Looking for Jane

It is January of 2017 in Toronto, Canada. Angela is late for work. She is a manager at Thompson’s Antiques and Used Books, which Angela’s aunt owns. Angela overslept after a night of drinking with her friends. She reflects that she hasn’t been able to drink much recently because she and her wife, Tina, are trying to have a baby. Angela has had multiple rounds of fertility treatments and had a miscarriage not too long ago. She is feeling the grief and stress of that experience and mentally preparing for another round of fertility treatments.

It is a quiet Sunday in the shop, and Angela finds a marble box stashed in one of the antique dressers. Inside is a stack of old mail. One of the letters is still sealed in its envelope, although the glue on the flap is coming loose. Angela notices the return addressee, Mrs. Frances Mitchell, and also notices that the letter was addressed to someone named Nancy Mitchell; however, the address is the shop’s address. Angela decides to open the letter, which she learns Frances wrote before she died and asked her lawyer to mail after her funeral. She wrote the letter to tell Nancy that she was adopted and to pass along a small note from Nancy’s birth mother. Angela was also adopted, so she feels empathy for the situation even though Nancy is a stranger.

Angela reads the whole letter, which also reveals that the Mitchells were misled about Nancy’s birth mother: “[Y]our father and I discovered that you were not given up for adoption willingly and with a full heart, as we had been told. We were lied to, Nancy. And we, in turn, have lied to you” (12). The letter explains that the Mitchells later learned that Nancy’s birth mother was named Margaret Roberts and that she was forced to give her child up for adoption while she was staying at St. Agnes’s Home for Unwed Mothers. In the letter’s envelope, Angela finds a note that Margaret wrote for her baby and hid in a pair of yellow booties that she had knitted.

It is October of 1960 in Toronto. Evelyn’s father is dropping her off in front of St. Agnes’s Home for Unwed Mothers because she is pregnant. He is cold and distant when they say goodbye. Sister Teresa, the warden at St. Agnes’s, answers the door and asks a series of blunt, unkind questions about how Evelyn got pregnant. Even though the building is beautiful and full of religious symbols, Evelyn feels intimidated and unwelcome.

Evelyn explains that she became pregnant after having sex with her fiancé, who died shortly thereafter from a heart attack. The warden makes it clear that even in those circumstances, Evelyn’s behavior is viewed as shameful: “I’m sure you have been told that intercourse while engaged is still intercourse outside of marriage” (19). Sister Teresa tells Evelyn the very strict rules for the home: She can only use her first name and cannot talk about her family or her past with the other “inmates.” She cannot leave the home, and all her mail will be monitored. She will have to give her baby up for adoption and will stay in the home for three months after giving birth to “work off [her] debt” (21).

It is the summer of 1979 in Toronto, Canada, and Nancy is sneaking out of her parents’ house to meet her cousin, Clara. Clara has asked Nancy to come with her as Clara gets an abortion. Clara’s boyfriend “has a temper like napalm” (25), so she is too afraid to tell him that she’s pregnant. Because abortion is illegal and she does not want to continue the pregnancy, her only option is to seek out underground abortion services. Nancy and Clara take the subway to an unfamiliar neighborhood and go to a basement apartment where a man gives Clara her abortion. Reflecting on the man’s harsh demeanor, Nancy thinks, “There will be no dignity in this experience” (29). The procedure is painful; the man blasts his stereo to hide Clara’s screams.

Clara faints on the subway ride home, and Nancy notices that she is sitting in a pool of blood. Nancy rushes her cousin to the hospital, where a male doctor questions Nancy about their potential illegal behavior. Later, a female doctor tells Nancy that Clara is lucky to be alive and assures Nancy that she won’t call the police. The doctor tells Nancy that in the future, she or her friends should call doctors’ offices and “ask for Jane” if they need abortion services (37).

It is now late fall, and Evelyn has been at St. Agnes’s for a few weeks. Even though it is forbidden, she has become close friends with her roommate, Margaret Roberts, who goes by the nickname Maggie. Maggie arrived at the home a day after Evelyn, and her baby is due just after Evelyn’s is. The two roommates cuddle at night to keep each other warm and to comfort each other as they hear the sounds of other women crying. Evelyn tells Maggie that she wants to go to medical school and become a doctor. They share secrets with each other that they can’t tell anyone else.

Angela returns home from work after finding the letter in the antique shop. The apartment that she shares with her wife, Tina, is warm and welcoming, full of bright colors and delicious smells of cooking dinner. Angela tells Tina about the letter and gives it to Tina to read. Angela wants to find Nancy and give her the letter. Tina isn’t confident that’s a good idea; she thinks it will be better for everyone to let the secret stay in the past.

After dinner, Angela sits in the nursery that she and Tina have prepared in the hopes of a baby and thinks about their conversation. Angela’s experiences as an adopted person and as someone trying to get pregnant make it hard for her to leave the letter alone. She searches on Facebook for people named Nancy Mitchell. She sends messages to the ones who seem to be the right age and who live in the Toronto area. She gets a few responses back right away, but none of the responders recognize the name of Thompson’s Antiques and Used Books.

Christmas at St. Agnes’s is hard for Evelyn and the other pregnant women living at the home. The focus on the baby Jesus and his virgin mother stirs up painful thoughts. By March, Evelyn has only a few weeks left in her pregnancy. She feels tired and sore as she does her chores. She is sweeping near the warden’s office when she overhears a conversation between Sister Teresa and their priest, Father Leclerc. They are talking about raising the prices that they charge families to adopt the babies who are born to the mothers in the home.

Evelyn is shocked to hear that the Church and the home are in effect selling babies. She races upstairs and bumps into Sister Agatha, the kindest of the nuns. Sister Agatha and Maggie try to comfort Evelyn, who confronts the nun, asking her if she knew that they were “selling the babies. Like puppies form a kennel” (64). Sister Agatha claims that she did not know.

Evelyn tells Maggie that they need to figure out a way to escape. Maggie responds by saying they have nowhere to go. Evelyn visits the warden the next day, hoping to persuade the warden to allow Evelyn’s brother and his wife to adopt her child. Sister Teresa, whom Evelyn and Maggie have nicknamed “The Watchdog,” implies that Evelyn’s brother must not be interested since he hasn’t responded to her letters. However, Evelyn notices one of her letters in a pile of papers on the warden’s desk.

Evelyn and Maggie share a rare relaxing evening sitting by the fire. Maggie is knitting a pair of yellow booties. They suspect that their letters are not being sent. Maggie reveals that she became pregnant after her parents’ friend raped her. Her parents did not believe her. Evelyn talks about escaping again, but Maggie repeats that she doesn’t have anywhere to go.

In the spring of 1980, Nancy visits her grandmother in the nursing home. Nancy is close to her grandmother and likes hearing her stories about the past. Today, her grandmother slips up when she is telling a story about Nancy’s parents, saying, “I think that was right around the time they got you” (73). Nancy notices her grandmother’s use of the word “got” and asks about it. Grandmama brushes it off, but Nancy is suspicious.

Three days later, Nancy visits her parents’ house. When her parents leave, she sneaks up to their room to search the drawer where she knows her mother keeps special or important things. She finds a small leather case with a lock on it. She guesses the combination by entering her birthdate.

Evelyn is in labor. The nuns put her in a taxi to the hospital. The cab driver is kind and empathetic, in stark contrast to the harsh way the nuns treated her as they sent her to the hospital. Evelyn is frightened because she doesn’t know what to expect; no one has prepared her for giving birth.

At the hospital, a nurse takes Evelyn to a room that looks like a storage closet with a bed in it. She is left alone for hours while her contractions come and go. She is lonely and afraid. After the baby is born, the doctor makes Evelyn sign some papers before he lets her hold her daughter. Evelyn and her baby girl stay in the hospital for about a week. One of the nurses is kind to her, and she has some moments of peace as she bonds with her baby and reads a novel one of the other mothers left. Still, she feels very alone when she compares herself to the people in the maternity ward who have the support of partners and family. She is hurt and upset when she overhears some men talking about her baby, who doesn’t have a nametag like all the others. One remarks, “It’s just where they put the whores’ babies […] They get adopted, so no sense putting a name” (95).

Inside the box hidden in her parents’ bedroom, Nancy discovers a pair of yellow knitted baby booties. Tucked in one of the booties, she finds a note addressed to “Jane” from Margaret Roberts: “I am your mother. I love you. I did not want to give you up” (97).

Nancy is full of conflicting emotions, wondering why her adoptive parents kept this secret, wondering if she should confront them, and wondering what circumstances forced her birth mother to give her up. She also wonders if her birth mother has ever tried to find her. Nancy decides to wait to say anything to her adoptive parents.

Evelyn is back at St. Agnes’s and in “The Goodbye Room,” where the young mothers say goodbye to their babies before the babies are given up for adoption. Sister Teresa slaps her to make her stop crying and forces her to sign more papers, giving up her right to contact the child in the future.

Maggie is allowed to be in the room with Evelyn because her baby has already been adopted. Maggie gives Evelyn some paper and a pen and encourages her to write a note for her little girl, telling her that she hid a note in the booties for her baby. The time goes by quickly, and Evelyn is distraught after Sister Agatha comes to take the baby away.

Evelyn is depressed after losing her baby and comments on how strong Maggie is compared to her. Maggie tries to get her to see hope for the future. Two weeks go by, and Evelyn gets a moment to speak to Sister Agatha alone. She asks for news of her baby. Sister Agatha tells Evelyn that her baby died.

Angela is still trying to find Nancy Mitchell to pass on her letter. While she and Tina are on their way to a fertility appointment, Angela remembers visiting an abortion clinic to treat one of her miscarriages. There were pro-life protestors around the clinic, expressing their disagreement with abortion and holding signs that said things like “Abortion is murder” (118). Angela remembers yelling at the protestors, telling them that she wished she were still pregnant. During her current appointment, she tries to stay positive as she thinks about all the stress, frustration, and sadness that she and Tina experience each time a pregnancy fails.

At work a few weeks later, Angela is unpacking a shipment of antique books for the shop. She finds a book by Dr. Evelyn Taylor titled The Jane Network. It is a nonfiction book about the history of women’s reproductive options and the movement to legalize abortion.