Chapter 39 Emily #3
In some ways, Emily felt as though she now had more in common with the Mercer girls than she did her colleagues at Chatelaine.
There would, in many ways, be no going back.
She wasn’t even yet able to truly face the changes she’d already seen in herself, afraid of what they meant.
The night sweats, nail-biting, the rotting sense of dread in the pit of her stomach.
The surge of panic that rose, sometimes out of nowhere, and made her feel like she was about to die.
The permanent lump in her throat. She worried that being forced into that blue uniform had done something to her that she might not be able to reverse.
The version of herself that had rushed here to ask Doris if she could pursue the story felt young and naive now.
But all the same, look at what she’d accomplished.
She wondered whether, if she had been older and more experienced, she would have had the daring to do what she’d done.
As her father had said, youth was the perfect time for such exploits and recklessness.
The naivety of what she was undertaking might have been a strength, really.
If she’d truly known how it was going to be, would she have had the courage to do it?
Perhaps opportunities did come to people at just the right time.
The elevator arrived at the main floor and the doors slid open with a rattling whoosh.
Fortunately, there was no one inside, and Emily stepped in, relieved that she wouldn’t have to make small talk with any of the Maclean’s executives.
Her heart rate quickened again as the elevator began to rise.
She glanced at her watch; she was due for her meeting with Doris in three minutes.
She hadn’t planned anything beyond handing Doris the article and seeing what she said.
She’d taken on this project to advance her career, but even now that the ordeal was over, that she was back at the office where it all began, that desire was secondary.
She wasn’t particularly concerned with what sort of impact the article might have on her career, so long as it made a real difference to the lives of the women and girls at the Mercer—or better yet, ensured that there would be no more imprisonment there: an end to the reign of terror on Liberty Street.
The elevator arrived at the fourth floor and Emily looked down, straightened her outfit.
It had been strange to get back into her old clothes, as elated as she was to be out of that blue dress, which was now folded in the bottom drawer of her dresser, her roll of toilet paper notes tucked into the breast pocket.
She’d thought to throw the dress out, but the complicated truth was, it reminded her of Annie, and she wasn’t ready to part with it just yet.
The doors slid open to reveal Doris standing in front of the reception desk, arms crossed over the front of her cream blouse, lips a thin line.
“Emily,” she said, opening her arms as though to embrace her. Emily couldn’t help but smile at the sight of her boss waiting.
“Hi Doris,” she said, glancing furtively over Doris’s shoulder. There was a new receptionist there, someone Emily didn’t know, wearing a curious expression. Perhaps Constance had left to get married, too.
Doris swept an arm through the air, her hand landing on Emily’s shoulder, guiding her forward. “Come on.”
As they made their way down the long, noisy hallway to Doris’s office, several of Emily’s colleagues noted her as she passed. Mouths opened, a couple outright pointed and she saw her name on their lips.
It hadn’t occurred to her what she would say to them, and after a fleeting moment of stress, she understood: Doris had come to escort her to the corner office so she wouldn’t be accosted with inquiries on the way there.
Emily entered Doris’s office and her boss followed, shut the door. The noise of the ringing phones and feminine twittering muted, and Emily relaxed a little.
“Who knows where I’ve been?” she asked.
“Just the staff writers and Clara,” Doris said, taking the seat behind her desk and indicating Emily should sit in front. “I told everyone else it was none of their concern, that you were taking a leave of absence.”
Emily smirked, though it was mirthless. “I’m sure they’re all going to think it was something scandalous.
That I’ve gone to an aunt’s or something.
” She swallowed then, thinking of Vera and the St. Agnes girls, the prison nursery for babies of the girls who didn’t have parents decent enough to send them to an aunt’s.
The parents who wanted to punish their daughters more than society already would for the crime of motherhood outside of marriage.
“Well, if they do, they’ll know soon enough where you were. Any scandalous rumour will be full and truly quashed.”
Emily bobbed her head. “True.”
“So,” Doris began with a heavy air, “do you want to tell me about it first, or shall I just read?”
Emily retrieved the article from her satchel, set it down in front of her boss. “Yes, maybe just read it. And then we can talk.”
Doris leaned back in her chair as Emily sat and waited, fighting the nervousness swirling in her chest as her boss’s eyes glided over each page.
She set them face down on the desk, one after another.
A few minutes later, she finished and cleared her throat.
She tapped the sheets back into a tidy stack and attached them together with a bulldog clip. She stared at the title for a moment:
MURDER AT THE MERCER:
Abuse and Torture Rampant at Liberty Village Women’s Prison
Doris looked up, watched Emily with her sharp eyes over the top of those black horn-rimmed spectacles for so long that Emily began to wonder if her boss was waiting for her to say something.
But then, suddenly, she pulled open her desk drawer and withdrew the same bottle of brandy and two glasses she’d presented when Emily had first come to her with the story.
Red mouth pursed, Doris poured with a heavy hand, and Emily laughed.
It was only nine-thirty in the morning, after all. What would her mother say?
As though reading Emily’s mind, Doris said, “Never mind propriety at a time like this. I need a drink after just reading what you went through. I can imagine you need one after living it.”
“Well…” Emily hesitated, then took it, but didn’t drink.
There was a long silence in which Doris sipped and Emily sat, watching her mentor, unsure of what to say. She was rarely at a loss for words, but at this point it felt as though she had been drained of them, a bloodletting that would hopefully—in the long run—prove therapeutic.
“You’re alleging murder. This Annie L., whom you befriended?”
“Yes. She was murdered.”
“Can you prove it?”
Emily licked her dry lips, then took a swig of the brandy just to wet them.
It burned. “I don’t know. They would need to find her…
”—she breathed deep—“her body, first, I suppose. I don’t know where she was taken.
Her parents might have claimed her? Maybe…
” She thought of Annie’s father having disowned her, her mother trying in vain to get her released.
Surely they would have been informed of her death.
“But there must be ways of testing what was in her system,” Emily continued.
“An autopsy. The drugs…” She knew she sounded desperate.
Her voice was cracking. “If there were too many drugs in her system, if that caused her heart to fail?” She shuddered, then tried to pull herself together, sat forward in her seat.
“It’s medical malpractice at the very least, Doris.
But that, combined with my and the other inmates’ testimonies about the infections, the gynecological torture…
” She angled her thighs together instinctively.
“It’s all right,” Doris said, pressing one large hand down on the article as though trying to calm Emily’s agitation through its pages.
“Let’s uh…” She glanced at the title again.
A long moment passed. “ ‘Murder’ is strong. I wonder about changing it to ‘corruption’ or ‘malpractice.’ Though I suppose you’re already alleging abuse and torture, aren’t you? ”
“Yes. Because it all happened,” Emily said urgently.
“I believe you,” Doris said firmly, homing in on Emily’s agitation. “So I suppose…” She sighed, fingered the pearls at her throat. “Yes. Hell. We’ll keep ‘murder.’ ”
“Thank you.” Emily paused. “Legal’s going to have a fit,” she added wryly.
Doris nodded. “Yes. Though as we know, it’ll take them a while to even hear that the allegations were published.
We’ll deal with it then. You know I’d always rather ask for forgiveness than permission,” she said, swivelling her chair back and forth a few times.
She looked up and met Emily’s gaze over the desk.
“But my hope would be some sort of formal investigation gets opened on this place, and then I don’t think the administrators, or this Dr. Stone”—Doris said her name with the revulsion one might muster to describe a slug—“would dare try to sue us if the police end up charging them with the same allegations we’re putting up. ”
Emily struggled for a breath, shifted in her seat. “She needs to be brought to justice,” she said, louder than intended.
“I agree.”
Another silence stretched across the desk. A lighthearted laugh was just audible on the other side of the door, over near the kitchen. Emily glanced at the clock; it was morning teatime. The girls would all be gathering for cake or biscuits now. Perhaps a test version of an Easter tart.
“Are you okay?” Doris asked quietly.
Emily had mostly held it together for her parents during the three weeks she’d been home, and, really, for herself.
For the sake of the article. She’d relived the horror through her writing, recounted it to her parents.
But she hadn’t had an opportunity to really sit with it all, to weigh it in her hands and feel it on her shoulders and try to figure out just how heavy it was going to be for her to carry, now and into the future.
She blinked hard, fighting tears that caught her by surprise.
She kept eye contact with Doris, though, who looked on with a forced neutral expression that didn’t quite hide the maternal concern beneath.
“I don’t know,” Emily whispered.
A tinkling laugh sounded again outside the door. Life in the office was carrying on. How would Emily be able to join them again? How could she ever talk about frivolous things when there were so many more critical topics to discuss, problems to fix?
She thought of the men with shell shock from the wars, her mother’s father.
People had no other word for what happened to those soldiers, but wasn’t it similar to what she was going through?
How could anyone expect her to go on living a normal life as though she hadn’t witnessed—and been subjected to—systematic suffering for months on end?
Her own father hadn’t held a gun, hadn’t fought, but he’d witnessed it all as though he had.
He’d been injured as though he had. Just like Emily.
The floodgates opened then, under Doris’s sympathetic stare, and Emily broke down. Doris rose from her seat and came to her, a handkerchief held aloft. Emily buried her face in it, equal parts embarrassed and relieved at the release.
Doris said nothing, but stood by Emily’s side, one arm around her shoulder, pulling her close like the mother swan that she was.
Through her anguish, Emily felt a visceral awareness that she never wanted to work for anyone but Doris Anderson for the rest of her career.
There would never be another place like this.
Once Emily had regained her composure, Doris stepped away and lifted the article from the desk. She strode to the door, opened it and called for Clara, who appeared a moment later.
“Get this to copyedit,” Doris said, her tone clipped. “And it’ll be Emily’s name in the byline, as a staff writer.” She breathed deeply and looked back at Emily, whose red eyes brimmed once again with tears. “We’re running it.”