Chris Bohjalian - Midwives

Instead I saw a man in slacks and a blazer, no necktie, and a slightly older man in blue jeans, a flannel shirt, and a down vest. Like a pack animal, the fellow in jeans had camera bags slung over both of his shoulders, and in his hands were coils of extension cords and a pair of large metal lights.

The press, I feared, had decided to descend upon our house since my mother had refused to return their phone calls.

"I don't think my mother wants to speak with you," I said, standing tall and straight in the doorway.

The photographer turned to the other man, and although the photographer's beard was as thick as steel wool, I could see him frown. He raised his shoulders in a way that made the straps from his bags slide in toward his neck, and he sighed deeply with disgust.

The fellow in the blazer extended his hand to me and smiled. "You're Connie, aren't you?"

I refused his hand, but I nodded. I liked his voice and his tone-confident and serene, unaffected-but the last thing I wanted to do was to get involved in a protracted conversation with reporters when my mother's attorney was due at any moment.

"I'm Stephen Hastings," he continued. "I met your mother and father Saturday afternoon. This is Marc Truchon. He's with me to take some pictures."

Truchon nodded, as I reflexively took Stephen's hand.

"I thought you were reporters," I said, and I tried to laugh, but the noise sounded more like a grunt. Even today I'm not especially good at smoothing over social gaffes, and as a teenager-as awkward and self-loathing as most-I would sometimes blush a pink so deep I looked like I was choking. As I escorted the two men back into the kitchen, a moment's humiliation had probably cooked my skin so that it looked as if I'd spent a week in the sun.

My mother rose from her seat as we entered the room, holding on to the back of another chair for support.

"God, Sibyl, don't get up!" Stephen said, using his hands to motion her back into her seat as if he were directing traffic. When she was sitting down again, he grinned and added, "On second thought, why don't you get back up and jump around a bit? Let's get that ankle as big as a grapefruit."

For almost thirty minutes Marc Truchon photographed my mother in the living room, snapping pictures of parts of her body against a small white backdrop he had brought with him inside one of his bags. He recorded lacerations that ran along the palm of her left hand like lighthearted swoops, including a gash that ranged from the edge of her wedding band to her thumb. He took pictures of her inventory of abrasions and bruises, many with dozens and dozens of pinpoint-small dots formed by fresh scabs.

At first I was surprised that Marc began with my mother's arms and hands, since her legs were much more seriously beaten up and bruised. But then when he said, "Okay, Mrs. Danforth, shall we do the legs?" and Stephen wandered back toward the kitchen mumbling something about a glass of water, I understood: That afternoon my mother had been wearing a long paisley peasant skirt, a modest dress that fell almost to the floor when she stood, and she was now going to have to pull that dress up practically to her hips. In addition to her sprained ankle, she had bruises dotting both of her legs, including what I understand was a strawberry on her thigh so painful she was unable to wear jeans, a contusion so deep it was considerably more black than blue.

Quickly I followed Stephen into the kitchen to give my mother and the photographer their privacy. Besides, I didn't want to see the worst of my mother's bruises.

"Where do you keep glasses, Connie? I really would love a drink of water," Stephen said, wiping his eyeglasses with a white handkerchief.

I opened the cabinet door and reached for two glasses. Then, remembering how my mother was always offering people coffee and herbal tea, I pulled down the metal container in which my mother kept tea bags. "Would you like coffee instead? Or herbal tea?"

"Does your family own stock in some coffee or tea company?"

"I don't know," I answered, not realizing until after I'd opened my mouth that this was a joke.

"No," he went on, "water would be perfect right now."

I filled each glass from the kitchen sink.

"Eighth grade, right?" he asked.

I nodded.

"Up at the union high school?"

"Yup."

"They send a school bus up here, or do your parents have to drive you back and forth?"

"Oh, no, there's a school bus."

He shook his head. "Must be a dream in mud season."

"It's hard to stop a school bus."

"Do you know Darren Royce?"

"Mr. Royce, the biology teacher?"

"One and the same."

"Sure, I know him."

"Is he one of your teachers, or do you just know who he is?"

"I have him for biology. Fifty minutes a class, plus all the labs."

"Is he a good teacher?"

I realized as we spoke that I had begun to stand up straight, a response to the fact that Stephen's posture was perfect. I stepped forward from the counter against which I'd been leaning and squared my shoulders.

"Are you two friends?" I asked.

"Ah, answering a question with a question. Very savvy."

"Ah, answering a question with a compliment. Very savvy."

"Yes, we're friends."

"Yes, he's a good teacher."

"Like him?"

"Sure. How do you two know each other?"

"Air force. Want to have some fun at his expense?"

"Maybe."

"The next time you see him, tell him L-T says hi from Camp Latrine."

"L-T?"

"He'll know."

"And Camp Latrine: Was that what you called your base in the army?"

"Air force. Yup. It was one of them, anyway."

"Was this in Vietnam?"

"It was."

From the living room we would occasionally hear either my mother's or Marc's voice, and then the click the camera made every time he took a photograph. The door was shut no more than halfway, and each time the flash went off the kitchen would whiten as if summer lightning had brightened the sky outside.

"Your father home?" he asked.

"Not yet. He usually gets home around five-thirty or six."

He glanced at the skinned peppers on the kitchen table and the vegetables, some diced, on the counter.

"Dinner looks good. What are you making?"

"I'm really not making much of anything. I'm not much of a cook. I'm just chopping what Mom needs chopped. I think the end result will be some sort of stroganoff."

"Well, I hope we don't keep your mother too long."

"What are you doing next?"

He removed a tape recorder about as long as a postcard from one of his blazer's front pockets, and half as wide. "I'm just going to ask her a few questions. Nothing too tough tonight."

"You're not going to take notes?"

"Oh, good Lord, no."

"That's what the police did. My parents said the police took notes."

He opened the recorder and showed me the tiniest audiocassette I'd ever seen in my life, a tape little bigger than a postage stamp. "Well, the police have their methods, and I have mine. And you know what?"

"What?"

"Mine are a whole lot better."

It may have been the confident way that he spoke, and it may have been the ramrod way that he stood. It may have been the way he was dressed, that one-click-above blazer. It may have been all of those things combined. But I went to sleep that night absolutely convinced that if my mother indeed needed a lawyer-and, in all of our minds, that still wasn't a sure thing-she had the best one in Vermont.

Connie had a cup of coffee with breakfast yesterday. First time, but I think it's going to become a regular thing. I didn't ask her if she liked it because that would have been just too much like a parent. And I didn't stop her, although the idea crossed my mind. She isn't even fourteen yet.