Mary Beth leaves the convent and begins an independent life

Maribeth Robertson’s departure from the Sisters of Charity convent is the turning point at which a plan imposed on her becomes a life she begins to direct herself. At sixteen, pregnant and separated from her family, she refuses to spend the months before the birth in isolation while others determine what comes next. She leaves with her savings, travels toward Chicago, and makes a home through work, study, and new relationships. The independence she claims is incomplete and costly, but it becomes the ground from which she later makes a different, personal adoption choice and pursues an education.

Confinement and the decision to leave

Maribeth enters the Sisters of Charity convent after her father, Bert Robertson, tells her she must go away, forbids her from telling her younger sister Noelle the truth, and promises that she will return in six months. Although her mother is distressed, Bert has already arranged the placement and given Maribeth money for it. The convent’s rules and the secrecy surrounding the girls’ pregnancies make the separation feel less like help than punishment. Maribeth is sixteen, newly cut off from her family, and made to carry the consequences of her pregnancy alone.

The other residents show her what the expected process entails. One girl gives birth soon after Maribeth arrives, and her baby is taken to waiting adoptive parents before she has even seen her. Another, a fifteen-year-old whose pregnancy followed abuse by her uncle, is taken to hospital for a cesarean delivery; afterward, Maribeth is told that neither the girl nor her baby will return. When both girls are gone, Maribeth is left among the nuns without anyone her own age to talk to. The convent’s isolation is reinforced by its treatment of pregnancy as a secret to be hidden, and the prospect of waiting there for her baby to be born and then taken away becomes unbearable.

Two weeks after arriving, Maribeth reads in the local newspaper that Paul Browne and Debbie have married. The notice sharpens her sense that she is bearing the consequences of their encounter alone: Paul has gone on with his life, while she is expected to remain in the convent. She has paid the nuns one hundred dollars and has seven hundred dollars left, but money is not the only resource she needs. She wants ordinary contact with people, a job, and the chance to live as a person rather than wait in seclusion. She tells the Mother Superior that she plans to visit an aunt, whether or not the explanation is believed, and decides that nothing will keep her there.

Leaving and making a new start

At dawn the next day, Maribeth walks out carrying her money and a small bag. She cannot return home, but leaving changes her sense of what remains possible: the world beyond her hometown is open for her to explore. She goes to the bus station and buys an open-ended ticket toward Chicago, the farthest destination she can imagine. The route passes through Omaha, and she can refund the unused portion of the ticket along the way. Before leaving, she sends postcards to her mother and Noelle, promising to provide an address once she has one. Her departure is a break from the family’s arrangement, but not a rejection of the people she still misses.

Maribeth is three and a half months pregnant, with no visible sign yet, and understands that she will need a safe place to live and a way to support herself. She considers work as a house cleaner, library worker, babysitter, or waitress, and still has the money Bert gave her for the convent. On the way toward Chicago, she stops for dinner in a lively college town. A sign in a restaurant window advertises work for waitresses and busboys. Though she is uncertain how the staff will respond, she turns back to ask about the opening rather than simply continue her journey.

Julie, the waitress who speaks with her, offers both employment and an immediate place to stay. Maribeth says she has nowhere to live but can find a room and start work the next day. Julie invites her to sleep in her son’s room, explains that she is divorced and raising her children, and gives Maribeth a practical example of the difficult, independent life she has made. By the following day, Maribeth has found a small, sunlit room decorated in pink chintz, six blocks from Jimmy D’s, where she is to work. The combination of a room and a job makes the town feel like somewhere she might belong.

At Jimmy D’s, Maribeth begins waiting tables in a pink uniform and white apron. The people at work are friendly, and the restaurant’s owner, Jimmy, appreciates her effort and manner with customers. To explain her circumstances, she lets others believe that she is a widow; the story is accepted. The job gives her immediate income and a daily place among other people, while the room gives her a stable address. Once she has settled, she sends her parents a postcard with that address, preserving a line of contact even as she remains away from home.

Independence joined to study and friendship

The new start does not mean Maribeth has abandoned her plans for a future beyond the pregnancy. After work leaves her exhausted, she thinks about borrowing books from the library and continuing her studies. She treats these months as a detour, not the end of her education, and resolves not to let her circumstances determine the direction of her whole life. This insistence on study becomes more than private hope: it is a practical project she and Tommy Whittaker later undertake together.

Maribeth and Tommy are both sixteen, their birthdays only weeks apart, but their circumstances differ sharply. Tommy still has a family and expects to return to school; Maribeth has been separated from hers and is expecting a baby in less than five months. Their friendship grows through regular visits, conversation, and shared time, while Maribeth remains guarded about the pregnancy and its consequences. Her past experience with Paul makes her wary of becoming pregnant again, and she does not want to rush her relationship with Tommy. Their closeness develops within those limits rather than erasing them.

When school resumes, Tommy’s schedule makes it harder for him to see Maribeth: he has classes, sports, and a paper route. Even so, he finds a way to help her continue learning. He copies the curriculum, lends her his books, and works through assignments with her at her room or at Jimmy’s. Maribeth completes the same work as the students in her former school, keeping her papers and staying abreast of the semester. Tommy realizes that she is an exceptionally strong student, in some subjects stronger than he is. The arrangement turns her earlier determination to keep studying into a shared, sustained effort.

From a general plan to a personal decision

At first, Maribeth expects to give the baby up through an arrangement made for her. The objects her coworkers gather before she leaves the restaurant make that prospect newly concrete. Julie organizes a small shower, and the staff give her knitted clothes, a blanket with ducks, a teddy bear, toys, diapers, and a high chair. Their kindness moves her, but the gifts also make her imagine the child as someone who will use these things. She realizes that she will not see the baby wear the clothes or sit in the chair, and that the child will have neither a father nor a mother in the ordinary sense of those roles. The imagined future makes her ask Avery MacLean how his search for adoptive parents is going.

The possibilities he describes do not settle the matter. One prospective father has acknowledged a drinking problem; another couple has just discovered that they are expecting a child of their own; and the third family has not yet been approached. With only two weeks remaining, Maribeth does not want to take the baby home and then give the child away, and she cannot imagine bringing a baby to the Whittakers as an imposition. The uncertainty prompts a more personal choice. After thinking it through, she tells Liz that she wants Liz and John to adopt the baby. She makes the request directly, then confirms that she means both of them, turning adoption from an abstract arrangement into a decision about who will raise her child.

Adoption, grief, and a future beyond the convent

After the baby is born, Liz and John assure Maribeth that they will understand if she changes her mind. She remains certain that adoption is right for the child, even though she is sad to give the baby up. John contacts his attorney, and the papers are explained to Maribeth in detail. Three days after the birth, she signs them with a shaking hand and waives the waiting period. She then embraces Liz, and the family asks the nurse not to bring the baby to her that day because Maribeth needs time to mourn.

The following day at home, the separation is present in small, painful decisions. Liz carries the baby to the car while John takes photographs. When the baby cries, Liz goes to her, and Maribeth tries not to respond. Maribeth knows that she must establish distance if she is to leave the role of mother to Liz; she understands that the child will have a lasting place in her heart, but she will not be the one who tends her at night or cares for her when she is ill. The arrangement also includes a boundary around the child’s understanding: the Whittakers and Maribeth have agreed that Kate will initially know Maribeth as their friend, not as her biological mother, with the possibility that she may learn the truth when she is older.

The adoption does not restore Maribeth’s old family life or make leaving easy. Instead, Liz and John offer a material path toward the future she has tried to protect: money set aside for Annie Whittaker’s education will fund Maribeth’s college education. Their plan is for her to return home, finish school in the spring, and then choose where to study; she may also come back and stay with them. Liz acknowledges that Bert may be difficult, but believes he would like Maribeth to return. Maribeth admits that she hates the thought of going home, while Tommy promises to visit as often as he can. Her departure from the convent therefore does not end with uncomplicated freedom. It begins a longer effort to balance grief, family separation, responsibility for Kate, education, and the possibility of a future she can shape herself.