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Angela Denny could have predicted Mairin O’Hara’s failed escape attempt. She, too, had once tried to run away from the Good

Shepherd, bolting in a blind panic and being reeled in like a lake trout on a fishing line, her fingernails broken and bloodied

from trying to scale the wall, her clothes ripped, elbows and ass bruised from the fall. Lots of girls made the attempt, reckless

in their desperation to escape. And they all ended up like Mairin—with a stint in the closet and a walk of shame to the shared

dormitory on the third floor, where each girl was assigned a cot with a thin mattress on a metal frame. Every night after

evening prayers, they were forced to bless their captors; then the lights went out, the iron gate closed, and the shadows

rolled in.

Mairin had returned from her confinement more watchful, but not defeated. There was a certain swagger to her gait, and she

held her chin high with an air of unmasked anger. She quickly made a presence of herself in the unit, a natural leader. She

managed to find ways to distract everyone from their grim reality now and then. She organized kickball games in the yard,

and convinced Odessa to teach the girls to sing in harmony when they could get away with it. Odessa’s favorite spiritual was

“Oh Happy Day,” and in the noisy calendar room, they could shout it to the rooftops, hiding the joyful noise beneath the clash

of machinery.

Yet no one’s spirits stayed lifted for long.

Each night, a cloud of whispers bloomed in the darkness, punctuated by sniffles of fear and sorrow.

But the cloud usually dissipated quickly, because everyone was exhausted by the day’s toil.

Sometimes Janice, who was the worst tattletale in the group, would threaten to take names and tell Sister Rotrude.

Or when a girl’s muffled sobs could be heard, Denise might tease her, because Denise was just flat-out mean.

Sometimes she even teased Kay, calling her a retard and making fun of her speech impediment.

Kay had never done anything wrong, yet she would probably spend her whole life here, because she would never be able to live on her own.

The nuns of the Good Shepherd were supposed to be preparing the girls for independent living when they reached eighteen, but what they actually did was make them scared to face the world.

Lately, Angela could barely keep her eyes open once her head hit the limp, inadequate pillow. The work was the same, day in

and day out, and the stress of ducking the attention of the nuns and the doctor never varied, but the exhaustion seemed to

settle into her very bones and muscles with a vengeance, making her feel ill with the yearning for sleep.

And yet she couldn’t sleep. The silence of the room echoed with the hushed breathing that sounded to Angela like the girls’

collective longing for freedom. She lay still, trying to convince her bladder that it wasn’t full yet again. Hadn’t she just

gone before bedtime?

Scooping her thin nightgown around her, she slipped from the bed and tiptoed to the door, bracing herself for the blast of

cold in the long hallway to the bathroom. She passed the stairs, which were closed off at the top by a locked floor-to-ceiling

gate. The cold, gray walls of this place looked ancient. She imagined the stones had been silent witnesses to the stories

of the broken souls of the girls forced to live here. The wayward girls, they were termed in the printed literature the nuns

had given her grandmother. Gran had been promised that Angela would find guidance and solace here. That she would turn from

her sinful ways and one day bask in the glow of redemption.

Gran had believed every word of it.

Under the stark glare of buzzing fluorescent lights, the bathroom reeked of harsh, pine-scented cleaner.

The girls were required to scrub the toilets and sinks and shower room with the stuff every day.

The resin smell assaulted Angela, and she staggered to the john, nearly overcome by nausea.

As soon as she sat down to pee, she leaned forward and upchucked her dinner, splattering it on the floor in front of her.

“Oh, shit,” she said. “Oh shit shit shit.” She went to the cleaning closet, which smelled even stronger of the pine solution,

and heaved again, hitting the mop bucket. Jesus, the food here was terrible, but this was the first time it had poisoned her.

She rinsed herself off at the sink, then went to clean up the mess. The puke made her want to puke again, and she gasped,

trying to tamp down the nausea.

When she was younger and felt sick, Gran would put a cold compress on her forehead and give her soda crackers and ginger ale

to settle her stomach. But that was before Gran had caught her and Tanya McDowd, and all hell had broken loose. Gran acted

as if Angela had turned into some kind of demon, and she’d dragged her to the Good Shepherd, totally convinced that the nuns

would sort her out with their relentless program of work and repentance.

The trouble was the only thing that sorted Angela out was being with Tanya. She craved the quiet acceptance she felt when

Tanya was with her. She cherished the feeling that every secret she’d ever had was held safely in a box, and only she and

Tanya possessed the key. In those moments, Angela held fast to the knowledge that she wasn’t crazy. The rest of the time,

she felt like a total freak.

And now she was forced to have those horrible special corrective sessions with the doctor, and she had to do extra penance

every Saturday. This failed to sort her out the way the nuns said it would. It messed her up even more.

So no. Gran would probably say that Angela was sick because the devil inside her was trying to get out. She’d relate some

old Irish folktale about it. Gran did love her Irish folktales. When Angela was little, she’d snuggle under the covers and

shiver with delight when Gran told her the tales of Finn McCool and King Mongan of Ulster, where Gran was from. Gran had never

learned to read and write, but she could spin a tale that held Angela in its embrace until she fell asleep.

Angela used to try to do everything right.

She got good grades in school. Worked hard in gym class and volunteered at the library.

Kept her room tidy, went to mass every Sunday.

She did her best at all things, but her best was never enough—not enough for Gran to trust that she wouldn’t turn out like her mother, and not enough to quiet the confusing feelings that had started bubbling up inside her.

Before all the trouble started, Angela and Gran would go to the library together, because even though she couldn’t read, Gran

loved to page through Life magazine and look at the knitting patterns in McCall’s . Angela was allowed to pick out any book she wanted. Miss Rachel Adler, the librarian who had a fancy name plaque on her

desk, loved to introduce Angela to new books. When she found just the right book, Angela felt as if she was about to go on

a journey to a new world. Miss Adler took her through pioneer days with Caddie Woodlawn and Little House on the Prairie , to New York City with Harriet the Spy , and into the past with Anne of Green Gables and Little Women.

Miss Adler was observant; she once said she owed her survival to being watchful and being able to read people and see what

they were thinking. Angela wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but she knew the library was a refuge for her.

Miss Adler had a sixth sense about books and readers. At least that was what Angela believed, anyway. The small, intense woman

knew what someone was looking for, sometimes even before they did. That surely was the case when Miss Adler had introduced

Angela to a book that had changed everything.

It was a tattered, yellowing paper-bound novel that had been preserved with a special library binding. The cover showed a

tall, handsome girl with a suitcase, standing on a street corner. Beebo Brinker . Beebo was complicated and funny, brave and bold, a girl who knew what she wanted and found a way to go after it. For the

first time, Angela recognized something in herself in the story. It was a revelation to meet a fictional character who reflected

her own confusing emotions. Bit by bit, the world came into focus. Eventually, Angela collected all of the Beebo Brinker Chronicles—a

world of dark-eyed women with sharp cheekbones and short-cropped hair, and dreamy independent women who discovered that they

could survive a broken heart. Angela and Tanya took turns reading the books aloud to each other, and sometimes it led to them

fooling around.

She found out something about Miss Adler’s history, too, during a special program she gave one night.

She announced that it was Yom HaShoah—Holocaust Remembrance Day, which no one in Catholic school seemed to know anything about.

Miss Adler stood at the lectern and rolled up the sleeve of her pink cardigan sweater and held up her right arm and showed them a fading bruise.

It wasn’t a bruise, she explained.

Then she read an excerpt from a book called Night by Elie Wiesel.

That was the day Angela learned that there were harder things in life than being a girl who liked girls.

When Gran discovered the Beebo books under Angela’s bed, she’d taken them straight down to the furnace in the basement and

tossed them in with the coals.

These days, Angela lived for the visit from the library bookmobile. Once a month, a van with the library logo rolled into

the yard. Each girl was allowed to choose one book. The driver would take the books to the main office, where the selections

would be scrutinized by Sister Rotrude and Sister Bernadette. The bookmobile wasn’t the same as the leisurely hours Angela

used to spend at Miss Adler’s branch library, but it was a temporary escape from this place.