Grace

“Yeah, well… you and I have the same blood type.” Erica rubbed foundation on her face from her compact with a sponge, covering the dark circles as best she could. “That blood test ruled him out as my father too.”

Leah gaped at her. “How… what…?”

“I’m adopted,” Erica explained patiently, dusting her face with powder. “They adopted me when I was a baby. From Magdalene House. How’s that for a kick in the pants?”

“Wow.” Leah blinked in disbelief. They had talked a little since Leah had come home-Leah had told Erica about living at Magdalene House, the girls she’d met there, her experience of pregnancy and birth, but Erica had been moot about what she’d done and what had happened while Leah was gone. Leah knew something had happened, because she had seen Erica taking part in the Mary Magdalene ritual, but she didn’t know how to approach her about it. How could she tell Erica she’d seen her that night?

Finally, she just blurted it out. “I’m a Magdalene baby, Erica.”

Erica stopped applying her lipstick, only the top one painted. “What?”

“My mother told me. Finally, she told me the truth.” Leah swallowed, meeting Erica’s eyes in the mirror. “She and your mother… they were in the Mary Magdalenes together.”

“I know.” Erica looked thoughtful, painting her bottom lip. “But I didn’t know you were… I should have realized…”

Leah made a face. “It’s not great news, but it’s better than thinking Rob was my father.”

Erica smacked her lips together, turning to face her friend. “Just how much did your mom tell you?”

“Not much.” Leah shrugged, taking a deep breath before taking the plunge. “But I already knew most of it, Erica. I was there… I saw you… I saw your Dad-er… Rob. I saw you both.”

Erica blinked in surprise. “I saw you too.”

“You did?” Leah gasped, wide-eyed. She held out her hand and Erica took it, coming to sit beside her on the bed. “How did it happen? How did you get involved?”

“It’s a long story. It started when I found my mother’s journals, from before I was born… well, adopted. You aren’t going to believe this.” Erica laughed, shaking her head. “But my mother was in love with Father Patrick.”

Leah nodded. “That’s what my mother said.”

“She told you?” Erica raised her finely arched eyebrows. “Anyway, you know me and secrets. I have to poke my nose in everything.”

Leah laughed. “Curious kitty cat.”

“It was all so mysterious and scandalous, and I just kept on, wanting to find out more. I kept thinking I was going to infiltrate this secret society and expose them and what a big story that would be…” Erica laughed at the way Leah was looking at her. “I know, I know, curiosity killed the cat. And before I knew it, I was drugged up and strapped to a cross…”

“They drug you?”

Erica wrinkled her nose. “That’s not all they do.”

“I noticed.” Leah couldn’t get the images out of her mind, the Marys in white being pleasured on one half of the room, the Magdalenes in red being gagged and bound, sometimes whipped, on the other.

“How in the world did you get involved?” Erica wondered out loud.

“There was a girl at Magdalene House,” Leah explained. “I told you about her. The redhead who reminded me of you. She was one of the Magdalenes. She told me about because she wanted me to come with her for that ritual. I guess they were paying girls to be, like, waitresses…?”

“Oh the attendants. The girls in blue?”

“Yes,” Leah agreed. “I mean, it paid a fortune. Fifty dollars! I thought I could use that money to run away from Magdalene House with my baby. Besides, I didn’t really quite believe her, not at first. I just thought… I don’t know what I thought. But I didn’t expect to walk into that…”

“Who would?” Erica chewed her lower lip thoughtfully. “Anyway, once I found out that Daddy… Rob… was involved, well… what could I do? If I told anyone, he’d get in trouble too. Besides, they make it pretty clear, once you’re in, it’s a lifetime sort of commitment. If you tell… there are consequences.”

“Father Patrick told you that?”

Erica gave a little shudder, reaching for one of her Keds. “He scares me, Leah.”

“He scares me too.” Leah remembered the way he’d been at their dinner table, so smug and patronizing, telling her she was a sinner in the eyes of God, that her baby was a bastard, unclean, and would remain unbaptized. After everything she’d seen, knowing now what she did about what Father Patrick had done, not only to Erica, but to Erica’s mother as well, his holier-than-thou attitude astounded and offended her.

But of course he thought he was above them, above it all. Untouchable. Leah had been around nuns and priests her whole life, and she’d learned her lessons well. It was hard not to think of them all as infallible, even invincible. She remembered her mother’s words-he was like a living god-and shivered. They took young, impressionable girls and brainwashed them into their ritualized sect, drugged them, abused them, and used their years of Catholic indoctrination about the infallibility and irreproachability of the church to keep them from revealing the secret.

It made Leah burn with anger. “It all scares me, Erica. I’m afraid for you. It’s like some well-oiled machine. The Mary Magdalenes have sex with the priests and the girls who are unlucky enough to get pregnant end up at places like Magdalene House, forced to give up their babies. And the church profits from it all. I don’t care how much hush money they give them, it’s not enough. It could never be enough. My mother said they make double that on the babies they adopt out. They’re profiting from this everywhere you turn. Even the girls who aren’t Magdalene’s-I told you about that sweet woman, Jean, the one who was mentally retarded? Her family just left her there, and they put her to work in the laundry. And they get away with it. Either they brainwash everyone into not talking about it, or if that doesn’t work, they scare them silly. Besides, who would believe it, even if you did say something? It would be your word against… what, a thousand clergy?”

Erica’s smile was grim as she came up from tying her shoe. “I know.”

“Those poor Magdalene girls,” Leah murmured. “My friend, Marty, she ran away to Australia so she could keep her baby. She agreed to an arranged marriage and went halfway across the world just to get away.”

Erica hopped off the bed, lifting up the pink bed skirt, looking for her other Ked. She pulled it out, triumphant, but then she sneezed, rubbing her eyes. “Yeah, well, at least the Magdalenes can have more babies.”

Leah gasped, feeling tears sting her eyes. “What a cruel think to say, Erica. You can’t just replace one baby with another. It doesn’t work like that. People keep telling me, ‘You’ll get married and have another…’ Even my own mother said that. A baby isn’t like a pair of shoes or a toothbrush.”

Erica stood, pulling her blouse up, exposing her belly, yanking her dungarees low with her other hand. “See that?”

“Your appendix scar?”

“They took out more than my appendix.”

“What do you mean?” Leah looked over at her as Erica sat, pulling on her other tennis shoe.

“They sterilized me.” Erica bent to tie her shoe, her voice muffled. “They sterilize all the Marys.”

Leah blinked, too stunned to speak. The Marys don’t get pregnant. That’s what Marty had told her. Or had she said can’t get pregnant?

“Oh Erica…” Leah put a hand on Erica’s shoulder but her friend shook it off. “I had no idea…”

“Spilled milk and all that.” Erica shrugged. “Turns out, my mother-Susan-she had the same scar. She was adopted by her mother, who also a Mary and had the same scar. All from Magdalene House.”

“Oh my God.” Leah put her head in her hands. “How could they?”

“Anyway, I’m late.” Erica got up, heading toward the door.

“Wait, Erica,” Leah called. Her friend turned, annoyed. “My mother said that your father-that Rob had made some sort of deal with Father Patrick, to keep you out of it…”

Erica raised her eyebrows. “How ironic.”

“Do you think…” Leah didn’t even want to think it, let alone say it, but she had to. “All those pictures we found. Those movies. Do you think that was the trade-off he made?”

“I don’t know what Dear Daddy is into, or how far into it he is,” Erica snapped. “You know him better than I do. What does he say?”

“I haven’t asked him,” Leah admitted.

“Well, you’re going to marry him,” Erica reminded her. “Maybe you should do that before you take a walk