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It was alway cold in the orphanage. Even during the hot Gotham summers when the cesspool sweltered, there always seemed to be a draft at night. It was as if the vengeful Lord was laughing and saying, “You will never know comfort. The sun will never shine upon you.”
If the summer nights were bad, the winters were agony. During the day the children would scurry outside like rats, trying to soak up any warmth blocked out by the building’s stone walls. But on the rare days when sunlight streamed into the yard, Edward always felt the chill.
That kind of cold cannot be combated by heat alone. It settles down into your bones and makes you feel as if you are freezing from the inside out. You are no longer a mammal; you become cold-blooded, in more ways than one.
With the temperature of a snake or a shark, you develop their temperament too. If you are not a predator, you are prey.
Edward found that out the hard way, back when he was soft little Eddie. The kindness he showed was met with distrust and ridicule, and the kindness he was shown usually concealed an ulterior motive.
No one wanted to be friends with the boy they called Ed-weird (even orphans were unoriginal when it came to insults), and so he avoided the other children.
Some seemed just as lonely as he was, but experience taught him that the lonely ones were all the more desperate. They were all drowning, and would push each other under to stay afloat.
So when a pregnant teenager showed up at the orphanage, Edward kept his distance. The girl was maybe two or three years older than him. A child bearing a child. The thought turned Edward’s stomach.
The nuns, of course, would not allow her to consider abortion; though it was never said aloud, the implicit threat was that they would throw her back out on the streets if she tried to terminate the pregnancy.
Over the months, Edward watched in horror and sympathy as the girl’s stomach swelled. Each night he heard her cry herself to sleep, and each night he pretended not to hear it.
The other children avoided her as well. Half of them still didn’t know where babies came from, and were worried it might be contagious.
The rest simply did not want to be involved, even to torment the girl. Their cruelty had a limit. After all, what damage could a few children do to someone already being tortured by God?
And so she went through it alone. Some of the more tender-hearted sisters tried to sneak her a little extra food, but it was not enough for even the fetus, let alone the girl. There was no money for doctor’s appointments or prenatal care.
Under such conditions, it was unsurprising to Edward that the pregnancy resulted in a stillbirth. “Born sleeping,” the nuns told each other in hushed tones. The girl’s wails had echoed through the corridors.
Even in a shrine to heartbreak like the Gotham Orphanage, Edward had never heard such a sound. It pierced his soul, shook him down to his core. Some dark part of him had expected the girl to be relieved of such a burden.
But when he snuck into the infirmary where she lay weeping hours later, he could see how she had grown to love the baby that never took a breath. He knew he was intruding on something private, but he couldn’t help himself. He wanted to offer the girl some comfort, but what did you say to someone who lost their child?
Lost in thought, he accidentally bumped into the medical cart. The girl shot up as the instruments atop it clattered to the floor.
“Who’s there?” she asked, panic evident in her voice. He considered turning tail and running — she’d never even know it was him. But something compelled him to answer.
“Me. Uh, Edward. Nashton.” He stood up straight and gave his full name, realizing he’d never actually introduced himself before. “I heard what happened and I… I wanted to see if you were alright.”
“No,” she sniffled, both devastated and mortified that one of her peers was seeing her at her lowest. “I’m not fucking alright.”
“No, of course not,” he said quickly, cheeks flushing as he sat in the chair next to her cot. Then, softer, “I’m sorry about your baby.”
The girl was silent for a moment and then let out a soft whine. “They won’t let me bury him in the cemetery. He died before he could be baptized and they- they said he-”
She began hyperventilating, chest seizing in panic. It was this that made Edward grasp her hand, rubbing the back soothingly with his thumb. It was the most physical interaction he had in years and though it overwhelmed him a bit, he knew when she squeezed his hand that he wouldn’t let go until she was ready.
When steadied herself, she rushed through the rest of the sentence as quickly as possible before bursting into tears again. “They said he was damned.”
A wave of revulsion and anger towards the nuns — hell, towards Catholicism in general — washed over Edward.
“That’s not true,” he assured her quickly, trying to maintain his calm when such strong emotions threatened to overtake him. “That’s not true at all. He was just a baby, he didn’t do anything wrong.”
“He didn’t do anything wrong,” she repeated with a whimper, as if trying to convince herself. “He didn’t even have a chance.”
She clung to Edward’s arm as she bawled, and he gingerly placed his other hand on her back and rubbed calming circles into it — the way he had always imagined a parent would. They stayed like that for a long time, the girl crying her heart out and Edward torn between compassion and outrage.
“We can have a funeral for him, if you want,” Edward offered helplessly when the girl had finally settled down.
She nodded miserably and then blanched in embarrassment. “I can’t- I can’t walk.”
Scanning the infirmary, Edward’s eyes locked onto a wheelchair. “One second.”
He wheeled it over and helped slide the girl from the bed into the chair. Edward was fairly scrawny and so it was a laborious act. Graciously, she said nothing about how hard he was puffing to regain his breath after helping her.
When he did catch his breath, he hesitantly asked, “Did they tell you where they put his body?”
She shook her head sadly, and so Edward let the topic drop. It was probably for the best, as there was no way two weak children would be able to pierce the frosty cemetery ground.
Instead, he wheeled her to the chapel. It was eerie to see it in the dark of night, completely empty except for the stone angels that kept vigil. The rolling wheels and Edward’s footsteps seemed to bounce off the walls in a cacophony. Though they were far from the bedrooms, he couldn’t shake the paranoia that the nuns would somehow hear them.
He wheeled her up to the steps of the altar and paused. “Is here alright?”
She nodded in affirmation, and he grabbed a psalm book from the front pew and flipped to one he was all too familiar with.
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” The words tasted sour in his mouth. All he did was want — food, a family, a better life… Even so, it seemed to comfort the girl and so he continued.
“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”
Thou art with me. What a joke. God, if there even was one, had long-since abandoned Gotham.
“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.”
He stuttered over the next bit, trying not to laugh bitterly. “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.”
When he finished reading, he looked at the girl. “Do you want to say anything?”
She nodded, and as she straightened up in her wheelchair Edward was hit by how old she looked. Not mature and not like an adult, but like someone who had seen too much of the world. Someone worn down.
“Baby,” she spoke softly. “I didn’t want you at first, and so I didn’t give you a name. And now you’ll never have one.”
The tears were already spilling over her cheeks as she kept speaking.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t bring you into this world right. If someone else was your mom, someone with money and food and doctors, I know you would’ve been okay. You would’ve made it, and you would’ve been happy and loved. I know you would, because I didn’t even get to meet you and I already love you. Loved you,” she corrected herself in a hollow tone.
“I hope there is a Heaven, and I hope the nuns are wrong. I hope you’re up there with God right now and you don’t hurt and you don’t cry. I hope you’re happy. And I hope that one day I’ll be up there with you too.”
The words rang out through the empty room as the girl fell silent.
“Edward,” she called his name softly and his head snapped up, unused to hearing it in such a gentle tone. “Do you know Ave Maria?”
Slowly, he nodded.
“Will you sing it with me?” she pleaded. He couldn’t say no, so he nodded again. She began to hum the lilting opening notes, and something caught in Edward’s throat as he began to sing with her.
Ave Maria
Gratia plena
Maria, gratia plena
Maria, gratia plena
Ave, ave dominus
Dominus tecum
Edward’s eyes filled with tears as they sang together.
Benedicta tu in mulieribus
Et benedictus
Et benedictus fructus ventris
Ventris tui, Jesus
Ave Maria
By the end, they were both sobbing and clutching each other and grieving. Grieving the nameless baby. Grieving themselves and their rotten lives. Grieving their estrangement from God, who either did not exist or else did not care. Grieving their parents, who did much the same.
They grieved endlessly. There is no reprieve from being an orphan.
“Thank you,” she whispered when their eyes finally ran dry. She held Edward close and kissed his brow. He shut his eyes and let himself imagine, however briefly, that it was his mother holding him instead. The fantasy dissipated quickly, of course, as the girl was only a few years older than he was. But for a moment, it was nice to pretend.
The next day, the nuns kicked her out anyway. They claimed that it was always meant to be a temporary arrangement since she was “older,” but Edward knew they didn’t want to face what had happened to her — what they had done to her.
Years later, when Edward set fire to the orphanage with some of the nuns still trapped inside, he felt nothing but satisfaction.