The housekeeper gaped at Tessa’s cropped hair till Joseph’s glare drove her off.
“Edward is furious,” Tessa confided, staring into the glass. “He sent my hair to a shop so they can fashion a chignon, so that when we go out, it will look like nothing has changed. He said if I do anything like this again, he’ll send me to a madhouse. But I cannot fast; I cannot do anything that would harm the baby too…” Tessa looked to Joseph at last. “What else is there, Father? Should I wear sackcloth? Smear myself with ashes?”
“Why do you feel you need to do Penance, Tessa?”
She avoided his eyes again. “I cannot tell you that.”
“Have you told Father Baker?”
She nodded haltingly.
“What did he advise?”
Tessa’s beautiful throat convulsed as if she were swallowing poison. “He told me I must avoid my proximate occasion of sin.”
“Will you?”
“I would have to leave Charleston! How could— How could I explain it to Edward?”
“Would you like me to speak to him?”
She shook her head vehemently. “Please don’t.”
“I want to help you, Tessa.”
“I know. But you cannot.” She replaced her bonnet.
Tessa told no one about the sixth childuntil it slipped away from her. “As if I could keep a secret from God Himself,” she whispered to Joseph.
In February, when they stood alone before the six little headstones, Joseph read from Lamentations:
“He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, and not into light. … He hath broken me in pieces… He hath fed me with ashes. … The Lord is my portion, said my soul… It is good to wait in silence for the salvation of God.”
When Joseph had finished, Tessa responded: “In County Clare, a graveyard for unbaptized children is called aceallúnach. Suicides are buried there also. Theceallúnachnear my village, ’tis beside an ancient stone circle. As if unbaptized children and suicides are destined for some pagan after-life entirely apart from Heaven or Hell…”
“Tessa, you know thereisn’ta pagan after-life.”
“At least I could be with my children then, if I…”
Joseph drew in a sharp breath of cold air. Was Tessa saying she had contemplated?—
“I know I would be damned.” She wrapped her arms around her empty womb. “I know God created this body, that I have no right to despise or destroy it. But all my body has ever done is betray me—again and again and again.”
The most beautiful woman he had ever met despised her own body. “Suicide is not the solution, Tessa. Even this despair is a mortal sin. It means you do not trust our Lord, that you have not resigned yourself to His will. God wishes to purify you. Suffering is an invitation to holiness.”
He wasn’t sure Tessa was listening. “The Irish believe aceallúnachis a dangerous place—that anyone who steps upon the grave of an unbaptized child will be surrounded by darkness and become lost.”
“Surely there is a way to counteract the curse?” He was grasping now. “A second superstition to combat the first?”
“You must turn your coat inside-outwards. What if you’re not wearing a coat?”
She was wearing a fine brown cloak. Ridiculously, Joseph stepped toward her and undid the clasps. She stood like a statue; she did not protest or resist. He slipped the cloak from her shoulders, reversed it to expose the white silk lining, and draped it around her again. Anything to pull her out of this despair.
She drew it closed and offered him a wan smile.
At long last, he had more than superstition to offer her. “Tessa, are you familiar with the doctrine of Baptism by desire?”
“How can a child who hasn’t even been born desire Baptism?”
