Chapter 8 - St. Agnes
We went to St. Agnes the next morning.
Not the hospital.
The building had closed years ago.
A diocesan archive now occupied two floors of an office building in Oak Brook.
Glen did not want cameras.
Clara did not want reporters.
I wanted answers before everyone else turned the story into a scandal with our names attached.
The archivist, Sister Miriam Vale, was seventy-eight and unimpressed by all of us.
"You are not the first family to ask."
That sentence changed the room.
"How many?" I asked.
She sighed.
"Enough."
St. Agnes had operated a maternity residence for unmarried pregnant women until 1994.
Some adoptions were ordinary.
Some were not.
In the late eighties and early nineties, complaints alleged coercion, misleading medical information, and surrender forms signed too soon after sedation.
Records had been scattered when the home closed.
"Was my mother involved?" I asked.
Sister Miriam studied Elaine's photograph.
"She was young."
"That wasn't my question."
"Yes."
My chest tightened.
The archive contained a personnel memo.
Elaine Shaw had filed a complaint in September 1990.
Subject:
MAYFIELD PLACEMENT - MATERNAL CONSENT DISPUTED.
The director, Dr. Peter Harlan, marked it:
RESOLVED INTERNALLY.
No follow-up.
Then Sister Miriam found a payment journal.
The $6,500 Cole donation had been divided.
$1,200 to medical services.
$2,000 to St. Agnes operating fund.
$3,300 to Harlan Family Adoption Consulting.
Glen stared.
"They paid him personally."
Sister Miriam corrected him.
"A company owned by his wife."
"That's supposed to be better?"
"No."
Clara's hands shook.
"Did they sell my baby?"
Sister Miriam looked at her.
"I do not know whether payment caused placement. I know money entered a system that should have been clearer than this."
Specificity.
It frustrated everyone.
It was also honest.
Then she opened another folder.
Three complaints.
Three young women who said they had been told their babies died.
One name was still alive.
June Park.
A nurse at St. Agnes in 1990.
Sister Miriam whispered, "If you want to know what happened in that room, ask her."
She gave us a phone number.
Clara called.
A woman's voice answered.
Clara said her name.
Silence.
Then June Park began crying.
"I wondered if you were still alive."
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