they were the truth. The lamp she’d aimed between my legs lit up her electric-blue eyes, and her wild hair had been pulled back from her face, damp tendrils of it clinging to her forehead. In the lamplight, her hair glowed nearly red. She’d walked me around the moonlit room. She gave me brandy and strange teas that tasted like earth. She turned me in odd positions that, given my big belly and shivering legs, made me feel like a contortionist. She had me stand with one foot on the kitchen stool she’d dragged into the bedroom and told me to rock my hips this way and that. I’d cried and moaned and leaned against her and my worried husband. My teeth had chattered even though the room was very warm. I’d hated feeling so out of control, but I’d had no choice but to turn myself over to Noelle. I would do anything she said, drink any brew she gave me. I trusted her more than I trusted myself, and when she finally said something about calling an ambulance, I thought,
But she never did call for help and the rest of the night became a blur of pain to me. I woke up in the darkness to find Sam sitting next to our bed, a fuzzy silhouette against the lamplight. For a moment I didn’t know where I was. My body ached and I felt raw and empty.
“You’re a mom, Tara.” He smoothed his fingers over my cheek. “You’re an amazing, brave and beautiful mom.” I couldn’t see his face, but his voice held a smile.
“Am I in the hospital?” All that I could force from my throat was a whisper. I had no voice. My mouth felt dry and scratchy.
“No, Tara. You’re here. You’re home. Noelle pulled it off. She thought for a while she might need to take you to the hospital, but she was able to turn the baby.” He smoothed my hair, held his hand against my cheek. I smelled soap.
“My mouth.” I licked my dry lips. “Feels like sand.”
Sam chuckled. “Cinders.” He held a glass toward me, guided the straw to my lips, and I felt the scratchiness ease as I sipped.
“Cinders?” Had I misunderstood him?
“You passed out after the baby was born. Noelle cut off some of my hair—” he touched the dark hair above his forehead “—and burned it and put the cinders beneath your tongue to bring you back.”
My head spun a little. “Did it work?” I asked.
He nodded. “I’m sorry everything was so hard on you, but our baby’s beautiful, Tara. You held her. Do you remember?”
All at once, I recalled the mewing cry of my daughter as I reached for her. I remembered the soft flannel- wrapped weight of her in my arms. The tug at my nipple. The memories were dreamlike and I wished I could recapture every minute detail.
“Where is she? I want to see her.” I looked past him toward the bassinet near the window.
“Noelle has her in the kitchen doing some midwifey thing to her. I told her I thought you were waking up and she said she’d bring her in.” Suddenly, he leaned toward me, resting his cheek against mine. “I thought I was going to lose you,” he said. “Lose both of you. I was so scared. I thought we’d made a terrible mistake, trying to have the baby here at home. But Noelle…no obstetrician could have done a better job. We owe her everything. She was so good, Tara.”
I felt the heat of his cheek, the stickiness of his damp skin against my own, and I rested my hand on the side of his face. “The baby’s name…” I whispered. We’d felt so certain the baby would be a boy, another Samuel Vincent, that we’d never settled on a girl’s name. Grace, Sara, Hannah had all risen to the top, but we hadn’t made a firm decision. “Noelle?” I suggested now.
He lifted his cheek from mine. For a moment, I thought I saw a flash of doubt cross his face, but then he smiled. Nodded.
“Here she is.” Noelle walked into the room carrying the tiny bundle. “Your mama’s waiting for you, darlin’.” She leaned her head close to the bundle and I felt a hunger unlike anything I’d ever known. If I could have leaped out of the bed to grab my child I would have, but I held out my arms and let Noelle settle the baby into them.
Sam tipped his forehead to mine and we stared into the face of our daughter. I slipped the tiny yellow hat from her head to reveal light brown hair. Her cheeks were round and rosy, her eyebrows smudged pale crescents. She blinked her eyes open and looked at us blindly but with interest, as though she’d been waiting to see us as anxiously as we’d been waiting to see her, and I felt my own eyes fill at the miracle in my arms. I couldn’t tear my gaze from her, but Sam lifted his head to look at Noelle. She sat, a small smile on her lips, at the foot of the bed.
“We’re going to name her Noelle,” he said.
I looked up in time to see the smile leave her face. “Oh, no, you’re not.” She made it sound like a warning.
“Yes,” I said. “We want to.”
Even without my contacts, I could see the sudden rise of color in Noelle’s cheeks.
“Please don’t,” she said. “Promise me you won’t saddle this child with my name.”
“Okay,” Sam and I said together, quickly, because clearly we’d caused her distress. I didn’t understand. Did she hate her name? I’d always thought it was a pretty name, lyrical and strong. For whatever reason, though, the thought upset her. It didn’t matter. We’d pick another name, a beautiful name for our beautiful little daughter.
Now, sitting in the church next to the daughter born that night, I remembered my closeness with that daughter. Physical. Emotional. Spiritual. It had blossomed between us so easily in those early years. How did that closeness turn into this unbearable distance? Was there any hope of ever getting it back?
6
Emerson
God, I felt like a zombie. The reception after the service was in my own house, but I could hardly find my way around the rooms. Faces and voices blended together into a jumble of sight and sound. Nearly everyone was wearing black except me. I had on my favorite green blouse and the green-and-tan floral skirt that was getting too tight in the waist. Just plucked them out of the closet that morning without thinking. Noelle would have hated all the black, anyway.
I was only vaguely aware of what was happening: Jenny and Grace going upstairs to escape the adults; the caterer Tara’d hired floating through the rooms with trays of bruschetta and shrimp; Ted keeping an eye on me from wherever he was. He knew I was a wreck. I was glad that Noelle’s mother had left with her aide after the service. I didn’t think I could bear to see any more of her sorrow.
