Black Evening

"And Orval's wife was worse than he was. Eve! She was a monster! All she cared about was… Pregnant women didn't matter! Babies didn't matter. Money mattered."

"But if you thought they were monsters… June, why did you help them?"

She clutches her rosary. "Thirty pieces of silver. Holy Mary, mother of… Ivy, Rose, Heather, Iris. Violet, Lily, Daisy, Fern."

You force her to look at you. "I told you my name was Jacob Weinberg. But I might not be… I think my mother's name was Mary Duncan. I think I was born here. In nineteen thirty-eight. Did you ever know a woman who…"

June sobs. "Mary Duncan? If she stayed with the Gunthers, she wouldn't have used her real name. So many women! She might have been Orchid or Pansy. There's no way to tell."

"She was pregnant with twins. She promised to give up both children. Do you remember a woman who…"

"Twins? Several women had twins. The Gunthers, damn them, were ecstatic. Twenty thousand instead of ten."

"But my parents" – the word sticks in your mouth – "took only me. Was that common for childless parents to separate twins?"

"Money!" June cringes. "It all depended on how much money the couples could afford. Sometimes twins were separated. There's no way to tell where the other child went."

"But weren't there records?"

"The Gunthers were smart. They never kept records. In case the police… And then the fire… Even if there had been records, secret records, the fire would have…"

Your stomach plummets. Despite your urgent need for answers, you realize you've reached a dead end.

Then June murmurs something that you barely hear, but the little you do hear chokes you. "What? I didn't… June, please say that again."

"Thirty pieces of silver. For that, I… How I paid. Seven stillborn children."

"Yours?"

"I thought, with the money the Gunthers paid me, my husband and I could raise our children in luxury, give them every advantage, send them to medical school or… God help me, what I did for the Gunthers cursed my womb. It made me worse than barren. It doomed me to carry lifeless children. My penance. It forced me to suffer. Just like – "

"The mothers who gave up their children and possibly later regretted it?"

"No! Like the…"

What you hear next makes you retch. Black-market adoptions, you told Chief Kitrick. But I don't think that's the whole story. I've got the terrible feeling that there's something more, something worse, although I'm not sure what it is.

Now you're sure what that something worse is, and the revelation makes you weep in outrage. "Show me, June," you manage to say. "Take me. I promise it'll be your salvation." You try to remember what you know about Catholicism. "You need to confess, and after that, your conscience will be at peace."

"I'll never be at peace."

"You're wrong, June. You will. You've kept your secret too long. It festers inside you. You have to let out the poison. After all these years, your prayers here in the synagogue have been sufficient. You've suffered enough. What you need now is absolution."

"You think if I go there…" June shudders.

"And pray one last time. Yes. I beg you. Show me. Your torment will finally end."

"So long! I haven't been there since…"

"Nineteen forty-one? That's what I mean, June. It's time. It's finally time."

Through biting wind and chilling rain, you escort June from the ghost of the synagogue into the sheltering warmth of your car. You're so angry that you don't bother taking an indirect route. You don't care if Chief Kitrick sees you driving past the tavern. In fact, you almost want him to. You steer left up the bumpy road out of town, its jolts diminished by the storm-soaked earth. When you reach the coastal highway, you assure June yet again and prompt her for further directions.

"It's been so long. I don't… Yes. Turn to the right," she says. A half mile later, she trembles, adding, "Now left here. Up that muddy road. Do you think you can?"

"Force this car through the mud to the top? If I have to, I'll get out and push. And if that doesn't work, we'll walk. God help me, I'll carry you. I'll sink to my knees and crawl."

But the car's front-wheel drive defeats the mud. At once you gain traction, thrust over a hill, swivel to a stop, and frown through the rain toward an unexpected meadow. Even in early October, the grass is lush. Amazingly, horribly so. Knowing its secret, you suddenly recall – from your i

You force your way out of the car. You struggle around its hood, ignore the mud, confront the stinging wind and rain, and help June waver from the passenger seat. The bullet-dark clouds roil above the meadow.

"Was it here?" you demand. "Tell me! Is this the place?"

"Yes! Can't you hear them wail? Can't you hear them suffer?"

"June! In the name of God" – rain stings your face – "tell me!"

"Tell me, June!"

"Can't you sense? Can't you feel the horror?"

"Yes, June." You sink to your knees. You caress the grass. "I can."

"How many, June?" You lean forward, your face almost touching the grass.

"Two hundred. Maybe more. All those years. So many babies." June weeps behind you. "I finally couldn't count anymore."

"But why?" You raise your head toward the angry rain. "Why did they have to die?"

"Some were sickly. Some were deformed. If the Gunthers decided they couldn't sell them…"

"They murdered them? Smothered them? Strangled them?"

"Let them starve to death. The wails." June cringes. "Those poor, hungry, suffering babies. Some took as long as three days to die. In my nightmares, I heard them wailing. I still hear them wailing." June hobbles toward you. "At first, the Gunthers took the bodies in a boat and dumped them at sea. But one of the corpses washed up on the beach, and if it hadn't been for the chief of police they bribed…" June's voice breaks. "So the Gunthers decided they needed a safer way to dispose of the bodies. They brought them here and buried them in paper bags or potato sacks or butter boxes."

"Butter boxes?"

"Some of the babies were born prematurely." June sinks beside you, weeping. "They were small, so terribly small."

"Two hundred?" The frenzied wind thrusts your words down your throat. With a shudder, you realize that if your mother was Mary Duncan, Scot, the Gunthers might have decided that you looked too obviously gentile. They might have buried you here with…