A Rose for the Sister She Lost

CHAPTER 4 - ST. AGNES

They drove to St. Agnes the next morning, though it was no longer a maternity home. The old brick building had become an assisted living center, with trimmed hedges and fresh paint that could not hide its age.

Elena brought the letter.

Clara brought the second pendant.

Ivy carried the scratched silver flower bucket in her lap because she refused to leave it behind. "It brought you together," she said.

Inside, a retired nun named Sister Beatrice agreed to speak with them after seeing the pendants. Her hands trembled when she touched the engraved backs.

"I remember those," she said quietly. "Your mother came here twice. Once with her father. Once alone."

Elena felt anger rise sharp and hot. "Did she give up her baby willingly?"

Sister Beatrice held her gaze. "No young woman in this building was ever as free as people liked to say."

Clara closed her eyes.

The room stayed still except for the soft tick of a wall clock.

Sister Beatrice told them the baby had been placed with Margaret Vale, a widow who had recently lost her own child. But there had been another twist years later. Margaret became ill. Her daughter, Mara, had entered foster care briefly at age twelve before being reclaimed by a cousin.

Elena whispered, "Mara Vale?"

Sister Beatrice nodded. "Then she changed her surname when she married. Mara Bennett."

Clara looked at Elena in confusion. Elena was already on her feet.

"Mara Bennett worked at the library with me for eleven years."

She saw it all at once. The familiar smile. The shared love of old poetry. The strange pull she had never understood. Mara had left town ten years ago after her husband got a trucking job in Oregon. They had exchanged Christmas cards for a while, then lost touch.

"Do you have an address?" Elena asked.

Sister Beatrice hesitated, then opened a drawer. "Not for Mara. But for her son. He wrote last year asking about family records."

She handed over a card.

On it was the name Daniel Bennett, and beneath it, a town only ninety miles away.

Then Ivy tugged Elena's sleeve and pointed to the back of the card.

In childish block letters, someone had added a note:

My mother passed in March. I still have her pendant.