Maribeth is sent to the Sisters of Charity after her father discovers her pregnancy, in a family rupture that turns an adoption plan into a period of enforced separation. The episode exposes the pressure of her father’s ideas about women, respectability, and family reputation, while beginning the difficult path toward an adoption decision that Maribeth ultimately makes for herself: asking Liz and John to raise her daughter, Kate.

Family Expectations and the Disclosure

Bert Robertson’s response is shaped by a settled conviction that a woman’s proper future lies in marriage, children, and care for a household. He tolerates education only within limits and imagines that Maribeth might study bookkeeping to help his business, not pursue the professions or college. Though he considers her a good girl, he views her modern ideas about women’s opportunities as a source of trouble. That outlook makes her pregnancy more than a private crisis in his eyes: it threatens the order and reputation he expects his daughters to preserve.

Maribeth has been trying to decide how to tell her parents when Ryan tells Bert first. Bert comes home in a rage, brings Maribeth into the living room, and calls for Margaret. He demands to know who fathered the baby, but Maribeth refuses to identify Paul Browne. She explains that Paul does not love her and that she does not love him; she would rather have the baby and arrange an adoption than begin life tied to a man who is marrying someone else.

Her initial position is not that the choice feels easy. Maribeth suggests adoption but leaves open the possibility that she might keep the baby. Bert rejects that uncertainty: she cannot remain at home with the child, and he will not accept the baby as part of the household. When Maribeth says she is sixteen, cannot provide for a child, and still wants a life of her own, she makes clear that the decision concerns both the baby’s prospects and her own future. Bert answers by directing her to have the baby and give it up for adoption.

The Banishment and the Convent

Bert’s decision includes a ban on contact as well as a place to stay. He tells Maribeth to go to the Sisters of Charity, surrender the baby, and return afterward, but not to see Margaret or Noelle until then. He has already called the family doctor and the convent; eight hundred dollars will cover six months of room and board, expenses, and the delivery. The convent assures him that a doctor and midwife will attend the birth in its infirmary and that the baby will be placed with an adoptive family. The arrangement is made before Maribeth leaves, but its terms are determined by her father and presented as punishment for what he regards as a family disgrace.

The separation is especially painful because Maribeth must conceal its cause from Noelle. She tells her younger sister that she is going away to a special school, a lie Bert has instructed her to use. Noelle, who depends on Maribeth as the person she can confide in, clings to her and begs her not to leave. The sisters cry through the night and sleep together in one narrow bed. In the morning, Margaret embraces Maribeth, but she does not challenge Bert’s decision. At nine o’clock he puts Maribeth’s bag in his truck and takes her away. He does not turn back when she says she loves him; he only raises a hand as he drives off.

At the convent, the young nun who admits her takes her bag inside and closes the heavy iron door behind them. The Sisters of Charity is a large, dark, and gloomy place, where Maribeth soon learns that two other girls have been sent for the same reason. One is seventeen and gives birth to a girl on Maribeth’s second day; the baby is quickly taken to waiting adoptive parents, and the mother does not see her. Maribeth regards the process as a hidden, harsh transaction, as though the girls’ circumstances must be kept out of sight.

The other girl is fifteen and expecting a baby fathered by her uncle. Maribeth hears her labor continue for two days before she is taken to a hospital and gives birth by cesarean section. The baby is born safely, but the girl does not return. After both other girls are gone, Maribeth is left alone with the sisters and hopes that more girls will arrive so she will have someone to talk to. Their departures and the secrecy surrounding the babies make the convent’s adoption process concrete to her, rather than an abstract plan arranged by her father.

Leaving, Working, and Reconsidering Adoption

Maribeth eventually leaves the convent after a few weeks, unable to bear the depressing conditions. She takes a bus intending to reach Chicago, but stops for dinner in a town where she sees a job notice in Jimmy D’s window. She gets off the bus and takes work at the restaurant. Later, she explains to Tommy that her father expected her to return home after Christmas and after the baby was born, then go back to school; even she hears how bleak that plan sounds.

Work gives her a precarious but real foothold. Julie, a waitress at Jimmy D’s, lets Maribeth stay overnight and puts her to work clearing tables. Maribeth learns by doing exhausting shifts and, soon afterward, starts taking orders in a pink uniform and white apron. She says nothing about being unmarried, and the other workers believe she is a widow. Once she has found both a job and a room, she can continue her studies with library books. She treats the months as a detour rather than the end of her education, and remains determined not to lose her direction.

The practical question of adoption remains unresolved. Maribeth tells Tommy she wants to find a family that truly wants the baby; she is sixteen, has little money, and hopes to return to school and attend college. She does not believe she can support a child, and does not want to become a parent now. Yet feeling the baby move makes the decision harder, and she admits that she is uncertain. Julie’s account of raising children without reliable family help adds another perspective: care requires money, time, and other people’s support, and much of the burden falls on the parent. Maribeth listens closely, but does not disclose her pregnancy to Julie.

As her delivery approaches, Liz advises her to stop working before the end and rest for a couple of weeks; Liz has also arranged for her to take exams in mid-December. The advice reflects both the demands of pregnancy and Liz’s investment in Maribeth’s education. Their growing attachment later gives Maribeth a possible source of care beyond the adoption plan made at the convent.

On her last day at the restaurant, Julie organizes a small baby shower. The staff give Maribeth knitted booties and a sweater set, a blanket decorated with little ducks, a teddy bear, toys, diapers, and a high chair bought by Jimmy. The gifts bring the approaching separation into focus: Maribeth realizes that she will not see her child use them. Their tenderness makes the baby feel newly real, and prompts her to call Dr. MacLean to ask about prospective adoptive parents. He has considered three couples, but one father has a drinking problem, another couple has learned they can conceive, and he has not yet spoken with the third. With only two weeks remaining, Maribeth does not want to take the baby home and give her up later.

A New Adoption Arrangement and Its Aftermath

Maribeth’s decision shifts from the convent’s general arrangement to a request directed to people she knows. In the Whittaker living room, near Annie’s Christmas decorations, she tells Liz that she wants to give her the baby. She then makes the request explicit: she wants Liz and John to adopt the child. The setting links the proposal to the Whittaker family’s continuing grief for Annie, but the decision is also rooted in the relationship Maribeth has built with Liz and in her wish to place the baby with people she trusts.

After Kate is born, Liz and John tell Maribeth they will understand if she has changed her mind. Maribeth remains firm that she does not want to keep the baby, though she is sad to surrender her. John calls his attorney, and an adoption lawyer explains the papers to her. Three days after Kate’s birth, Maribeth signs with a shaking hand and waives the waiting period. She hugs Liz, and the nurse is asked not to bring the baby to her that day; Maribeth needs time to mourn.

The next day, Liz carries Kate to the car while John takes pictures. At home, when Kate cries, Liz goes to her and Maribeth tries not to respond. Maribeth understands that she must create distance: she will not be the person who comforts Kate in the night, cares for her when she is ill, or reads to her. She believes that, if their lives remain connected, she and Kate may someday be friends, but that Liz is already Kate’s mother. The adoption therefore gives the child a home while requiring Maribeth to relinquish the daily work and recognized role of motherhood; her grief is present even as she believes the choice is right for Kate.

The arrangement also has a future built around partial disclosure. Maribeth, Liz, and John agree that Kate will be told Maribeth is their friend, not her biological mother; perhaps the truth will be shared when Kate is grown, if she needs to know. Soon after, John offers Maribeth the money set aside for Annie’s education so she can attend college. He and Bert have discussed her return home to finish school, and the Whittakers invite her to come back and stay with them later. Maribeth hates the thought of returning to her father, but the offer gives her an educational path her own family’s expectations had restricted. The episode ends not with the end of her independence, but with a painful separation accompanied by new possibilities: Kate is adopted by the Whittakers, and Maribeth can continue her schooling and consider a life beyond the role Bert had prescribed for her.