Authors: Robert W. Walker
Meredyth sensed a fear in Rachel, but a fear of what, of whom? Mother Elizabeth or Lauralie or both? Mother Elizabeth suggested, "Why not speak to the sixteen girls who've recently graduated and opted to leave the convent, all now living on the outside? They're all on the list Sister Audrey's preparing you. Lauralie Blodgett is only one of them."
"Is there anyone in that group, Rachel, who had a boyfriend on the outside?" Meredyth pressed the girl, ignoring Elizabeth's interruption.
Rachel again looked to her mother superior before saying, "You should try to talk to all of them."
"Any among them who didn't like life here at the convent or was discontented in general? Anyone who liked destroying things around here, maybe setting a fire?" asked Lucas.
Rachel looked to her mother superior again before answering. Getting a nod from Mother Elizabeth, she replied, "That'd be Lauralie."
"We keep hearing that name come up. She was something of a bully, I understand, always getting into trouble and detention," said Meredyth.
"Everyone was glad to see her go."
"But you two were friends, weren't you?"
"I broke it off with her; she started wanting to do things...I-I-I didn't wanna do."
"What sort of things? Like smoking? Getting into trouble?" pressed Meredyth.
"Mother Superior, I don't like to talk about this."
"It's all right, Rachel. Be forthright. Tell the doctor everything, Rachel."
Rachel wrenched her hands and stuttered. Finally she spat it out. "Sexual things. She wanted to play with me, to put things into me. Wanted to fondle me, sleep with me."
Mother Elizabeth sat without the slightest twinge, a stone statue. "It's all right, child. It's all right."
"Lauralie had a way of making you do things. I had a hard time with her. Saying no to her. I finally told Mother Orleans, and she was going to punish Lauralie, but that's when Mother Orleans had that awful accident, and after that Lauralie left me alone when you came to the home, Mother Elizabeth."
"Lauralie was always looking for someone to love her," said Elizabeth. "She somehow had gotten the fixed idea in her head that she could only be loved in 3 sexual manner."
"Perhaps she was abused in one of the homes she was placed in at an early age?" asked Meredyth.
"I have no record of an incident of that type." Elizabeth sighed deeply "Sad really. Even Father William could not help Lauralie, try as he might. He called her a hopeless child once. I had to straighten him out on that, none of our charges is without redemption. Lauralie had her redeeming qualities. She was tenacious and persistent in her struggle to learn who her parents were, for instance, admirable in her determination, I'm told, even at an early age."
"She just always said...said we both of us needed the experience for when we got out into the real world," said Rachel, her voice having raised an octave, as if wanting to outdo her mother superior. "I had to fight her off every night for a time. She liked to kiss me and touch me all over."
"That's enough, Rachel!" Mother Elizabeth put an end to it, and Rachel curled back in on herself like a closing flower.
They said good-bye to Rachel, Mother Elizabeth walking her out to the hallway, conferring with her in a whisper. Meredyth and Lucas only caught snatches of each voice: Mother: "...don't care—" Rachel: "She's evil—" Mother: "What you think—" Rachel: "...name shoulda been Laura-LIE! with... capital let—" Mother: "Enough."
Rachel: "You tell me...stand up...strong, but...won't let me."
Mother: "Get back...kitchen, now!" Rachel: "And Father Wil... touched me again." Mother: "No more. Later... talk privately." Rachel, stomping off, shouting back: "She pushed her." Silence...more silence. Then a reverberation of Rachel's voice from the end of the corridor. "She's evil...was always evil. She hurt the mother."
Mother Elizabeth rejoined them in the conference room, quickly reassuring her guests that "Lauralie Blodgett was not so discontent or unhappy as the picture the other girls painted. True, there was a time she was in constant trouble, but her discontent came of a genuine longing to know her roots, to know about her birth mother and father. That's quite understandable, don't you agree, Doctor?”
“Yes, quite."
"Her school record is filled with cases of theft and lying as a child, and constant bouts and arguments with both the sisters here and her classmates."
"Any bouts with statuary, icons, paintings?" asked Lucas.
"She was often caught destroying property, yes. But she was just a troubled child, not so different from Rachel, unable to fit in with foster families. Very similar histories, those two, and for a time they were friends, and I thought it good for Lauralie...she was such a loner, you see. I encouraged their...closeness, but I had no idea until Rachel came to me with her lurid stories of nighttime rape that...that what Mother Orleans had put a stop to had again flourished. For a long time, I prayed Rachel was making it up to get attention, but I caught Lauralie at her one night and that was the end of it."
"This Mother Orleans was in charge here when Lauralie first arrived as an infant?"
"My able predecessor, Mother Sara Orleans."
"The one whose room still smells of smoke?" asked Lucas.
"The one who had an accident? Is she in retirement? Can I meet with her?" asked Meredyth.
"The unfortunate accident proved fatal. It's why I was called here to take over."
"How did she die?" asked Meredyth.
"A fall down a flight of steps in the night. She apparently got up in the middle of the night and slipped on the stairs. Her skull was fractured. She was in a coma for weeks until the decision to release her came from the family. Tragic really."
"Sounds like Mother Orleans lived a dangerous life for a convent nun," said Lucas, drawing a stern look from Elizabeth Portsmith.
"Let's get back to this Lauralie," said Meredyth. "Was she ever adopted?"
"No, never adopted, but once...no, twice actually, she went into a foster care situation; both before my time here. However, I've read about the placements in her records, the reasons behind her being returned to Our Lady. I always read the histories on all the children I am responsible for."
"What are the reasons she didn't do well with her foster parents?"
"In both cases, she never made it past the trial period. In both cases, wonderful situations that ought to've led to adoption simply failed, largely due to Lauralie's self- destructiveness."
"Can you be more specific, Mother?" pressed Meredyth.
"Unruliness, stubbornness, a kind of underlying fear of being out there and not in here where at least she knew the rules. She was eleven the first time, thirteen the second time. But by then—"
"Patterns of behavior were set," Meredyth finished for her.
"Did she bum down a house? What?" asked Lucas.
"No, nothing so dramatic, but just as destructive in its way. She wouldn't be guided, would not follow the simplest of rules, throwing temper tantrums, balling up into the fetal position for hour upon hour, refusing to eat, starving herself to skin and bone, lashing out, acting out. She simply refused to be a part of her new family. Hurt newfound siblings. Pitiful shame really. It was quite severe when she was young, but by the time I came on the scene, she was simply withdrawn and sullen."
"Is that when she started the fire in the closet in the convent?" asked Lucas.
"By that age the children who have not been adopted, often they become, I hate to say, toughened to the fact that they are not adorable little creatures that people want to adopt, and so they often play the role of the exact opposite, the un adorable, unruly delinquent. It can become worse still when they leave our controlled environment. It's why I counseled Rachel and Lauralie to remain with us to at least twenty-one. Rachel chose to remain, Lauralie did not."
"In what ways did she hurt her adopted family siblings?" asked Meredyth.
"She scalded one with hot soup. Another time, she almost smothered one to death with a stuffed animal down her throat. I forget the other instances."
Rage, Meredyth thought. "And after leaving here, she cut off all communications?"
"Not at first. At first, she'd call from time to time. I lost touch after her call about her mother's death."
This got Lucas's renewed interest, and Meredyth said, "But she had just found her mother."
"That's what made it so tragic—this beautiful reunion cut tragically short, but then God works in mysterious ways."
Mother Elizabeth stood and glided back toward her office. Lucas and Meredyth followed, Lucas getting the door for them. Elizabeth continued speaking as they walked. "He certainly confuses me at times, to put so much heartache on that single forsaken child. I called her my fawn, my poor forlorn child, so lonely and abandoned."
"How exactly did her mother die?" asked Lucas.
The mother superior had returned to her desk, sitting stiffly behind it now, as if using it as a barrier between herself and the city officials before her. "Lauralie's sudden appearance after all the years obviously brought back a great deal of grief, and one night Lauralie's mother, an alcoholic, drank herself to death. I suppose in a fit of remorse and guilt over having abandoned Lauralie in her infancy.
"Imagine, she located her birth mother, living right here in Houston, and they were getting to know one another, doing famously according to Lauralie, when suddenly she left her again. After that, Lauralie's calls became infrequent, and soon nonexistent. She'd been living with her mother, but I tried contacting her there, only to learn she'd vanished, and I've worried about her, prayed for her since, and now you are here."
"What about her father?" asked Lucas.
"Deceased. She learned of it from her mother. Died some years before. She told me she laid flowers at his grave."
"When Lauralie was here at Our Lady, given her record of trouble and vandalism, however did she become a trustworthy?" asked Meredyth.
"She earned it. Straightened up her act, as they say, mightily. Took Mother Orleans's death very hard, she did...as did all the girls, but I convinced her that Mother Orleans would want her to pull out of her depression."
"And she made a miraculous recovery?" Meredyth watched the nun's response closely. She had begun to analyze the woman, Lucas realized.
"Yes, miraculous... with the help of God...came to her senses, began using that intellect I convinced her she had to use to survive on the outside."
"Inventive, resourceful, and adroit, would you say?"
"Only in the best sense. She turned a comer in her mind, began soaking up knowledge, learned to like the programs I put into place, and excelled."
Meredyth, nodding added, "Particularly the Work for Trust Program?"
"In everything, she began to excel, to discover her own power, that she owned her intellect and her emotions and must turn them toward the greater glory of God."
"Despite all the hardships life had meted out to her?"
"Perhaps because of them. Small miracle, I say. She learned to control her pent-up rage and anger at the world, and win trust points in the bargain."
Mother Elizabeth stared out into space as if picturing Lauralie. "Previous to my taking charge, she would do nothing around the convent, and although a bright girl, her grades were deplorable." She shivered with the thought. "She spent most of her time staring out the windows and swinging on the gate out there. After my programs were initiated, she was soon outside those bars looking in."
"Then as early as what, fifteen, sixteen, she was off the grounds at times, looking for her parents?" asked Meredyth, probing.
"Oh, no! It took time, years. She took to winning trust only after she'd turned seventeen, and she graduated and opted to leave at eighteen. It was in her junior year of high school that I allowed her some latitude in her search for her parents, although I warned her she might not like what she found out there beyond the gates of Our Lady."
"Careful of what you wish...you may get it," commented Lucas.
"Something like that, yes."
Meredyth, a strand of hair falling over her right eye, asked, "Did you open her records to her?"
"Not exactly. She broke into them one night and found them on her own."
"Clever girl."
"Cunning when she wished, yes. This was before we had our heart-to-heart. It was after that that I gave into her unquenchable desire to locate her parents, to help her in any way that I could. However, I failed her miserably."
"How so?" Meredyth tiptoed lightly. Lucas knew to keep quiet. Mother Elizabeth wiped a tear from her eye.
"Her mother was no longer at the recorded address or phone number, and I had an institution to save, and so... . Still, that young lady kept doggedly at it, taking it entirely upon herself to research her mother's whereabouts. Primarily, that meant she was spending more and more time away from here and on the street in her quest."
"Where are the records on Lauralie's adoption now? Can we have a look?" Meredyth asked.
"Archive files, as I said, in the basement. Not pleasant surroundings. Are you sure?"
"I'll brave the surroundings. Perhaps your assistant could show us the way?" asked Meredyth.
"I'll fetch Audrey, and we'll both show you the way. I need the walk, exercise for a bad hip and knees." Ignoring the intercom, she went next door to Sister Audrey.
Alone with Meredyth now, Lucas said, "Remember what Kelton said about the vandalized grave of a guy named Blood at Greenhaven Meadows?"
"Off Berwyn, yeah."
"Blood is not far off from Blodgett. This girl's name is Blodgett. You think Kelton may've gotten it wrong?"
"Or maybe we have a genuine coincidence?"
"Might be worth a look-see all the same. Greenhaven Meadows Cemetery's not too awfully far from here."
"If there's time, depends on the condition of these records I want a gander at, and I want to get back downtown before the courthouse closes, and you...you wanted to hit the mortuary, remember?"
"First things first, I know. Lauralie, you're reckoning, is one of the infants you placed, right?"