Summary:

It is Dublin in late autumn 1918, the waning days of World War I, and nurse-midwife Julia Power is suddenly thrust into the task of managing a small ward of heavily pregnant women who have contracted the deadly influenza. Having survived influenza herself, she does not fear infection, but she worries about her lack of experience. She also worries about her shell-shocked brother with whom she shares a home. 

Two people appear to help: the intelligent but uneducated young volunteer Bridie Sweeney raised in an institution; and the legendary woman doctor Kathleen Lynn –who quietly reveals her competence and skill, even as authorities are lurking to arrest her.  

Over the course of just a few days, they encounter recalcitrant mothers, complicated deliveries, battered wives, stillbirths, and deaths. Influenza adds special dangers to the natural event, but some patients survive their ordeal. 

Although Bridie was to help for just one day, she learns quickly and returns. Julia is impressed by her diligence and drawn ever closer to her kindness and earthy wisdom. They pass a night together sharing confidences, and Julia begins to understand the physical and emotional mistreatment that Bridie suffered in the care of nuns. Their embrace awakens in Julia a yearning she had never imagined. But only hours later Bridie falls ill and succumbs rapidly to the deadly infection.

When an unwed mother suddenly dies after giving birth to a deformed child, Julia is horrified that the baby must be placed in an institution. Instead, she takes the baby home to an uncertain future but sparing the child the same horrors that Bridie once suffered. 

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Summary:

In 1849, Jane Johnson is on a ship headed for Quebec City with her two children. She has had a relatively uneventful crossing – only one old man died and a child was stillborn. She cannot wait to be reunited with her husband Henry. Having left a year earlier, he is waiting for her eagerly. They both now think that they should not have separated. They each clutch the handful of barely literate letters. She has sternly told him that he must be at the ship to greet them. Fully intending to be there, he suddenly falls ill with uncontrollable vomiting and diarrhea and is dragged to a hospital. It is cholera and he realizes that he will die without seeing his little family again. As the boat docks, she thinks she sees him in the crowd.

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Summary:

In 1877, the widowed Sarah Bell writes to the New York Children’s Aid Society to explain that poverty has driven her to leave her daughter Lily May in its care. Mr Bassett writes to the same office that he and his wife would like to adopt a little girl. They are given Lily May and change the baby’s name to Mabel.

Over the years, Sarah keeps writing to ask for news of her child; when she remarries she begs to have her daughter back. With evident alarm, the Bassetts tell of the good care they have given the girl; they love her and will not relinquish her. Lily/Mabel has no idea that she is adopted and will never be told.

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