Erica met his gaze across the desk, the way he looked at her making her weak-kneed again, and she was glad she was sitting down. It wasn’t fair, to feel this way about a man who was so perfect, so sweet and kind and honest and full of integrity, and so impossibly, patently unavailable.
“So I hear you’re dating Clayton Webber.”
Erica stared down at the ring in the box instead of looking up at him. “We’ve gone out a couple times. He’s going to Berkley in the fall. He wants me to apply.”
“Well, that’s… sudden.”
“Can’t hurt to apply.” Erica shrugged. “Keep my options open. So I did.”
“California’s a long way from here.”
“Does it really matter?” She looked up, giving him a small, sad smile. “It could be two miles or two million. I could go to the moon and we’d still feel this way.”
Father Michael nodded. “I know.”
“Anyway, you said you’d found out something…?” Erica closed the ring box and put it into her coat pocket.
He looked at her, puzzled.
“You know… our Nancy Drew mystery?”
He laughed. “Right. Well, I have some interesting news, even if it doesn’t solve our mystery. At least I was able to find some of the information you asked me to look for. It turns out the records for Magdalene House come here for storage after the girls leave the maternity home. All their records are archived in our basement.”
Erica perked up, eyes widening. “Grace! Did you find her file? Do you know where she is?”
“That’s part of the interesting.” Father Michael stood, leaning on his cane as he came around the desk. “Her file is missing. Gone. Just disappeared. Come on, let me show you.”
Erica stood, following him as he opened his office door.
“Gertie, have you met Erica Nolan?”
“So this is the infamous Erica Nolan!” The secretary looked up from her desk where she’d been writing on her message pad, tucking her pen behind her ear and smiling at Erica. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Gertie is Clay’s mom.” Father Michael informed her.
“Oh!” Erica turned to the woman, surprised enough to feel faint all of a sudden. What a way to meet Clay’s mother! Her face felt hot as she held out her hand and the woman shook it. Her hands were cool and soft. “Hi! Nice to meet you.”
“Gertie was the one who told me about the records from Magdalene House.”
Erica blinked. “Really?”
“What do you call them again, Gertie?”
“Records of Removal,” she replied, making a face. “Horrible term isn’t it? Those poor babies. I developed the archive filing system myself, so we can search for them by both the adoptive parents’ last names or the biological mother’s last name. It’s kind of like a card catalog that you look through at the library. Did Father Michael tell you we found his mother’s file?”
Erica looked up at him, raising her eyebrows at the news. “No. He didn’t.”
“Come on, I’ll show you.” Father Michael headed toward the door out into the church proper. “I’m going to show off your handiwork, Gertie!”
“Nice to meet you Mrs. Webber,” Erica called over her shoulder. Gertrude Webber waggled her fingers at Erica and smiled, not unkindly. She seemed nice enough, especially after Clay’s sardonic treatment of her in his stories of his home life. He was going to flip when he found out Erica had met his mother today. She smiled in anticipation of telling him all about it.
“Oh, Father Michael, I wanted to ask you something.” They walked past the sanctuary across from the front doors, heading down the opposite hall. “Clay talked to the minister at the New Bethel church about the wedding.”
“New Bethel?” He raised his eyebrows. “The black church down on Linwood?”
“That’s the one,” Erica agreed. “The minister said we could use the church, and he would even marry them, but Leah had her heart set on you perform the ceremony. Would you have any objections to doing it there?”
“At New Bethel? No, of course not. I apologize for Father Patrick on Christmas Day. That was…” He stopped, pulling open a door that led to a stairway.
“Anyway, Clay said he reserved the church for January 4.”
“That’s this Saturday!” He hesitated in the doorway, wide-eyed.
Erica laughed.“I know.”
“How are you going to get all the girls here by then?”
“Let’s hope we get some divine intervention.” She grinned at him. “You found them-that’s step one. So, how did you manage it?”
He started down the stairs. “Remember how I told you I was orphaned and raised by the nuns here at St. Mary Magdalene’s?”
“Yes.” Erica followed just a pace behind.
“I don’t know how the conversation rolled around to it… I think we were talking about the foster kids Gertie takes in. Anyway, we ended up talking about Magdalene House, and she mentioned those records of removal…”
“What a horrid phrase.” Erica shivered.
“I know.” He turned left at the bottom of the stairs. “I told her what happened to Leah, how she’d been coerced into signing those adoption papers, how we couldn’t find where the social worker had placed the baby without a court order, and she says to me, ‘Father Michael, I can tell you right now where that baby was placed.’ You could have knocked me over with a feather.”
“I bet.” Erica followed him down-they were stairs she and Leah had snuck down when they played hooky. They’d found a way out that didn’t attract the attention of the nuns. “Aren’t adoption records sealed or something? Isn’t that what that lawyer my father hired said?”
“Yes,” he agreed. “But those are state records. The maternity homes keep their own records. And they don’t give those out to just anyone.”
“You’re special?”
“It’s one of the perks of being a priest around here.” He winked at her and she laughed. “Anyway, Gertie, she brings me down here, and she shows me this room. I’ve been down here a thousand times, and had no idea that’s what we were storing down here.”
Father Michael led them to a door, turning the knob and pushing it open.
Erica grinned, looking down the hall at the little room she had discovered with bunk bed cots and a ladder up to an old storm shelter entrance to the church. It was there she and Leah had snuck out. It was also the place she and Bobby used to meet to make-out. She’d lost her virginity on one of those thin old mattresses. It seemed like a million years ago.
“Are you coming?” Father Michael turned on the light and Erica stepped into the room, recognizing it immediately. She and Leah, two nefarious truants, had slipped in here to avoid discovery by Sister Abigail. It had worked too. They’d made it out to the street and had walked home, free as two little jailbirds flying the coop. She remembered kneeling on the floor, her arms around Leah, both of them praying Sister Abigail wouldn’t discover their whereabouts.
“Gertie created this card filing system. It’s really brilliant. Like she said, you can look up any of these files by the last name of the mother or by the adoptive parents’ names. That’s how I found out the names of the girls you were looking for.”
“Leah’s roommates?” Erica looked up and down the rows. The boxes stretched from floor to ceiling, row after row after row. So many babies. So many adoptions.
“Yes, let’s see…” Father Michael slipped a hand into his suit coat pocket, pulling out a white slip of paper. “I wrote them down for you. Elizabeth-her real name is Carolyn Anne Schumacher. She’s from Flint.”
“How did you find them, if you didn’t know their real names?”
“Oh, Gertie has that covered, too! Look-all the girls are given fake names, in rotation. She just keeps them in this card file. Here are all the Lizzies. They’re filed in order of the date each girl came to Magdalene House. We knew the approximate dates, so it was easy from there.”
