Chris Bohjalian - Midwives

When it was clear that the conversation was winding down, I left my perch on the stairs and went into the living room, and acted as if I'd been reading my biology textbook all along. Almost immediately my father came downstairs and joined my mother in the kitchen.

"I'm sorry I lost my temper," he said, and I heard him opening the cabinet with the liquor.

"You couldn't help it," my mother said softly. "Probably happens all the time to him."

"People blowing up?"

"I guess."

"He didn't seem to mind."

"Nope."

The freezer door shut with a pop, and the ice cubes struck the sides of the glass before splashing down in a puddle of scotch at the bottom.

"Let me make sure I've got this right," my father said, and he pulled one of the kitchen chairs away from the table, sliding it along the floor with a brief squeal. "They're going to say you killed Charlotte Bedford on purpose-"

"They might say that. Apparently they haven't decided anything."

"Okay, they might say you killed Charlotte Bedford on purpose."

"I guess."

"To save the baby."

"Yes. They might say I thought Charlotte was going to die, but I had to know full well she was alive when I did the cesarean."

"You had to…"

"I had to. I couldn't possibly do what I do for a living without being able to tell the difference. I couldn't possibly have made such a… a mistake."

"And you did it to save the baby…"

"The C-section? Yup. So they think."

A long silence. Then an echo from my father: "Yup. So they think."

I couldn't see either of my parents from my spot on the couch, but I envisioned my father swirling his drink in his hand, and my mother sitting perfectly still with her arms folded across her chest. I knew those actions and poses well.

"Sib?" my father continued after another quiet moment.

"Yes."

"I want to ask something."

"Of Stephen or me?"

"You. And I'll only ask it this one time, and I'll never ask it again. But I have to know. I have to ask-"

"Don't even think of it, don't even think of asking it. I can't have you doubting me, too."

"You answered it. That's all I wanted to hear."

"Don't doubt me, Rand."

"I don't."

My mother had spent almost uncountable days and nights bringing life into the world. It didn't seem fair to me that her trial revolved around the notion that she could mistake it for death in the end.

Here's how our emotional roller coaster worked: No sooner had my parents begun to pull themselves up from the almost debilitating despair and self-doubt inspired by the possibility of a second-degree murder trial than Stephen reassured them that the charge was unlikely. Instead of working their way slowly to the crest of the ride over days, they were yanked abruptly to the top in an instant-my mother first, in an afternoon visit from Stephen, my father that night when he came home from work.

Almost as if we'd been diagnosed with a terminal disease, the sort of news that would once have appalled us was thrilling. I'm in remission, I might have two whole years to live? That's wonderful! Involuntary manslaughter only? Oh my, that's great!

I was surprised when I came home from track practice one afternoon later that week to find my mother and Stephen sitting on the front porch of our house. It was one of those wondrous April days with a hot sun shining above cold, still-sloshy ground, and as late as five in the afternoon one could still sit comfortably outside on a deck or a stoop that faced west.

My mother and Stephen were each sitting with their backs against one of the white posts that supported the porch roof, their legs bent at the knees into pyramids. They stopped talking and smiled at me when they saw me at the end of our driveway, and I could sense the lawyer had arrived with good news.

Was I surprised that Stephen had come all the way from Burlington to meet with my mother-a drive closer to ninety minutes than an hour-rather than call? I was, briefly. And it was that night at dinner that my father made the first of a great many catty comments about Stephen that I believe he came to regret. But my first reaction when I saw Stephen sitting there that moment was that he would be a good friend for my mother, and he would certainly do his best to protect her. If he had feelings for her that most attorneys would have deemed unprofessional, that could only be to our benefit.

They both stood when I got to the beginning of the walkway, and my mother started forward as if to kiss me when I got to the steps. She stopped suddenly, however, as if she feared I'd be embarrassed if she kissed me in front of Mr. Hastings. She was right, I would have been. But I was probably equally embarrassed by the way she had bobbed her head forward like a wild turkey, and almost would have preferred she'd given me that kiss.

"How'd it go today, honey?" she asked, referring to practice.

"Good. Fine."

"Legs sore?"

"Nope. Not a bit."

"Your mom tells me you made the track team," Stephen said.

"Just the junior varsity," I told him, a meaningful correction in my mind.

"In eighth grade, that's still a mighty accomplishment," he said.

I nodded and stared at my sneakers, my way then of graciously accepting a compliment.

"Mr. Hastings is here to tell us what's going on," my mother explained.

"Us? Is Dad home?" I looked back at the driveway, wondering if somehow I had managed to walk past my father's Jeep without noticing it. I hadn't; there was no Jeep there. Just Stephen's dignified but boxy gray Volvo.

"No, not yet. I only meant us, our family."

"Oh."

"Mr. Hastings says I'm not in as much trouble as we thought the other night." She offered a tiny grin that seemed sincere and brave to me at the same time, but I think now was probably ironic. My parents had tried to explain to me as best they could the distinctions between second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter, an intentional killing versus merely reckless and illegal behavior, and while much of what they had said made perfect sense, a lot of it was still completely unfathomable to me those first weeks in April, and I still reduced my mother's plight to one fundamental vision: Joan of Arc being burned at the stake. The exact image came from a painting in our encyclopedia, and it was horrid: a beautiful woman a bit younger than my mother, standing in a midwifelike peasant dress, her face stoic-almost superhumanly heroic-as yellow and red flames turned brown wood black. Joan's skin had not yet begun to blister, but the heat from the flames was causing her to sweat, and some in the crowd around her were standing atop her dead horse to get a better view of her death.

My mother was no saint in my eyes, even then: I was still troubled by the way her pregnant mothers always seemed to come before me. But I believed she had done absolutely nothing wrong in the case of Charlotte Bedford, and certainly didn't deserve to be consumed by the fire that suddenly surrounded her. And so when she said she seemed to be in less trouble-so much less trouble that Stephen had driven all the way out to our house in Reddington-I immediately assumed she must have been granted a complete pardon, and the bonfire was being disassembled. That man named Bill Tanner had come to his senses. Asa Bedford had come to his senses. That Anne Austin-despicable, lying, traitorous Anne Austin-had come to her senses.

"What happened?" I asked, and the expectant joy in my voice was so apparent that instantly both adults began shaking their heads to calm me down.

"It's good news, Connie, don't get us wrong," my mother said quickly, "but neither of us should start spinning cartwheels on the lawn."

I hadn't done a cartwheel in at least five or six years, and I couldn't imagine that my mother had done one in decades, but I kept the thought to myself. Perhaps if Stephen hadn't been present I would have said something flip, but he was there and so I simply nodded and waited for her to continue.