, not a vindictive one. Besides, I don't have a husband or family who might be shocked by any revelation of my past life."

"Don't you think Theresa's family might be more shocked by the way her baby was taken from her against her will?"

Sister Gabriel smiled. "You're a modern American woman, Kara. It must be difficult for you to imagine what Ireland was like in the 1950s, when the Church ruled everyone's lives, and dictated government policy, too. Much has changed in the last twenty years or so, and many women have been brave enough to admit to their past, but there must be hundreds of others who have kept their secret close to their heart."

"I find that very sad."

"I agree, but it is those women we have a responsibility to protect. I don't know what Theresa's life has been like since she left Ballykane. I hope she found happiness with her husband, and perhaps she had other children. She might have grandchildren by now, and even great-grandchildren, so I implore you to think carefully before trying to trace her. They may know nothing about her past."

Kara nodded slowly. "Yes, I understand what you're saying, Sister."

"I'm sorry I haven't been able to help with your search, but I felt I had to tell you what I know."

"I'm grateful for everything you've told me, and I'm so sorry about your baby."

"Thank you, but maybe you now understand why I said I was better off than so many of the other girls. Not only those who died in childbirth, because of no proper medical assistance, but those who have spent their lives not knowing what happened to their child, or hiding the truth from their nearest and dearest." Sister Gabriel pulled out a small watch on a chain from the inside pocket of her navy jacket. "Now I must return to the convent. If you need to contact me again, remember to call between seven and eight."

She stood, and Kara did, too. Uncertain for a moment whether to shake the nun's hand, she surrendered to an instinctive impulse to hug the older woman.

"Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you for sharing so much with me."

The nun patted her back. "It was the least I could do, and I hope you'll let me know if any of this has been useful to you."

"I will. I promise I will."

As Sister Gabriel set off along the promenade toward the convent, Kara watched her. Eventually she sank down on the bench again and exhaled deeply as she tried to process everything the nun had told her.

"Are you okay?"

Ryan's voice startled her, and she looked around as he sat down beside her.

"My mind is reeling at the moment."

He nodded and put his arm around her shoulders. She leant against him, finding comfort in his closeness, and welcoming the fact that he said nothing. For a few minutes, she gazed out across Galway Bay, watching the small waves glinting in the evening sunshine.

"I don't think I'll ever find her," she sighed.

He listened as she recounted what Sister Gabriel had said, and didn't interrupt, but his blue eyes mirrored the same kind of mixed emotions as she had experienced – curiosity, shock, sympathy, anger, hope, and defeat.

She concluded with the nun's warning about trying to trace Theresa. "It's possible that Theresa is my grandmother, but I don't know how to start searching for her, or even if I should. I think I assumed every mother would want to find her child but, from what Sister Gabriel said, many of them don't want their husbands or families to find out about their past." She shuddered. "I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like to keep such a huge secret for the rest of your life."

Ryan nodded. "They live with the pain of not knowing what happened to their child, but always coupled with the fear of going to hell if they reveal their secret, or the dread of some stranger turning up on their doorstep saying,
You're my mother
." He paused for a moment. "So what do you want to do now? Do you want to find Theresa or not?"

Kara chewed her lip. "I did want to find her, for my mom's sake, but – oh, there are so many
buts
. What if Theresa had been a prostitute, or raped, and didn't want the baby? I'm sure that's what my mom thinks."

"Hold on." Ryan put his hand on hers. "I thought Sister Gabriel said she was distraught when Patsy was taken away, and wrote asking her to find out what had happened."