The Midwife's Confession (40 page)

With only one option left to her short of transport, Noelle attempted to manually rotate the baby. The delicate maneuvering seemed to take forever, though she knew it must have seemed far longer to Tara. Noelle wished she’d had an assistant—she needed four hands to manage the rotation. Maybe five. She let out an enormous sigh of relief when the baby finally turned into position, her fetal heart tones strong and reassuring. A short time later, the infant slipped into the world and Noelle wasn’t sure which of the four of them in that hot, dark room was the most exhausted or the most relieved.

She was bathing the infant in the kitchen when Sam came into the room to watch. “She’s all right now, isn’t she?” he asked. “Tara?”

“She’ll be fine,” Noelle said, and she knew that when Tara had briefly lost consciousness after the delivery, he’d been afraid. She knew how much he loved Tara. She saw it every time she was in the same room with them, and she felt both happiness for the two of them—two people she loved—and a searing envy that had never eased up. Now they had a child to bind them together even more tightly. She was glad she was only a couple of months away from marrying Ian. For the first time in her life, she had someone to fantasize about the future with. Her longing for children, for an out-in-the-open family tied together by blood, would someday soon be a reality.

She sent Sam back into the bedroom to be with Tara while she finished examining the baby and calling Clare Briggs to come over. Then she wrapped the baby in warm receiving blankets, resting her carefully on a thick towel at the rear of the kitchen counter as she rummaged in her purse for her pill bottles.
Finally.
This delivery was over. Clare would be here in a few minutes. She could afford some relief now.

She carried the infant back into the bedroom and found Sam and Tara huddled together on the bed. Tara smiled tiredly and reached for her baby.

“We’re going to name her Noelle,” Sam said. She knew in that instant that he’d forgiven her for the night on the beach, but although she was touched by the gesture, she couldn’t let it happen. It was so wrong. There were moments when her guilt from that night could still find her, and this was one of them.

“Oh, no, you’re not,” she said. “Promise me you won’t saddle this baby with my name.”

She must have sounded even more vehement than she felt, because they quickly backed off and she was relieved. She couldn’t allow Tara, in her ignorance, to name her baby after her.

Clare arrived, bustling into the house with the self-confident attitude that always put new parents at ease. Noelle made sure everyone was as comfortable with one another as possible, then left for the hospital. She was beyond exhaustion, but she couldn’t wait to check on Emerson and see her niece. This was a child who might actually look like her. Wouldn’t that be something? She only hoped she wouldn’t look
too
much like her. Not enough to bring attention to the fact.

She took another Percocet before leaving Sam and Tara’s house. The past twenty-four hours had simply been too grueling for her back. By the time she was driving to the hospital, she felt the drugs soften the prickly edges of her pain. The muscles in her back loosened ever so slightly and her clenched jaw relaxed. She felt deliciously floaty as she walked from her car to the entrance of the women and new born unit. The relief from pain combined with exhaustion and the excitement of being minutes from seeing Emerson’s baby made her feel almost giddy.

She loved the unit at night when it was dimly lit and nearly silent. The unit was broken into pods of four rooms each. A small nurses’ station designed for one or two nurses sat at the center of each pod.

Noelle found the correct pod for Emerson. Jill Kenney, a nurse Noelle had known for years, was bending over one of two clear plastic bassinets next to the counter, changing the diaper of a caramel-skinned baby. She looked like she’d had as long and hard a night as Noelle and she gave her a tired smile.

“Hey, Noelle,” she said quietly. “I bet you’re here to see the Stiles baby. I thought you’d scrub in for that one. The mom’s your best friend, isn’t she?”

“I had a home birth of another friend.” Noelle returned the smile. “I’m going to ask them to time their babies a little better next time.” Standing inside the doorway of the pod, she felt as though she were in a dream. It was a pleasant, welcome sensation. Her back seemed to be made of cotton, soft and yielding and, finally, pain-free.

“She named her Jenny.” Jill straightened up from the bassinet and moved to the sink to wash her hands. “Not Jennifer. Jenny. I think that’s cute.”

Noelle walked toward the bassinets. “Who are these two?” she asked.

Jill sat down at the counter. She rubbed her temple with her fingers, her face pale against her short dark hair. “Well, this one’s mom needed a break.” She pointed to the darker-skinned infant.

“Do you feel all right?” Noelle asked.

“Actually, no.” Jill frowned. “Migraine. Therese is going to relieve me soon and I’m going home. It’s been wild tonight, too. It’s always that way, isn’t it?” She glanced at one of the monitors on the counter, then pressed a couple of buttons on her keyboard before looking up at Noelle again. “The time you don’t feel well is the time all hell breaks loose.”

“That seems to be the way it goes.” Noelle looked at the second bassinet. “Why’s this other babe out here?” she asked.

“Oh, that one’s really tragic.” Jill said. “Mom stroked out and is in a coma.”

“Damn.”
Noelle peered into the bassinet. The baby’s wispy brown hair fringed her little pink knit hat. She was six and a half pounds, Noelle thought—she could judge a baby’s weight by looks alone—and her color was excellent. Whatever had befallen her mother didn’t seem to have had an adverse effect on her.

“They’re getting ready to transfer her mother to Duke.” Jill punched another few buttons on the keyboard. “I don’t know if they’ve decided whether to move the baby with her or send her to the peds unit.”

“Prognosis on the mom?” Noelle rested a hand against the counter. She felt a little unsteady on her feet and was looking forward to sitting down in Emerson’s room.

Jill shook her head, then winced as though the motion had done nothing to help her migraine. “Doesn’t look good right now,” she said, “and the dad is deployed, do you believe it? Mom was four weeks early and traveling here on business, so there’s no family. We’ll call Ellen first thing in the morning unless they take the baby with the mother tonight.”

“Good,” Noelle said. Ellen was the social worker for the unit. “So which room is Emerson’s?”

Jill pointed to the door behind her. “She’s sleeping, but I was about to change the baby and give her a bottle. Would you like to?” She looked so hopeful, Noelle laughed.

“You really need to go home to a dark room, don’t you?” She smiled with sympathy. She knew all about pain. Her own had eased up nicely. She loved the floaty sensation that now filled her head.

Jill looked at her watch. “Can’t wait. Therese’ll be here any second.”

“I’ll take care of the Stiles baby,” Noelle said. She rested a hand on Jill’s shoulder. “Hope you get out of here soon.”

Emerson was sleeping soundly in the softly lit, quiet room. She looked beautiful and Noelle was filled with tenderness as she leaned over to kiss her forehead. “You finally have your baby, Em,” she whispered. “Your little girl.” She wished she could have been here for her. She hated that Emerson had felt alone and deserted at such a difficult time.

She set the bottle Jill had given her on the small table near the recliner. Then she scrubbed her hands at the sink and moved to the bassinet.

For a strange moment of déjà vu, she felt as though she’d already seen this baby. There was the little pink hat fringed by honey-brown wisps of hair. The delicate facial features. The six and a half beautiful pounds. It took her only a fraction of a second to realize it had been the baby at Jill’s station she’d seen a moment ago, not this little one. Only a fraction of a second, but long enough to let her know she was more out of it than she’d thought.

“Hello, precious,” she whispered, beginning to change the little diaper. The baby—Jenny—began to stir, a small frown on her face, a tiny whine coming from her throat. Noelle’s eyes filled and she bit her lip to stop it from trembling.

When Jenny was clean and diapered, Noelle lifted her from the bassinet, then sat down in the recliner, the baby cradled in her arms. Jenny’s eyes were starting to blink open and closed, the frown deepening between her barely-there eyebrows, and her tiny perfect lips parted in the way Noelle knew preceded a good howl of hunger. She teased the baby’s lips with the nipple and felt a little surge of pride when Jenny started sucking without much prompting at all. The infant’s hand rested against her own, each finger a tiny sculpture in perfection. Noelle bent low to kiss her forehead. She’d held hundreds of babies in her life, and for the first time she whispered the words
I love you
to one of them.

60

Anna

Washington, D.C.
2010

When the girl showed up in the doorway, I took her in with one glance and that was all that was necessary for my heart to lurch toward her. My body, though, stayed frozen in shock. I stood next to Haley’s bed, one hand on her tray table, the other pressed to my chest. Tara moved toward the girl and her mother. She was speaking, words that may as well have been a foreign language. Making introductions that were no more than white noise. Haley grasped my hand where it rested on her table, pressing her fingertips into my wrist and I knew that, like me, she no longer saw Grace and Tara. She didn’t see the other woman, either. All either of us could see was the girl.

The white noise of Tara’s voice suddenly stopped and she was staring at us.

“Mom,” Haley said. “
Say
something.”

“What’s going on?” Tara asked.

If Haley and I had seen this girl on the street on one of our trips to Wilmington, we would have chased her for blocks, for miles, until we caught up with her. We’d been looking for her for so long. We would have known we’d found her, just as we knew that now.

“Did the midwife—” I had to clear my throat “—Noelle… Did she deliver you, too?” I asked the girl, although I already knew the answer. The woman in the doorway put an arm around her, tugging her close.

“No,” she said. “Jenny was born in the hospital, delivered by an obstetrician.”

She was lying. She had to be. My legs were rubbery, but I took two steps toward the night table and picked up the photograph of Haley with the Collier cousins in the Outer Banks. I held it with both hands as if it were very fragile and carried it toward the woman and girl in the doorway.

“This is my sister-in-law and her daughters,” I said, holding it toward the woman. “Haley’s cousins. Look at them.”

I knew what they were seeing in the photograph. Four girls with round dark eyes. Nearly black hair and fair skin. Chins that receded ever so slightly. Noses a hairbreadth too wide to be beautiful. I stepped away from them, back to Haley’s side, because I was afraid I would touch the girl. I would try to pull her into my arms. Right now, I had to settle for breathing the air she was in.
Finally,
I thought.
Finally.

Tara and Grace moved next to the woman and Tara touched the frame where it shivered in her hand. “Oh, my God, Emerson,” she said when she saw the picture. “How can this be?”

“Tara,”
the woman said, as if asking her friend to fix something that had moved entirely out of her control. “It
can’t
be,” she said. “It
isn’t.”

I watched all four of them stare at the photograph. I watched as the truth sank in. I held Haley’s hand, waiting for the moment I could take my other child, my firstborn daughter, into arms that had ached to hold her for sixteen years. In that girl’s beautiful dark eyes, I saw confusion and fear and it broke my heart.

“Jenny,” I said. “Is that your name? Did I get it right?” I hadn’t really heard the introductions.

The girl slowly raised her gaze from the photograph. “Yes,” she whispered.

“Don’t be afraid,” I said.

Grace looked at her mother. “I’m not…?”

It took Tara a moment to shake her head. “I don’t think so.” She touched the other woman’s shoulder. “Em,” she said, “is this possible? What do you remember?”

“I had her in the hospital,” the woman said again. “It’s impossible. It’s ridiculous.”

“When is your birthday?” I asked Jenny.

“August 31,” she whispered.

My baby,
I thought, my eyes filling. She’d lain alone in a hospital for two days with no mother to hold her. No mother to talk to her. She’d been all by herself until the midwife stole her away, quietly, taking all records of her existence with her, erasing her so that I’d never be able to find her again.

“You’re my Lily, Jenny. I’m certain of it.”

“Stop it!” the woman snapped at me, tugging Jenny close to her, and I knew I’d said too much, too fast, but I hadn’t been able to help myself.

The girl pulled free of her mother and fled down the hallway. Grace took off after her. Tara grabbed the woman’s arm to stop her from following them. “Let Grace,” she said.

The woman looked terrified. “I don’t understand what’s going on!”

“She’s Lily,” Haley said. “She’s so Lily.”

Tara looked at me, her hands wrapped around the woman’s forearm. “Let me talk to Emerson,” she said.

I didn’t want them to leave. I was afraid Lily would vanish once more into thin air. But what could I do?

“All right,” I said. Emerson had already turned away, disappearing into the hallway, getting away from me as quickly as she could. “Please don’t leave, though,” I added, but they were gone and only Haley heard my words.

61

Noelle

Wilmington, North Carolina
1994

She awakened with a great start and couldn’t immediately figure out where she was. The odd, dim lighting in the room disoriented her. She blinked hard, trying to focus. The small sink. The bassinet. She turned her head to the right and saw the bed where Emerson slept. She felt something hard against her thigh through her skirt and glanced down to see a bottle next to her on the seat of the recliner. She’d been feeding the baby. What was her name? Grace? They’d wanted to name her Noelle. No, this baby wasn’t Grace. It was Emerson’s child. Jennifer. Jenny. She had the vaguest memory of getting up to return the baby to the bassinet, but the bassinet was empty. She tried to think. Had Jill come in to take the baby from her arms? She drew in a long slow breath, worried she’d feel dizzy once she got to her feet. She pressed her hands on the seat of the chair to keep her balance, but as she started to stand, her glance fell to the floor at her feet and she saw the baby who had slipped from her tired arms down the silky fabric of her skirt.