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“You’ll start in the calendar room. No dallying. There’s a lot for you to learn.” Sister Rotrude led the way with a dramatic

sweep of her robe.

A whole room for a calendar? How could there be that much to learn about a calendar? Mairin was so flustered from the encounter

with the doctor that she couldn’t think straight. Her skin itched from the new clothes and from her visit to the clinic. Her

entire body hummed with the adrenaline rush that had engulfed her as she fought off Dr. Gilroy. Now, as her breathing and

heart rate slowed, she started to second-guess herself. Had she misread the situation? Maybe he was only doing his job, and

she’d overreacted.

But no. She clung to Liam’s advice— If it feels wrong, it is wrong.

She had to say something. There might be repercussions. Gilroy might lie the way Colm had. She might get in trouble for speaking

up. Then she thought, how much worse could her trouble be than this?

“Sister,” she said, “I need to tell you something about the doc—”

“Mother,” said Sister Rotrude, her voice a low lash of command as she swung to face Mairin. “You’ve been told to address us

all as Mother. Show some respect.”

“Um, I’m sorry. Mother. I think you should know that when I went in to the doctor, he.

..” She struggled to find the words to explain.

“He asked me about personal stuff, and I didn’t like the way he touched me.

” Her own words sounded weak. She didn’t know how to describe the ineffable reaction she’d had in the clinic.

Sister Rotrude gave her no time to elaborate. “The man is a doctor. He volunteers his time, doing the Lord’s work. We are

fortunate to have Dr. Gilroy to keep you girls safe from disease,” she said.

“But he was—”

“You do not have permission to speak,” Sister Rotrude said. “This is the first rule here at the Good Shepherd. You may not

speak without permission. Mind your manners, now.” She led the way down another wide corridor with buzzing lights and loud,

mechanical noises emanating from the rooms on both sides.

Mairin tried to make sense of this place. There wasn’t a desk in sight. None of the rooms they passed even remotely resembled

classrooms with chalkboards, books, and maps. There were no students present, not in the hallways or outside in the courtyard.

“That’s the host room, down that way.” Sister Rotrude indicated a hallway. “We make the hosts for the diocese.” A note of

pride lifted her voice.

Mairin said nothing. It was weird to think that communion wafers came from a place like this.

At the end of the hall, the nun opened a heavy double door. A massive cloud of steam enveloped her in a wet, intense heat

so powerful that Mairin gasped and stumbled back. For a few seconds, she couldn’t breathe or speak. She looked around for

a fire alarm, certain something was wrong.

After a few moments, the steam cleared, and she found herself in an enormous room that was packed with girls who appeared

to be about her age, wearing the same garments as she was. The girls kept their heads down, their gazes averted as they worked.

The hum and groan of the gears and the scent of freshly laundered linens filled the air.

A woman in lay garments, with a kerchief on her head and an expressionless, doughy face, motioned Mairin over. “Stand here,

and learn how it’s done,” she said simply.

Engulfed with uncertainty, Mairin cast a glance back at Sister Rotrude.

The nun disappeared in a cloud of steam, and when the billows cleared, she was gone like a magician’s assistant, and the doors were shut.

The room had no windows other than clerestory vents that were cranked open near the ceiling.

Mairin found herself standing next to two other girls. One was Black, with slender wrists and hands that moved with a certain

grace as she pulled crinkled pieces of laundry from a large rolling bin. She went about her work with smooth, mechanical movements,

and didn’t acknowledge Mairin other than giving her a distrustful, desultory glance. The other girl had blond hair caught

back in a kerchief, and the prettiest face Mairin had ever seen, with sky-blue, deeply lashed eyes and full lips, and cheekbones

shaded the color of rose petals. In any other setting, she’d be the girl all the boys went crazy over. She met Mairin’s gaze,

and her expression flickered with a sort of helpless kindness.

“I’m Mairin O’Hara,” Mairin said.

“Ruth! No talking,” bellowed the laywoman.

Mairin snapped her mouth shut. She despised her assigned name. Ruth. Baby Ruth. Ruthless.

The blond girl waited until the woman turned her back. Then she said, “Angela Denny. That’s Odessa. Odessa Bailey.”

The Black girl gave an almost imperceptible nod of her head, and continued working. “I’d stop and say hello,” she said, “but

I’d risk getting my ass beat.”

Mairin could tell she wasn’t kidding. “Who are the women in the gray uniforms?” she asked.

“Consecrates,” said Odessa. “Most of ’em started as residents here, and later decided they wanted to stay and support the

work of the nuns.”

“ Wanted to stay?” Mairin was incredulous.

“Steer clear of them,” Angela warned. “They can be vicious. As bad as the nuns.”

“I was told this is the calendar room,” Mairin said, keeping her face averted from the supervisor.

“It is,” Angela said. “Not the kind of calendar you hang on the wall. This thing is a calendar. It’s a roller iron. Nasty

machine. Watch your hands and fingers.”

“I will. So are you supposed to show me how it’s done?”

“Doesn’t look like anybody else is going to.”

The calendar roller iron was about the size of a kitchen table.

It was heavy and unwieldy with a series of heated rollers that would press and iron large sheets and tablecloths efficiently.

It seemed to be as dangerous as it looked.

One wrong move, and someone’s arm could wind up squashed and burned.

“Don’t worry, Mairin,” Angela said, barely moving her lips. “Everybody starts off the same here, and you just try to make

it through the day. You’ll get the hang of it. Just pay attention to what we do.”

“You’re working like rented mules, that’s what you’re doing. Shouldn’t this whole shebang be reported to the authorities?”

Angela’s eyes rolled. “What authorities would that be?”

“Like, you know... maybe the cops?”

“Cops,” Odessa muttered. “Like they give a flip.”

“People think the Church can do no wrong,” Angela said.

Mairin swallowed hard as the truth sank in. She watched as the girl called Angela took a sheet from Odessa and expertly fed

it into the machine, the rollers whirring to life with a soft hum, transforming the wrinkled fabric into a smooth and pristine

surface that came out the other side.

“Even the juvenile courts send girls here, right, Odessa?” A tall, big-shouldered girl brought a rolling cart piled with damp

linens. Under unevenly cut bangs, her sharp-eyed gaze was direct and challenging. “Didn’t you get sent up by the juvie judge?”

She spoke with a blunt, lower-west-side Buffalo accent, reminiscent of the dockworkers, the ones Mairin had always been warned

to stay away from.

“Knock it off, Denise,” Angela said in a warning tone.

“You gonna make me?” The big girl whirled to face Mairin while slowly moving the linens to the table. She had thick, blunt

fingers with the nails chewed to the quick. A fading bruise marked her jawline on one side. “Odessa’s a straight-up criminal,”

Denise said.

Odessa pressed her lips into a line and hunched her shoulders.

Mairin had dealt with bullies before. Every school had one. Even this place, apparently. “Yeah?” she said to the girl called

Denise. “And what are you?”

“Not a criminal, I can tell you that.” Denise jutted her chin out with pride. “Odessa got arrested in that riot last summer, the one around William Street and Jefferson Avenue where all the colored people started fires and wrote soul brother on stuff and broke store windows.”

“I think you mean the one where dozens of Black people were wounded by police bullets,” Odessa said.

The incident had made the news, Mairin recalled. It had shut down the city. She remembered this because work at Eisman’s orchard

had been called off for three days straight. And the famous Mr. Jackie Robinson himself had visited Buffalo to try to calm

things down.

“Police and firefighters were injured, too,” Denise shot back. “Just for doing their job.”

“Three policemen, one firefighter,” Odessa said. “ Forty Black people.”

“Yeah, and you were the one who hurt one of the policemen. Broke his face, didn’t you?” Denise sent her a challenging glare.

Odessa’s hands tightened into fists. “You’re just jealous ’cause I’m getting out of this place next summer, and you have to

stay.”

Angela stepped between them and finished emptying the cart. “Go get us another load.” She shoved the cart at Denise, the motion

attracting the attention of one of the consecrates. Denise turned on her heel and wheeled the cart away.

Odessa glared after her, then went back to work.

Mairin didn’t know many Black people. There were two sisters who attended her school—the Parks sisters—but they were older.

They went around with their hair in a neat crown of braids, and one of them sang like a pro in the choir. Some people in the

neighborhood were prejudiced against them, but Mairin was never sure why. Now she regarded Odessa, wondering about her family.

Where were Odessa’s parents? Did she have brothers and sisters? What had her life been like before the Good Shepherd?

“You know what’s real cool?” Angela said to Mairin. “Odessa’s the best of all of us. Sings in her church choir, does good

works. That’s how she got arrested, right, Odessa?”

“Doing good works?” asked Mairin.

“Depends on what you think is good ,” Odessa said. “A group from our church went out during the riot to try to help. Thought we could keep the cops from beating

up on people. You see how that worked out.”

“Did you really break a policeman’s face?” Mairin asked.