Diane Chamberlain - The Midwife's Confession

60

Anna

Washington, D.C.

2010

When the girl showed up in the doorway, I took her in with one glance and that was all that was necessary for my heart to lurch toward her. My body, though, stayed frozen in shock. I stood next to Haley’s bed, one hand on her tray table, the other pressed to my chest. Tara moved toward the girl and her mother. She was speaking, words that may as well have been a foreign language. Making introductions that were no more than white noise. Haley grasped my hand where it rested on her table, pressing her fingertips into my wrist and I knew that, like me, she no longer saw Grace and Tara. She didn’t see the other woman, either. All either of us could see was the girl.

The white noise of Tara’s voice suddenly stopped and she was staring at us.

“Mom,” Haley said. “ Say something.”

“What’s going on?” Tara asked.

If Haley and I had seen this girl on the street on one of our trips to Wilmington, we would have chased her for blocks, for miles, until we caught up with her. We’d been looking for her for so long. We would have known we’d found her, just as we knew that now.

“Did the midwife—” I had to clear my throat “—Noelle… Did she deliver you, too?” I asked the girl, although I already knew the answer. The woman in the doorway put an arm around her, tugging her close.

“No,” she said. “Jenny was born in the hospital, delivered by an obstetrician.”

She was lying. She had to be. My legs were rubbery, but I took two steps toward the night table and picked up the photograph of Haley with the Collier cousins in the Outer Banks. I held it with both hands as if it were very fragile and carried it toward the woman and girl in the doorway.

“This is my sister-in-law and her daughters,” I said, holding it toward the woman. “Haley’s cousins. Look at them.”

I knew what they were seeing in the photograph. Four girls with round dark eyes. Nearly black hair and fair skin. Chins that receded ever so slightly. Noses a hairbreadth too wide to be beautiful. I stepped away from them, back to Haley’s side, because I was afraid I would touch the girl. I would try to pull her into my arms. Right now, I had to settle for breathing the air she was in. Finally, I thought. Finally.

Tara and Grace moved next to the woman and Tara touched the frame where it shivered in her hand. “Oh, my God, Emerson,” she said when she saw the picture. “How can this be?”

“Tara,” the woman said, as if asking her friend to fix something that had moved entirely out of her control. “It can’t be,” she said. “It isn’t.”

I watched all four of them stare at the photograph. I watched as the truth sank in. I held Haley’s hand, waiting for the moment I could take my other child, my firstborn daughter, into arms that had ached to hold her for sixteen years. In that girl’s beautiful dark eyes, I saw confusion and fear and it broke my heart.

“Jenny,” I said. “Is that your name? Did I get it right?” I hadn’t really heard the introductions.

The girl slowly raised her gaze from the photograph. “Yes,” she whispered.

“Don’t be afraid,” I said.

Grace looked at her mother. “I’m not…?”

It took Tara a moment to shake her head. “I don’t think so.” She touched the other woman’s shoulder. “Em,” she said, “is this possible? What do you remember?”

“I had her in the hospital,” the woman said again. “It’s impossible. It’s ridiculous.”

“When is your birthday?” I asked Jenny.

“August 31,” she whispered.

My baby, I thought, my eyes filling. She’d lain alone in a hospital for two days with no mother to hold her. No mother to talk to her. She’d been all by herself until the midwife stole her away, quietly, taking all records of her existence with her, erasing her so that I’d never be able to find her again.

“You’re my Lily, Jenny. I’m certain of it.”

“Stop it!” the woman snapped at me, tugging Jenny close to her, and I knew I’d said too much, too fast, but I hadn’t been able to help myself.

The girl pulled free of her mother and fled down the hallway. Grace took off after her. Tara grabbed the woman’s arm to stop her from following them. “Let Grace,” she said.

The woman looked terrified. “I don’t understand what’s going on!”

“She’s Lily,” Haley said. “She’s so Lily.”

Tara looked at me, her hands wrapped around the woman’s forearm. “Let me talk to Emerson,” she said.

I didn’t want them to leave. I was afraid Lily would vanish once more into thin air. But what could I do?

“All right,” I said. Emerson had already turned away, disappearing into the hallway, getting away from me as quickly as she could. “Please don’t leave, though,” I added, but they were gone and only Haley heard my words.

61

Noelle

Wilmington, North Carolina

1994

She awakened with a great start and couldn’t immediately figure out where she was. The odd, dim lighting in the room disoriented her. She blinked hard, trying to focus. The small sink. The bassinet. She turned her head to the right and saw the bed where Emerson slept. She felt something hard against her thigh through her skirt and glanced down to see a bottle next to her on the seat of the recliner. She’d been feeding the baby. What was her name? Grace? They’d wanted to name her Noelle. No, this baby wasn’t Grace. It was Emerson’s child. Jennifer. Jenny. She had the vaguest memory of getting up to return the baby to the bassinet, but the bassinet was empty. She tried to think. Had Jill come in to take the baby from her arms? She drew in a long slow breath, worried she’d feel dizzy once she got to her feet. She pressed her hands on the seat of the chair to keep her balance, but as she started to stand, her glance fell to the floor at her feet and she saw the baby who had slipped from her tired arms down the silky fabric of her skirt.

She couldn’t breathe. She bent over too quickly to reach for the infant and fell from the chair to the floor, landing hard on her hip. Grabbing the baby, she pulled her onto her lap but knew right away she was too late. Too impossibly late. The baby’s head was at an unnatural angle, her lips already blue and lifeless.

Noelle stared at the infant, eyes wide, horror filling her chest. Y ou killed her, you killed her, you killed her! Her hands trembled as she attempted to straighten the little head on the broken neck. She leaned over to try to breathe life into the purplish lips and tiny nose, where a trickle of blood had already crusted.

She pulled herself to her feet, one hand on the edge of the sink. She felt as though she was wailing, but the sound was caught inside her chest and couldn’t come out. She picked up the baby and placed her in the bassinet, then stood stock-still, trying to clear her head. Trying to think.

The baby in the nurses’ station . The twin to this one. The one with the dying mother. The missing father.

How would she get Jill away? Quietly, she crossed the room and opened the door to the nurses’ station to find it empty. Jill wasn’t there, but the baby was still in the bassinet. Brown hair. Six and a half pounds. No time to waste. No time to think.

Noelle lifted the infant into her arms. She grabbed the thin chart attached to the bassinet and slipped back into Emerson’s room. Her hands shook wildly as she placed the motherless baby next to Emerson’s child in the bassinet. Then she wrapped a flannel blanket around the lifeless infant, Emerson’s little Jenny, and slipped her gently into her huge leather purse.