C.J. Carmichael - Leaving Enchantment

“I see. Okay. I’ll try again later.”

Kim turned. “What’s wrong?”

“Apparently Devon is in the middle of a delivery. She wasn’t able to take my call.” Lydia was trembling now and struggling not to show it. She hung up the phone, avoiding the younger woman’s sympathetic gaze.

“I’m sure she’ll call you back soon,” Kim said. But she couldn’t help wondering if Devon truly had been too busy to take this call. Kim hadn’t worked here long, but she was aware of the tension between the two women.

The problem stretched back ten years, to a time when Hope Tanner—then a pregnant teenage girl—had sought refuge at The Birth Place. Hope and Devon had become friends. Then Hope had her baby and left town. Kim didn’t know what happened to her baby. Few people did, but Devon was one of them. And she clearly blamed Lydia for something.

Up until that time, her grandmother had been Devon’s mentor and inspiration. But no longer. Devon had moved to Albuquerque and now the two women rarely spoke.

Kim’s sympathies lay one-hundred percent with Lydia. If the older midwife had done something wrong, she must have had a darn good reason. Lydia would have made sure that baby went to a good home. A good family. If she’d bent a few rules to make that happen, so what?

Devon wouldn’t be so quick to judge, Kim thought, if she knew what it was like to be a child who didn’t have a family. Or anyplace to call home.

THE NEXT MORNING Lydia Kane resisted the urge to stay in bed. She’d dealt with pain, disappointment and loss many times in her seventy-three years. None had been a reason to neglect her work before and they weren’t now, either.

She arrived at The Birth Place fifteen minutes before her appointment with a new couple who’d been referred by an ex-patient. This was their first baby, and Lydia didn’t know if she was up to dealing with their excitement, their enthusiasm…their naiveté.

Bringing a new child into this world was a marvelous voyage. That was how Lydia normally felt. But after last night it seemed as if her heart had been replaced with a lead facsimile. The melancholy would fade, she knew from experience. The sense of having failed would not.

She stopped by one of the many collages of photos on display at the birth center. So many tiny faces, proud parents, excited siblings. If only the Davidsons could be among them. Closing her eyes, she composed the picture. Steve standing at the back, a proud hand on Sammy’s shoulder, the other wrapped around his wife, who would be holding a bundled baby to her chest.

That’s how last night should have ended.

If only… If only…

Lydia turned from the wall and continued to her office, to the sanctuary of her leather chair and old oak desk.

Was there anything she could have done? Any sign she’d missed? It didn’t matter that she’d relived every step of the delivery a dozen times last night, and a dozen more this morning. Lydia knew it would take a while for her mind to accept this latest defeat.

Losing a baby happened so rarely. But when the sad circumstance occurred, she was always reminded of the first time she’d lost a baby, her own baby, when she was only sixteen.

She’d been so young…too young. Giving her daughter up for adoption had seemed the best option at the time—at least according to her father. Lydia’s mother had been dead by then. The child will be happier with a real family, her father had said. And Lydia had prayed for the baby’s sake that he was right.

But in her heart, she’d known that she’d let her baby down. She’d devoted her life to mothers and babies ever since. But for all the good she knew that she’d done, cases like the Davidsons made her wonder if the sacrifices she’d made had been worth it after all.

Especially when she considered her own children, the two she’d had after she’d married Ken. Her devotion to her profession had come at a cost, paid in part, she was afraid, by the son she never saw in New York City and the daughter in San Francisco who only visited sporadically.

Then this past autumn, her second failure as a midwife had been exposed when Hope Tanner came back to town. And now Lydia no longer sat as a member of the board of the birth center she’d founded.

She’d given up everything for The Birth Place. Now she was nothing but an employee. Life could be so ironic.

Noticing Kim Sherman’s closed door, Lydia forgot her troubles for a moment. She had no doubt that the accountant had arrived at work at the usual time, despite the long hours she’d put in yesterday.

Kim had been so kind last night. Lydia wondered why the young woman couldn’t show that side of her personality more often. It was no secret around here that most people found her abrasive. Her comments were usually brisk and often critical. No one could meet her expectations, it seemed. Even Parker Reynolds, the chief administrator, admitted she was hard to take. But he refused to let her go.

“We need someone like her,” he’d told Lydia. “She’s renegotiated all our insurance contracts at much better terms. And she’s implementing incredible improvements to our billing system.”

Lydia changed her trajectory and headed to that firmly closed door.

“Come in.”

Lydia was struck by how young Kim appeared, surrounded by the stacks of computer printouts on her desk. The petite woman was only twenty-five, unmarried and so pretty. She should be enjoying her youth, not spending every waking hour alone with her numbers. She should revel in her fresh beauty, instead of hiding it behind dowdy sweaters and dark-framed glasses.

“Lydia!” Startled, Kim stood, sending her pen and a sheet of paper to the floor. “Oh!” She gathered the items and returned them to her desk. Waving at the only free seat in the room, she waited until Lydia was comfortable before returning to her own chair.

“Kim, I want to thank you for last night.”

“Oh, that was…anyone would have… I mean, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Kim. But what about you? Working so late last night, then in to the office early this morning. You have to make time for a social life, you know. Not to mention a decent night’s sleep.”

Kim surveyed the stacks of paper, her expression bordering on the defensive. Lydia had often wondered at the total absence of anything personal in this office. No framed photos or cute magnets. Even Kim’s coffee mug was serviceable white ceramic.

Something had to be done about this girl. And Lydia thought she had just the idea.

“I’ve come to ask you a favor, Kim.”

The accountant perked up, as if nothing could have pleased her more.

“At the last board meeting the directors approved a fund-raising event. Parker wants to call it the Mother and Child Reunion, which is a wonderful name, I think. It will be a huge event. We’d like to invite as many of the women who delivered at our center—and their husbands, of course—as we can find. Also, any adult children who were born here will be welcome, too.”

“Lydia. That will be a huge guest list.”

“We won’t be able to track them all down. And many will have moved and be unable to attend. At any rate, the board wants us to cap the list at two hundred.”

“Will you be inviting all the staff?”

“Naturally. And board members, too.” Would her granddaughter come? Devon had attended all business meetings since her appointment. But she might consider this function more social in nature.

“Well, we certainly could use some extra money around here.”

“Yes, we could. Which leads me to that favor I told you I was going to ask. Parker already handles our annual SIDS fund-raiser, so I hate to put another event on his shoulders, too. Would you consider taking on the responsibility?”