Chris Bohjalian - Midwives

He said he saw a pillow that he imagined belonged on a couch downstairs, because it was such a deep crimson it didn't match anything in the bedroom, but then he realized the pillow was soggy with blood. A moment later he noticed an empty packet of sutures on the nightstand, and the blood on the sheet upon Mrs. Bedford, some of the patches so thick that Rhodes said they looked more like scabs than stains.

"Did you see the knife?" Tanner asked.

"Not right away."

"Why not?"

"It had been removed from the bedroom."

"Do you know who removed it?"

"Mrs. Danforth said she did."

"Where did she take it?"

"We found it in the kitchen."

"Did she tell you why she brought it there?"

"She said she didn't want the woman's husband to have to continue looking at it."

"What condition was the knife in?"

"It was completely clean. All the blood and tissue were gone from the blade, and there were still soap bubbles in the sink."

Tanner then strolled back to his table, and his deputy handed him a clear acetate filled with handwritten papers. At the table before me Stephen reached for what I assumed was a photocopy of the same document.

He brought the acetate forward to Rhodes and said, "Let me show you what has been marked State's seventeen for identification. Do you recognize it?"

"I do. It's the statement Corporal Tilley and I took from Mrs. Danforth the night of the incident."

Tanner nodded, and moved for the admission of the statement into evidence. Stephen immediately objected, arguing as he had in a motion that summer that the statement was inadmissible because it had been taken without an attorney present. But he was overruled because in the judge's opinion the issue had already been resolved, and Rhodes took the court through what my mother had told the troopers that very first night.

"Did Anne Austin say anything to you that might have led you to believe Sibyl was responsible for Mrs. Bedford's death?" Stephen asked Rhodes shortly before lunch.

"Do you mean the morning we got there?"

"Yes, I mean that morning."

"No."

"What about Asa Bedford? Did he tell you he thought my client had done something… wrong?"

"No."

"Could he have? Did he have an opportunity?"

"I guess."

"But he didn't."

"No."

"Not even when you two were alone in the kitchen around ten after eight."

"No."

Stephen stared at him but remained silent, and allowed the trooper's answers to linger in the room a long moment.

Once when Leland Rhodes was testifying, as he and Stephen were arguing over whether the trooper had even viewed the Bedfords' house as a crime scene when he first arrived, Charlotte's sister began to sob. These were not unobtrusive tears, these were the sorts of whimpers that left unchecked would grow loud.

Almost simultaneously Stephen and Tanner approached the bench, and for a short moment the judge and the lawyers whispered with their backs to us. When they were through and the lawyers had returned to their tables, Judge Dorset said to the courtroom, his eyes roaming from one side to the other, that he understood well the way trials tend to provoke strong emotions, but everyone present needed to keep their feelings to themselves, and anyone who couldn't would be asked to leave the courtroom.

Charlotte's brother-in-law hugged his wife against his chest with one arm, and slowly she settled down. Stephen and the trooper resumed their debate, and although my mother was absolutely convinced that the idea hadn't even crossed Rhodes's mind that morning that a crime might have occurred, the trooper just kept repeating, "A woman was dead, and I knew the medical examiner would be the one to determine the cause of death."

Later that day Peter Grinnell told me that as pleased as Stephen had been when Charlotte's sister finally quieted down, Bill Tanner was probably even happier: The last thing the prosecution wanted was a mistrial because some family member couldn't stop crying.

Two weeks before the trial began, I listened to my mother on the phone with Stephen Hastings. It was late: The dinner plates were tucked in the dishwasher, my father was upstairs in bed. My mother had already taken a bath.

"Sure, I've met male midwives," she was saying, and I wondered if she knew I was nearby. She was curled up on the couch in the den in a cotton nightgown, and I'd come downstairs for a history book I'd left on the kitchen counter.

"No, not anymore," she continued. "I don't think there are any more right now in Vermont or New Hampshire. The few there were went on to other things."

I might have gotten the textbook and then left, but I heard her giggle, and the sound of her laughter had become so rare that I was unable to leave without hearing more.

"You'd be terrible, Stephen, just god-awful. You view breasts like a teenager. I hate to think of the way you'd handle a prenatal! You'd have too much fun… Yes, but it's not that kind of fun… Maybe someday I will, sure… With books and pictures… With books and pictures only…"

I'd seen my mother flirt lightly with the men she and my father had known for years, the male halves of the couples that formed their circle of friends, but I'd never imagined her flirting with one on the phone. Perhaps because my father was absent, perhaps because she was wearing a thin, almost transparent nightgown, this seemed more illicit to me, and I found myself frozen in something like wonder.

"It's not an aphrodisiac, I promise. I don't think male ob-gyns go home hot and bothered, do you?… Well, you're a pervert… Then maybe you're all perverts! But I don't really think so. Fortunately, the kind of men who become midwives or ob-gyns don't have your uniquely weird one-track mind," she said, and for a brief moment her voice had the sparkle that once brightened most of her conversations.

"Hold on, will you, Stephen?" she said suddenly. "Connie? Is that you, sweetie?"

I stood perfectly still until she started speaking again. When she did, finally, I turned and tiptoed back up the stairs as fast as I could.

Perhaps because I had a vision in my mind of how most of my mother's midwife friends dressed-the jeans and the sweaters, the big boots and the sandals, the endless number of peasant skirts that must have come from walk-in closets the size of bedrooms-I was unprepared for the two women who testified just after lunch: a midwife, followed by an ob-gyn who had once been a midwife.

The midwife, Kimberly Martin, even looked like a doctor to me. She was wearing a woman's blue business suit, and she had short, fashionably teased hair. It was easy to see her in loose hospital scrubs.

I also noticed she had an engagement ring on her finger but no wedding band, which surprised me as well: She was probably a good ten years older than my mother, and apparently about to be married.

"How long have you been a certified nurse-midwife?" Tanner asked her.

"Fourteen years."

"Would you tell us what it means to be a certified nurse-midwife?"

"First of all, we're all registered nurses. That's basic. We have formal medical training. Secondly, we've all graduated from one of two dozen advanced-education programs around the country that focus on women's health care and midwifery. Third, we've all passed the certification exam given by the American College of Nurse-Midwives. Finally-and personally, I believe this is very important-we all meet the requirements of the health agencies or medical boards of the state where we practice."

"And you have still more training, don't you?"

"Well, yes, I have a master's. From Marquette."

"Are you a member of the American College of Nurse-Midwives?"

"I am. This year I'm also part of the Division of Accreditation."

Tanner smiled as if he was pleasantly surprised, and I wondered if he hadn't known this detail. "How many nurse-midwives are there in this country?" he asked.