All the Stars in the Heavens Read online

  Four little girls dressed in taupe undershirts and leotards, with a flounce of green tulle tied at the waist, were led to the dangling yokes. One girl began to whimper fearfully, and two cowered away from the harnesses. But the fourth girl raised her arms eagerly.

  “Uncle Ernie!” She smiled. “Up!”

  “You’re a good girl, Gretch.”

  Ernie helped hoist his four-year-old niece into her harness. Gretchen grinned, extending her legs behind her and her arms to her sides, as though she were in flight. Gretchen began to swing in the harness as the crew loaded the rest of the girls into theirs. Two of her fellow fairies began to cry, the first rumbles of a revolt.

  “Look at Gretchen, girls. She doesn’t cry.”

  Gretchen was a few feet off the ground. “Higher!” she commanded. The stagehand guided the rope on the pulley heavenward as Gretchen made her ascent. The higher the girl went, the happier she was.

  Gretchen’s cousin Carlene, emboldened by her cousin’s courage, raised her arms. Ernie hoisted his daughter into the harness. She did not smile, nor did she extend her arms; instead she kept her eyes on Gretchen, gripping the straps with her hands as though she were under a parachute.

  Mae Murray looked up at the children as they hovered over the crowd. Mae’s highest dream was to become a mother, but it hadn’t happened. Doctors had advised her to adopt, believing that she could not have a child, but she was only in her early thirties, and she held out hope that there would be at least one baby for Robert and for her.

  Gently the crew raised the children in the harnesses to meet Gretchen, who was now about ten feet in the air. The first assistant director placed the extras beneath the fairies as the cameras pushed in to film the dream scene.

  Gretchen dropped from the sky in a flourish. She had blond ringlets and pink cheeks. Her costume sparkled with flecks of diamond dust, and woven through her hair was a garland of tiny stars, a crown fit for a princess. She extended her arms and smiled, looking in the direction of the camera, but not into the lens. Mae shook her head. “Who’s the blondie?”

  “That’s my niece,” Ernie Traxler said. “Gretchen Young.”

  “She’ll have my job one day,” Mae said as she stepped off the rest chair and entered the scene.

  2

  Alda Ducci gently bathed a newborn baby girl with a soft cotton cloth. She dipped the fabric into the clean, warm water, wringing it in one hand while keeping a firm hold on the infant.

  “Che bella,” she whispered.

  A nun helped the new mother into a fresh gown and rolled up the sheets, replacing them with clean white ones. She folded the old gown, rolled the sheets into a tight bundle, and turned to go, closing the door gently behind her.

  All evidence of the birth had been removed quickly and neatly.

  “How is she, Sister?” the baby’s mother asked.

  “She’s perfect,” Alda assured her. Alda wasn’t a nun yet but a novice in training, but to the unwed girls who gave birth at Saint Elizabeth’s, they all looked alike. The nuns and novices wore the same black work dresses, with a gray apron tied tightly over the top, their hair pinned back by a black veil.

  At twenty-five, Alda was ten years older than the mother of the baby.

  Saint Elizabeth’s Infant Hospital was a home for unwed mothers with a floor that served as a hospital where the girls delivered their babies. The home was run by the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul, a Roman Catholic order of nuns with deep roots in Italy, devoted to the service of the poor. Their convent, chapel, ward, and hospital were contained in a large red brick building, situated in the heart of San Francisco. The operation blended into the city block without notice. Inside, there was rarely an empty bed.

  The light from the window threw a golden glow on the infant. Outside, the tap of car horns at the corner of Masonic Avenue seemed to herald the arrival of the girl.

  “May I hold her?”

  “It’s better if you don’t,” Alda said softly as she swaddled the infant.

  “Please.” The young girl’s brown eyes filled with tears, her cheeks flushed with defiance. She straightened her dressing gown and pushed herself up in the bed. She sat up straight, to show Alda that she was up to the task of holding her own baby.

  Alda had helped deliver over a hundred babies at Saint Elizabeth’s. She was well schooled in the rules of the birthing ward and her religious order. She was never to hand the infant over to the mother, only to the nursery, where the baby had already been legally adopted through an outside service. In fact, at this moment, the baby’s new parents were waiting behind the wall to claim her.

  But in Alda’s experience as a midwife, not one young mother had ever asked to hold her baby. Most of the girls didn’t want to see their babies, or learn the sex. Some would quietly ask if the infant was “all right,” which was usually the extent of their curiosity.

  Alda believed their indifference masked a deeper pain, one that she prayed would lessen in the years to come. Most of the girls were eager to be done with the ordeal of childbirth and return to life as it had been before the baby. Their deepest hope was to forget their stay at Saint Elizabeth’s altogether.

  The nuns tried to make the girls’ stay in the home pleasant. They also did their best to encourage the girls to pray and develop a spiritual life. Every day, the girls were required to take in some sun, walk, and pray in the garden behind Saint Elizabeth’s.

  The meditation garden was enclosed by a tall wooden fence. The nuns had planted trumpet vines and morning glories that climbed up the walls in thick clusters of orange and purple. You could not see in or out, and the cascading water of the fountains helped drown out the street sounds. The novices grew roses that bloomed bountifully in shades of blood red, the exact color of the leather that bound their missals.

  A statue of the Blessed Mother Mary was positioned in the center of the garden, surrounded by benches. In a corner, a fountain of Saint Elizabeth carved from Italian marble attracted birds and penitents who knelt and prayed at a wrought iron kneeler.

  Serious contemplation, daily mass, the celebration of feast days, and holy days of obligation took place inside in the chapel on the main floor. Votive candles made by the nuns from fresh sheets of beeswax were replenished at the shrine daily, as the girls burned through them, petitioning God and the saints to grant them forgiveness for the act that had brought them here, or a reprieve for what lay ahead. A gold vase at the foot of the altar was filled with fresh roses from the garden.

  There was order to life inside Saint Elizabeth’s, and a certain serene beauty.

  As much as the nuns attempted to make the place warm and inviting, this was a home for unwed mothers. It wasn’t a place to be young and socialize, nor was it meant to live on in their memories. This was a place to hide.

  Over time, Alda observed that there were ultimately two kinds of girls at Saint Elizabeth’s: those who were eager to please, and the rest, who were already jaded, turned hard-hearted by fate. The latter carried their stories in their souls, of their innocence lost or taken without their consent. They handled the long nine months like a prison sentence, knowing there was nothing to look forward to once they were free to go. Others, despite their predicament, remained cheerful, completing their schoolwork and reading the latest pulp novels, which were passed around the ward until the bindings fell away from use.

  Many girls had been abandoned in the outside world, shunned by their families, so they found Saint Elizabeth’s on their own. Mother Superior had a soft spot for desperate girls who knocked on the door, and would find a way to take them in. Other girls had been sent by their parents, who were forced to remove their daughters from their homes lest they taint the family name. The girls wrestled with the loss of their reputations, their dreams, and their babies. At night, the self-recrimination would find a voice, and the wailing from the beds became so loud and mournful that Alda would escape to the garden to collect herself.

  While they had months to thi
nk about what brought them here, the girls dared not think too much about what would happen after the birth of their babies. They had been treated well at this halfway house, and if that was any indication of the way the order handled the adoptions, they trusted that their babies were going to good homes. However, once they signed in for their stay at Saint Elizabeth’s, they had no choice in their babies’ future.

  The girls had each other, and while there were moments of camaraderie and seeds of true friendship, there was nothing carefree about their days in the home. The mood was generally somber. Once the girls went into labor and delivered, they left soon after, without good-byes or a celebration or an exchange of addresses to keep in touch.

  Before lights-out, the novices handed out tall glasses of fresh milk to the girls. Despite the want of the Great Depression, the girls were well fed. Much of the food was donated, some left in baskets on the stoop of the convent. Local farmers delivered fresh eggs, cheese, and milk. The nuns made bread. There was plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. The nuns served fish from the local wharf, and sometimes on Sundays, there was a beef stew or a pork roast.

  At night Alda sat with the girls and read aloud to them. A few would turn away, wishing for a radio instead, but Alda persisted. She read from Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, and even Edna Ferber’s popular novel Showboat, so the girls might feel that they were still part of the outside world.

  Alda tried to lift their spirits, to make them laugh. She fretted about their physical well-being and worried about their souls, knowing that shame might turn them inward and bitter, leading them to make worse choices than the ones that had brought them here.

  Some girls were so naive, they weren’t even sure how their pregnancies had happened, while others wanted to erase the memory of how they had. Their shame bound them together, and Alda shared it. She had a role in what seemed to be an impossible situation for the mothers and their babies. There was no relief at Saint Elizabeth’s, only adoption as an alternative to the deep sorrow and regret of the mother. There were stories of stillborn babies, lost and mourned, and the occasional father of a baby showing up to steal his girlfriend away and marry her, but they were the rare exceptions. Mostly, these healthy young women gave birth to robust babies who were delivered to their overjoyed adoptive parents.

  “Please, Sister. My baby,” the girl implored her.

  Alda lifted the newborn, shiny and pink, swaddled in a white cotton blanket, and held her close. The scent of the baby’s skin was sweet and clean, like the petals of an orchid. Instead of placing the baby in a bassinette and walking out of the room to deliver the baby to the nursery, as was the standard protocol, Alda turned and brought the infant to her mother. Alda’s conscience told her that it was wrong to keep the infant from her mother, no matter the rules.

  The girl cradled her newborn baby in her arms. “Thank you, Sister.”

  The girl had long black hair; the baby had a shock of the same. The girl smiled and tenderly kissed her daughter.

  “What’s today?” the girl asked. “The date?”

  “March 17, 1934.”

  “Saint Patrick’s Day!”

  “A feast day.”

  “I’ve always loved the name Patricia. I’m going to call her Patricia.”

  Alda stood by the side of the bed, every muscle in her body feeling depleted, as if she had experienced the labor pains herself. Alda had wiped the girl’s brow, held her hand, encouraged her, and rubbed her feet through the long labor. She had indulged the girl’s dream of keeping the baby, and let her ruminate aloud as to how this goal could be achieved.

  As Alda coached the girl through childbirth, she never mentioned the worthy couple waiting outside to adopt her baby and take her to their home, nor did she share that the couple had impressed the adoption service who assigned the babies to their new families. Alda’s job was to help deliver a healthy baby to her adopted parents. Alda had seen the file, with a handwritten note attached. It said:

  Preference: girl

  Status: urgent

  Alda was never to show emotion, but this morning she couldn’t help it. Something was different about this baby. Every birth is magical, but this one had intent. This baby was wanted. She had a name.

  Mother Mary Justine, the superior of the convent, pushed through the door. A tugboat of a woman, dressed in gray, she moved through the hospital like a spinning tire.

  “Oh dear,” she said when she saw the girl holding her baby.

  Mother Mary was a lifer. She had joined the order at the age of twelve. Now in her sixties, she moved at a clip and ran the home with authority and precision. It was as if keeping the place on schedule and moving forward would somehow make up for the despair that brought the girls to her office in the first place.

  “Sister Alda, what is going on here?” Mother demanded.

  “She insisted, Mother.”

  “I want to keep my baby, Mother Superior. I’ve named her Patricia.”

  Mother Mary placed the file on the nightstand, buried her hands deep into her sleeves, and went to the foot of the bed. “You know this isn’t up to me. Your mother wants you at home. You have four younger brothers and sisters, and your mother tells me another is on the way. She needs your help.”

  “Please.” The girl began to weep.

  “Your father wants you to come home and put all of this behind you.”

  The girl clutched her baby and looked at Alda. “Will you help me?”

  The girl’s plea seared Alda’s heart like a silver arrow. Surely there was one small room with one crib somewhere where this girl could live and work and raise her daughter.

  Alda turned and faced her superior. “Mother, is there something we can do? Can we send her to the Carmelites in San Paolo? Or even to the Mother House in Los Angeles?”

  The girl’s face opened up with beatific hope. “Please! I can take care of her. I’ve done a good job with my brothers and sisters. I’ll go anywhere you say, as long as you let her stay with me. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her. She’s mine.”

  Mother touched Alda on the shoulder. Alda moved off to stand by the windows. She had violated every aspect of her training, and she knew it. She had indulged the girl; she had not discouraged her from keeping her baby.

  Alda tried to get control of her feelings, but couldn’t. She began to weep as though the loss was her own. She had spent her youth with the Daughters of Charity, and she was feeling little of it. She lifted her apron and tried to dry her tears with the hem of it.

  “There’s a lovely family who will take good care of your baby,” Mother Mary said gently.

  “I won’t give her up!” The girl pulled her baby close.

  Mother kept her voice low and even. “Someday, when the time is right and you are older, you will meet a good man, marry him, and have many children. You are healthy and strong, and you will have everything you dream of.”

  Dreams seem so beside the point in this moment, Alda thought.

  “I won’t have her.” The girl looked at Alda again in desperation. “She’ll never find me.”

  Alda turned and faced the Mother Superior. “Please, Mother. Isn’t there something we can do?”

  “Sister Alda. Go,” Mother Mary ordered.

  “Don’t let them take her away from me!” The girl wept.

  Alda bowed her head obediently and went out into the hallway. She leaned against the cold tile wall, too exhausted to move and too disappointed to pray.

  A nun pushed a bassinette with another newborn from a different birthing room to the nursery. The hallway was still. All that could be heard was the soft sweep of the nun’s skirts as she passed, and the cooing of the baby, who sounded like a bird.

  The ruby-red roses, their petals clustered tight, tilted up toward the sun. Alda clipped the long stems at the base and laid them gently in the cutting basket, just as her mother had done when Alda was a girl in Italy.

  Mother Superior took a deep breath from the bench across the gard
en. She tucked her rosary beads into her pocket and made her way to Alda.

  “Need a hand?” she asked.

  “I’m almost done, Mother.”

  “You have enough for the chapel.”

  “Yes, Mother. And enough for the table in the foyer.”

  “Sister, come and sit with me.”

  Alda took a place on the bench next to the Mother Superior.

  Mother Superior looked Alda directly in the eyes and held her gaze. “After much prayer, I’m going to ask you to leave us.”

  Alda’s mind raced. Yes, she had thoughts of leaving St. Elizabeth’s, and occasionally doubts, but after a good night’s rest, she always changed her mind and decided to renew her commitment to the unwed mothers and their babies. She had prayed, and the answer had come. She was to serve others as a nun. The message had been clear. “Mother, I don’t want to go.”

  “It isn’t your decision.”

  “You’ve asked me to be obedient. I honored God’s will. I’m doing the work I was born to do.”

  “Sister.” Mother sighed. “You can’t plead your way into staying. My decision is final,” the nun said wearily.

  Alda felt a fury rise in her, one that she had kept buried deep whenever the work in the convent frustrated her. “What have I done?”

  “You have served us well.”

  “So why am I being punished?”

  “This isn’t the right path for you.”

  “I believe it is.” Alda raised her voice. “If the Daughters of Charity don’t want me, I’ll join another order. “

  “And eventually you will come to the same conclusion I have, and so will they.”

  “Mother, you must reconsider.”

  “You’re not being punished, Alda.” This was the first time that Mother had referred to her by her birth name. “This work isn’t for you.”

  “I’ve worked hard.”