Finding Ashley by Danielle Steel (free ebook reader for iphone txt) 📗

told you I wouldn’t. I couldn’t determine if she was the one unless I did.” Mother Elizabeth nodded and didn’t comment. “She contacted the convent fifteen years ago, wanting to find out what she could about her birth mother, with her adoptive mother’s agreement. They told her about the fire, and that all trace of the adoptions had been destroyed. She gave up after that, just the way my sister did. If I hadn’t found the ex-nun who wrote the book, I would never have found her. It was a long shot, but I think it’s going to pan out, and she’ll turn out to be the right one.”

“Have you told your sister yet?” Mother Elizabeth asked her, pleased for her. She could see that there was more to the story that Sister Mary Joseph hadn’t told her yet. She was sure there was a reason why she hadn’t joined them in the Adirondacks, although she’d been back in New York.

“I want to wait for the test results. If I’m a match with this young woman, then it’s almost a sure thing my sister will be.”

“So why do you look troubled, my child? Your eyes say there’s something you’re not telling me. Are you afraid it won’t be a match?” Michaela also had the right birthday, which could be a coincidence.

“Not so much. It’s everything I heard and saw in Dublin that upset me deeply. How could they do what they did? Made money from all of them, and consciously destroyed all evidence that would have helped mothers and children to find each other again one day, or at least the mothers could find out what had happened to them.”

“I’m sure they thought they were doing the right thing. Open adoptions were unheard of then, or very unusual, as was finding birth mothers on the Internet. Those were all highly confidential matters back then. It was considered information that could have ruined people’s lives if it got out.”

“That doesn’t explain why all the girls who went there were from families who could afford to pay the fees to the Church. There were no poor girls there, and no locals for that reason. And the adoptive parents were all very rich Americans. They were taking full advantage of the situation and ran it like a business.”

“It sounds that way now, but it was probably efficiently run, which is to their credit, and everyone’s benefit.”

“It was more than that, Mother. It was highly profitable. My sister calls it a baby mill, and after what I know now, having been there, I think she’s right. And after talking to the author of the book I read by the ex-nun who was a midwife there, I have serious questions about the Church, and the people who ran it. They didn’t even let the girls touch or see their babies when they were born, or hold them. It must have broken their hearts,” just as it had Melissa’s. Giving her daughter up was still an open wound for her.

Mother Elizabeth sighed as she listened. “Women who have been released from their vows are never a strong source to solidify one’s faith,” she reminded Hattie, who thought about it and nodded.

“What she saw and experienced there drove her out of the Church.”

“Maybe she would have left anyway. A weak vocation won’t hold you forever. It’s like a weak bridge, sooner or later it breaks, and if you’re standing on it, you fall into the abyss. Did she try to influence you?”

“Not at all,” Hattie said, although she knew it wasn’t entirely true. “She just shared that it had been a test of faith for her.”

“Which she failed,” the mother superior pointed out. “She didn’t stay and respect her vows. She abandoned them.”

“I think she was very deeply marked by what happened there, and her part in it.”

“We must all learn to forgive, ourselves as well as others. Our Church isn’t perfect, nor the people in it, nor any of us. I have to believe that the nuns who ran Saint Blaise’s and the convents and mother and baby homes like it had the very best of intentions while they did it. Who can blame them for only accepting stable, financially sound adoptive parents? At least the babies they adopted would be safe and never have to struggle. They didn’t make large donations to the Church in order to abuse them. And if you’ve found your niece, she sounds like she had a good life with her movie star mother, an enviable life. Who wouldn’t want that for a child they were giving up? And you forget that the girls who went there, like your sister, were barely more than children themselves, teenagers at best. What kind of life could they have given their children? A life of shame and disgrace, ostracized and shunned by their communities and the world, and even their own families. I think the nuns at Saint Blaise’s made the best of a bad situation, and it sounds like they did it quite successfully, for the benefit of the Church as well. You need to put this behind you now, Sister Mary Joseph, and thank God you found the girl, if she’s the right one. I’m sure your sister will be very grateful, particularly to know that she was adopted by people who took good care of her, and she had a good life.” The superior refused to see the sordid side of it that had shocked Hattie and Fiona Eckles deeply. “You cannot let this shake your faith in everything you believe in and have dedicated your life to. You have a strong vocation. In the life of every religious, at some point, there will come a challenge that will try to break them. You must resist that, and come out of it stronger, better, and more dedicated.” Hattie was chastened into silence, could only nod, and kissed the superior’s ring before she left her office, feeling like a schoolgirl who had