Diane Chamberlain - The Midwife's Confession

The wristbands! She reached into her purse and worked the band from the baby’s wrist, then exchanged it for the one worn by the infant in the bassinet, but not before she noticed the name: KNIGHTLY, baby girl . She dropped that baby’s record and wristband into her purse. She’d burn the records. She could already picture the fire in her fireplace.

She stole out of the hospital, passing a couple of nurses and one obstetrician she knew, but they barely acknowledged her as they raced down the hall. The unit was an uncalm place tonight. As uncalm as she felt inside. As uncalm as she would feel for the rest of her life.

It was three-thirty in the morning by the time she got home and by then she was operating on sheer adrenaline. Almost without thinking, she found the shovel in her shed. She selected the corner of her yard farthest from the house and, in the darkness, she dug and dug and dug, the earth soft from August rains. She made the hole deep and narrow. She wrapped the baby in her favorite skirt, because it was beautiful and because she needed to sacrifice something she loved. She lay flat on the ground and carefully lowered the baby deep into the ground, then she shoveled the earth over her, finally letting her tears come.

When she was finished she sat on the ground above the baby, above Emerson’s Jenny, not moving even when a misty rain started to fall. She sat there until the sky began to lighten with strands of pink and lemon and lavender, like a bouquet of flowers for a baby girl. That was what she would do this morning, she thought. She’d go to the garden shop and ask them what plants would bloom into a lush blanket of pastel blossoms that even a stranger would not be able to look at without thinking, This is a garden that’s filled with love.

62

Tara

Washington, D.C.

2010

We found Grace and Jenny in the little room at the end of the hall. They sat on the floor, leaning against one of the love seats and my daughter— my daughter, I was sure of it—had her arm around her best friend. They looked up when Emerson and I walked into the room.

“Mom,” Jenny said. “Please tell me I’m not her daughter! Just because I look like those girls doesn’t mean anything.”

Emerson sank onto the love seat. Every trace of color had left her face. She smoothed her hand over Jenny’s head, gently squeezing a fistful of her hair as if she could hold on to her that way. “I don’t understand how you possibly could be her daughter,” she said. “Noelle had nothing to do with your birth.”

I saw the doubt in Emerson’s eyes as she spoke. We’d both seen the picture of those girls. You could exchange Jenny for one of them in the photograph and no one would know the difference.

“The letter Noelle wrote to Anna,” I said. “It didn’t say where she was when she dropped the baby, did it?”

Emerson jerked her head toward me, a look of betrayal on her face. “Do you actually think Jenny could be the one?” she nearly barked at me. “Tell me how that could possibly have happened.”

I sat down on the love seat opposite them, wondering how much to say. How to say it all without being cruel because what happened now seemed so clear in my mind. “Noelle was upset you were alone when you were in labor.” I felt all their eyes on me. “Ted was trying to get a plane home and Noelle was with Sam and me, remember? But once Grace was born, she had a doula come over so she could go see you at the hospital.”

“She never came to the hospital,” Emerson argued.

I looked down at my lap, where I was twisting my wedding ring on my finger. “That’s what she told us later,” I said quietly. I lifted my gaze to Emerson again. “Of course, that’s what she’d tell us—that she never made it there. That she was so tired, she just went home and went to sleep. Didn’t that seem unbelievable at the time, Em? That she wouldn’t come see you?”

Emerson looked away from me. In her hand, she still held a fistful of Jenny’s hair.

“Mom.” Jenny put her hands over her ears as though she could somehow block out what was happening. “I can’t stand this!”

I felt such relief to know that Grace and I were free from the nightmare, yet I was now reliving the emotions of this long day again, reliving them through the friend I loved so much. Tell Jenny she’ll always be yours, I thought, leaning forward, and Emerson seemed to get my unspoken message.

“I don’t know what’s going on, Jenny,” she said. “We’ll figure it out. But I don’t care who gave birth to you, your dad and I raised you and you’re our daughter.”

“Haley needs a bone marrow transplant,” Grace said, unhelpfully. “I was going to get tested to see if I’m a match. They only need to swab your cheek.”

“Grace,” I said more sharply than I’d meant to. “Give Jenny and Emerson a chance to figure out what’s happening, honey. Remember how you felt a couple of hours ago?”

Grace looked contrite. “Right,” she said. “Sorry.” She had grown up today, I thought. Driven hundreds of miles alone. Walked into a hospital. Agreed to endure medical treatments to help a sister she didn’t know. She wasn’t the same girl she’d been the day before.

“I want to go home,” Jenny said. “Don’t make me go back to that room, Mom. Please just take me home.”

Emerson looked at me. “I think we should leave,” she said. “I need to talk to Ian.”

I stood. “I’ll go back and tell them we’re leaving,” I said. “I’ll have to give them your contact information, Emerson, all right? And get theirs for you?”

Emerson shook her head. “I don’t want them calling me,” she said.

Of course not. “I’ll just give them Ian’s number.”

She gave me a reluctant nod. I stood, then bent over to hug her and kiss the top of Jenny’s head. “Love you, Jen,” I said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

I found Anna sitting on the edge of Haley’s bed and it was clear they’d both been crying. I could imagine how they felt, suddenly so near the girl they’d feared they would never find, yet unable to touch or even talk to her.

Anna jumped to her feet and rushed over to me. “How is she?” she asked. “Is she okay?”

I nodded. “She and Emerson have a lot to think about,” I said. “They’re not sure…well, you can imagine how over whelmed they are right now. I came to tell you that we’re leaving and to—”

“No!” Haley wailed. “We need to talk to Lily!”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Haley,” I said. “Jenny wants to go home and, right now, I think that’s best. But Emerson will talk to her lawyer and he’ll get in touch with you and your mother very soon. Tell me the best way for him to contact you.”

Anna picked up a briefcase from the floor near the sofa. I could tell she was fighting tears as she pulled out a business card. She added some other phone numbers to the back of it and I wrote Ian’s number on a slip of paper from my notepad.

“We don’t want to hurt her. Lily. Jenny,” Anna said, as she handed me the card. “We want to do this the right way. But Haley needs—”

“I know,” I said. “Jenny’s in shock right now. So is Emerson.” I tried to smile. “So am I, actually.”

“Us, too,” Haley said. “Seriously.”

As I turned to leave the room, Anna caught my arm. “Grace is beautiful,” she said. “When I saw her, I thought, What a beautiful girl, but I felt nothing…here.” She pressed her hand to her chest. “When I saw Jenny, though, I knew. Even if she didn’t look exactly like Haley’s cousins, I would have known. It was like a missing piece of my heart suddenly appeared in the doorway. Can you understand that?”