New Ross, Co. Wexford, Ireland

July 4th, 1970

The sound of joyous, excited voices outside slipped through the glass panes of the window above my bed and invaded my ears. It didn't matter how intensely I tried to drain them out and focus on getting some sleep for the gruelling day ahead of me tomorrow, they bombarded me.

With a soft groan, I pushed myself to sit up and let out a slow breath through my lips before turning to peer out of the grimy window. A group of boys, not much older than myself, laughing and joking around, shoving each other playfully. One of them looked like my Tommy. Dark hair cut short, the slight limp in his step and too tall- too young to know how to wield those lanky limbs of his just yet. But I had found all of that attractive and appealing, had let that attraction lure me under a spell of romance and promises of love. Let it lead me down a rabbit hole that I knew there was no coming back from once you started on that journey.

Lead. I wasn't lead, I had sprinted down that rabbit hole, desperate to impress and be loved, worshipped by someone for the first time. Aching to gain that satisfaction of physical intimacy that I had heard so much about from my sister, but also the innate pleasure of feeling wanted and desired.

I was instantly jealous of those boys. How might it feel to be so carefree again? Any opportunity I might have had to have fun and explore what the world had to offer was gone now. This scenario one year previously would have garnered a completely different reaction from me. I was a different person then, I had a different life with a future and opportunities that I took for granted the way most people my age do.

As if to remind me of all the mistakes I'd made in the last year, I heard a demanding shriek from the room below and then the chorus of crying ensued. The voices outside weren't the only thing keeping me up. He didn't want to sleep. None of them did.

Tommy had wanted a boy. He had told me months beforehand that he had wanted a son although when that was said, we hadn't planned on it being so soon.

I also wanted a boy. I didn't want a daughter for the simple reason that I didn't want a girl having the life that I had. I didn't want to have to deal with girls and their behaviour, always getting into trouble, always the one to blame when something went wrong, always second best to her brothers. If I had to bear witness to that after living through it myself, I don't think my brain would be able to keep ticking over.

I wanted to soothe him with a stroke of my hand on his forehead, that little plague who had snuck his way into my body and had tormented me every day. It had been vile living inside me, like pacifying a cancerous tumour. But somehow I still loved him, no matter what the sisters said to me to try to make me hate him. It was unseemly and felt like committing a further sin to even associate myself with him.

It was a sin.

I had committed a sin with Tommy and that was why I was here.

With that reminder buzzing around my head, I hadn't even noticed that Catriona had crept over to my bed from her own across the room and only blinked when I felt the weight of her and the babe in her womb making a dip in the mattress.

"Val?" she whispered so softly I could barely hear her. "I thought you'd said the nightmares had stopped?"

"They did," I answered, equally as quiet. We couldn't risk being any louder or we'd get the belt. Pregnant or not, it wouldn't matter. Lights out was a sacred time here. I turned to her and took in her sharp features illuminated by the moonlight through the window. I continued, "I didn't have one, I just can't sleep very well tonight. I still haven't heard anything from Tommy. Do you think he's ignoring me on purpose?"

"Ah no Val... you and Tommy... you're the real deal, everyone in here knows that. And we all know the letters are checked before they come to us. And you know usually they're not acceptable and thrown away. For all we know, your Tommy could be writing every single day and it just might not be reaching you."

"I suppose-" I started and was suddenly cut off by whistling outside.

"Alright whores? I'm dying for a ride anyone up for it?" one of them hollered up towards the windows, followed by a loud symphony of cackles from his friends. "I heard sluts like you give the best head! Show us if it's true, yeah?"

"Bastards..." Catriona mumbled with a roll of her eyes. It was nice to see someone who hadn't lost their attitude in here, it was a rare occurrence. "They're probably all still virgins anyw-"

She cut off at the sound of footsteps from beyond the door to the room. Like a mouse, she scurried silently back to her assigned bed, trying not to let it squeak and groan as she climbed under the sheets. The footsteps were coming up the last couple of stairs into our room now. I gently and quickly lowered myself back down onto the bed the way I had been two minutes beforehand and turned my back to the door as the lock keeping it shut was opened. I stopped any shifting right as Sister Fionnuala infiltrated the room with bright light from the hallway. Even with my back to her, I could feel the hole she burned into the back of my skull with those penetrating, ice-cold eyes of hers.

She started slowly skulking into the room, each step echoing and encasing me in another layer of anxious sweat until I was drenched. I could hear her getting closer and almost taste the anxiety dripping from every pore of the girls she passed. The noise stopped at the end of my bed as I was inspected thoroughly, in detail, to be absolutely positive that I hadn't just been breaking multiple rules of the convent. I didn't have to look to know it was me that she glared at. Me, her favourite victim. She might have been the only person in this place who had hated the growth inside me more than I did, and I think that made her a nasty, old cow. It went against everything she supposedly believed in.

Once she was satisfied that I wasn't awake, the footsteps started again, going back in the direction they had come in. I let myself relax and hugged my arms around myself tightly, determined to get back to sleep.

"Valerie Fanning."

That cruel, menacing voice pierced through the silence and darkness like a bullet aimed directly at my heart.

She knew I was awake.

I was going to be punished, Lord above have mercy, I was going to be ripped apart and sewn back together again muscle by muscle - otherwise they would be down a worker which was unacceptable. Stupid, stupid girl! Looking out the window at boys! Carrying on the exact same way as what landed me in here in the first place!

Not letting the silence go on for too long out of pure terror, I slipped my feet out of the bed and into the standard slippers provided for every girl. I stood up quickly, avoiding further punishment by not being called twice, and slowly walked out of the room, passing by other girls who had also been awake or had just woken up either due to the bright light or Sister Fionnuala's loud, grating voice.

I didn't dare glance at the girls either side of the long walkway down the middle of the room, focused solely on leaving and keeping Sister Fionnuala as happy as possible.

Once I was out, the door was closed and the lock replaced, sounding out a loud click. The other girls wouldn't get the chance to escape this time. And they wouldn't risk it after Marie.

"Thought you could get away with it, did you?!" came Sister Fionnuala's booming voice, so loud the pipes all around them seemed to rattle. "Thought yourself smarter than the Lord's workers? A slut like you?!" The word slut slithered through my body like a venomous viper, a word we had all heard over and over again since we had been forced to come here.

Marie's sobs and pleas for mercy had died out around twenty minutes before and the only thing left coming out of her were whimpers and the occasional sob. She was on her knees, as though praying - maybe she truly was praying - bent over so much that her nose almost touched the floor. Her dark hair was sprawled out in front of her on the ground, Sister Fionnuala didn't even attempt to walk around it but in fact deliberately walked across it, stood on it for minutes at a time. Marie was completely bare from head to toe.

We had been gathered in a circle and Sister Rosalind had thrown Marie into the middle, completely naked and covered in bruises and cuts. We were told to be silent, to utter a single word would result in the same punishment as Marie.

"Let this be a lesson to all of you whores," the threat in Sister Roaslind's quiet voice was unmistakable. "No one is coming back for ye. There is no leaving. What lies within these walls is all the world that God has decided is left for ye. If you're not grateful for it... other arrangements can be made for you." Her eyes focused on me then, accusing me of being a troublemaker without even saying anything.

The sister's barren office was a place that held only bad memories for myself and all the previous girls who had spent any amount of time in here. I had been left in here on my own, well-trained enough to know not to move an inch from the rigid, wooden chair I sat on in the middle of the eerie room. The moonlight illuminated everything and cast creepy shadows across the rickety floor. Surely, it was well after midnight. Why was I here now?

Footsteps neared the door but I sat facing the nun's desk, unmoving. Unflinching.

The creak of the door signaled an arrival and I readied myself for a beating, a gruesome, drawn-out beating that would leave me sore and battered for at least a fortnight.

"Ms. Fanning," Sister Rosalind's voice came from the doorway. She stalked into the room like a demon from a horror story, almost as though she were savouring the moment that was to come. I know now that she was.

She was the head of the convent, even more fearsome than Sister Fionnuala. So fearsome, in fact, that she didn't carry out the dirty work of beating girls. If you dealt with Sister Rosalind, you'd know that God wasn't real - he wouldn't allow a sinister creature like her work under his righteous hand.

"Yes, sister," I answered hoarsely, praying for whatever was coming to be over quickly.

"I have just received word from the States," she said cheerfully. Her smile was almost feral. "And you will be delighted to know that your lovely, bouncing baby boy has been adopted by a fabulous Catholic couple from Maine."

My heart felt like a mosaic, cracked into tiny shards and cutting me up from the inside out. This was a nightmare. It wasn't real. It couldn't be.

"He will be going and you," she leaned in close to me, so close I could smell her pungent breath full of all of the delicious food we were deprived of, us whores. "You will be staying here. Forever."

I couldn't help it, I couldn't resist the urge to shake my head, denying the inevitable, denying the taking of my son, denying and denying and denying.

"Yes," she crooned, enjoying watching the horror spread over my face. "But you need to focus on the positives, my dear. One less baby crying from under you during the night and keeping you girls up! Doesn't that sound delightful?"

"No, sister," I said in a shaky voice, silver tears streaking my dry skin and tap-tap-tapping down onto my hands that clenched together on my lap. "Please, no..."

"Quiet!" she snapped and gave me a solid smack across the head. "You will not mourn this loss. Your filthy sin is not worth mourning you stupid girl."

Then I knew why she didn't resort to violence often. Her weapon was this. Thievery and torture of the mind, ensuring the girls who gave birth here would never feel happiness again. That was her game. And she was an expert at it.

The moon was back again the following night, filtering in through the curtainless windows almost as bright as the sun. I couldn't sleep again. The day had been laborious and draining with the added weight of what I knew was to happen in a few days. That couple would arrive in Ireland and leave again with my whole world in their arms. My heart already felt empty.

A tap at the window and I was alert.

Another.

And another.

I sat up carefully and peered outside, expecting to see another group of boys similar to the previous night but instead, I saw hope.

Tommy Quigley, my Tommy, had come for me and was there waving up to me with such vigour, I knew I had to get to him. I had to be with him. Us and our boy. We needed to be together.

Without a second thought I wrapped my fist in my day clothes and punched the glass, dismissing any leftover shards until the window was clear. It seemed like such an easy escape, it was a wonder no one had tried it before. Then again, none of the girls had family to go back to. Their families are the ones who had brought them here. But I had Tommy.

Below the window was grass, I could land easily. Maybe I would get a small injury but that was worth it. It would all be worth it to get out of here with Tommy and our boy. And so... I jumped.

I fell through the air with the grace of a wilting balloon and landed heavily on top of Tommy with outstretched arms and then we both tipped over onto the grass. No broken bones. Pain, yes, but no breaks.

All I wanted was to kiss him madly but there was a third person to consider.

"We need to get James," I said breathlessly before we'd fully stood up again.

"Where is he?" Tommy asked, his voice deeper than it had been six months ago, the last time I'd seen him.

I pointed to the window next to us. They were kept in the room below us so we'd hear their wailing and be tortured knowing we couldn't comfort them. "His label is 'Fanning baby'," I recalled from the few weeks I'd been allowed to nurse him.

Tommy copied my technique to break into the window to the babies' room and entered swiftly. I stood there in a panic, knowing the sisters were surely aware something was going on by now. Sure enough, I was correct.

"Ms. Fanning, you horrid, filthy slut!" came Sister Fionnuala's screeching voice from the shattered upstairs window. "Get back inside now before the guards catch you or worse, your father!"

The man who'd put me in there in the first place. Fat chance.

Tommy reappeared with a tiny bundle in his hands, our James only seven weeks old. He was a miniature of Tommy in every way.

"The babies!" shrieked the sister from above. "They're taking the babies!"

And so, we ran. And ran, and ran, and ran. My mind filled with nightmares of my father catching me and killing me for humiliating him twice, a threat he'd already promised before throwing me in with the cruel nuns. Another nightmare where James didn't survive and all the running would be for nothing, for what would myself and Tommy be without our James to pull us together. Where would we go? What would we do? We were running for James, to keep him out of the grips of the American family and to stay with us where he belonged.

So we would run and keep running.

We ran on foot and hitched rides in cars and bought tickets for buses out of Tommy's savings until we managed to get to the port in Dublin a day later.

The air was tinged with the reek of fish and brine. Everywhere I turned and everyone I spied was a threat until I got on that boat to London. Then I would be free again, as free as a bird on the wind.

Tommy must have sensed my anxiousness in the air because he turned to me and kissed my forehead softly. "Stop worrying girl," he whispered and held up his left hand. "We're a perfectly respectable married couple from Kilkenny. I'm Joseph Farrell, and you're my wife, Rose Farrell. This is our son, Michael." He repeated the mantra we'd said to ourselves over and over in the last few days. We could get to London. We would be safe.

We boarded a ship not long after this and I finally let go of the tension and fear. I let go of Valerie Fanning and her sins and disappointments, leaving her behind to keep running, or to drown somewhere in the Irish Sea. There would be no more running or hiding, only living.