Chris Bohjalian - Midwives

"Did you stay that way with your wife a long while?"

"Oh, no. Not long enough. Not long at all. Mrs. Danforth said something like 'Let's move!' or 'Let's go!' At first I had no idea what she meant by that. I had no idea what she wanted to do. She sounded hysterical, and-"

"Objection."

"Sustained."

"Reverend Bedford," Tanner said, "what did Mrs. Danforth do next? What did she say?"

"Well, she was wiping her eyes and… and flailing her arms. She kept saying, 'We don't have any time, we don't have any time!'"

"What did you say?"

"I asked her what she meant."

"And she said?"

"She said… she said the baby only had a few minutes, and we had… used them… used most of them… on Charlotte."

"Did you understand then what Mrs. Danforth was planning?"

"No. It just hadn't hit me. I think I even asked her, 'What are you going to do?'"

"Did she tell you?"

"Sort of. She said she was going to save the baby. I think her exact words were 'Save your baby.' But my Charlotte had just died, and the idea of saving my baby and… cutting open Charlotte's stomach still weren't… linked in my mind. When I finally made that link a couple seconds later-when it dawned on me why she wanted that knife-I asked her again if Charlotte was definitely… dead."

With his southern accent he drew two syllables out of the word dead, and I found myself wondering how many of the jurors were hearing a southern accent in person for the first time. After all, the first time I'd heard a southern accent was in the Bedfords' house.

"And what did Mrs. Danforth tell you?"

"She said 'Of course.'"

"Meaning 'Of course she was dead.'"

"That's right."

"Did she ask you if you wanted her to try and save the baby?"

"No, sir."

"Did she ask you for your permission to perform a cesarean section on your wife?"

"No, sir, she did not."

"Before she began the cesarean, did you see Mrs. Danforth check to see if Charlotte had a pulse?"

"No."

"Did you see her check to see if there was a… a heartbeat?"

"No."

"Did you see her do anything to confirm that Charlotte had indeed… passed away?"

"No."

Tanner glanced briefly at my mother, shaking his head in disbelief. She turned away from him and gazed at the lake, while her mother-my grandmother-glared back at the state's attorney. My grandmother had grown angry that week, furious with anyone who would malign her daughter.

"What about the baby?" Tanner then asked the pastor. "Did she check to see if there was a fetal heartbeat?"

"You mean with the…"

"The Fetalscope."

"No, sir, I did not see her do that."

"So: You never saw her bother to confirm-"

"Objection."

"Sustained."

"You never saw her confirm that Charlotte was dead or that the baby was alive before she began the C-section."

"No."

"She just plowed ahead."

"Yes."

"What did you do during the operation?"

"I still thought Charlotte was… had… I still thought Charlotte had passed away, and I went to the window." He motioned toward the easel between his seat and the end of the jury box, which held an overhead drawing of the Bedfords' bedroom.

"Did you watch?"

"I watched some."

"Did you see the first incision?"

"Yes, sir."

"What do you remember about it-that first incision?"

"I remember the blood spurting," Bedford said, his voice rising for the first time during his testimony. "I remember seeing my Charlotte bleed."

I had gotten used to seeing Charlotte's family in the courtroom by the second Monday of the trial. I wasn't ready to wave and say with a sympathetic southern accent, "Hey, how ya doing?" but I no longer shied away from all eye contact. And as I glanced over there as their brother-in-law told his version of what had occurred, I could see in their eyes the fact that we-Sibyl Danforth and her family-were going to lose.

Certainly there were times during Stephen's cross-examination when my spirits would lift: when, for example, with painstaking detail Stephen enumerated all of the reasons why Asa Bedford could not have seen blood spurt or his Charlotte "bleed." But when Stephen was done, I still knew we were finished. Asa, after all, was a minister. As powerful as I thought the medical examiner's testimony had been on Friday, even a coroner's credibility pales before a pastor's.

The cross-examination lasted most of the afternoon, and when it was complete Tanner had a brief redirect. Bedford reiterated what he had seen, steadfastly insisting upon the existence and power of one small geyser of blood. And then it was over, and the State rested.

Lawyers have a language as cold as doctors'. But it's not the legal terms themselves that are so icy, it's the way they're used. It's the way those people speak when they're in the courtroom, the way they use even common words and names. Especially names.

Every time Stephen talks about me, he calls me "Sibyl." Every time he talks about Charlotte, she's "Mrs. Bedford" or "Charlotte Bedford." Or, simply, "the wife."

At the same time, Tanner is doing exactly the opposite: When he opens his mouth, I'm always "Mrs. Danforth" or "the midwife." Never, ever "Sibyl." And Charlotte, of course, is always… "Charlotte."

Stephen hasn't mentioned it, but it's a strategy both guys are using. Each lawyer is pitting Charlotte and me against each other, and trying to make one of us seem friendly and likable, and the other sort of aloof and formal and distant.

The thing is, I think at one time we were both pretty friendly. If Charlotte didn't have a lot of friends, it wasn't because she was aloof.

I'm supposed to testify Wednesday. Not on Wednesday. Wednesday. The difference, it sounds to me, is one of duration. Between all of the questions I'll have to answer for the two lawyers, I have a feeling I'm going to have to be "Sibyl" and then "Mrs. Danforth" for a long, long time.

– from the notebooks of Sibyl Danforth, midwife

STEPHEN NEVER DOUBTED my mother would be an attractive and compelling witness. But he did not want her to be the final witness; he did not want to end with her the way Tanner had chosen to conclude with Asa Bedford. He wanted her sandwiched in the middle, between the road crew members and character witnesses who filled Tuesday's dance card, and the medical and forensic experts-our medical and forensic experts, the ones who either believed in their hearts my mother did the right thing, or were at least willing to say so for the right fee-lined up for Thursday.

Stephen said he wanted my mother to occupy the middle third of our defense so she would be an "accessible presence, a woman with a voice" for the jurors during most of it-especially the critical conclusion when our expert testimony was being presented. In his opinion, in the end this would still boil down to a battle of the experts, and so he wanted to wind up with people who had lots of degrees and dignified suits.

He hoped to complete his defense in three days, but he said it wouldn't be the end of the world if it lasted four. His principal objective when he looked at the calendar was to be done by the end of the week, so the jury wouldn't go home for the weekend with the fear that the trial was going to drag on forever.

I don't know exactly what Judge Dorset was expecting from my mother's midwife and client friends as Stephen prepared to present our version, but Tuesday morning before the jury was brought into the courtroom, he requested that all of the mothers who had babies wanting to nurse take their little ones outside the room when they grew hungry. Stephen objected, contending that changing the rules midstream sent a signal to the jury that somehow cast a negative light upon midwifery, home birth, and-of course-my mother. He also implied that the judge was risking a mistrial.