The Midwife's Confession

   31 Noelle   

   32 Emerson   

Part Three: Grace   

   33 Grace   

   34 Tara   

   35 Noelle   

   36 Emerson   

   37 Grace   

   38 Grace   

   39 Tara   

   40 Emerson   

   41 Grace   

   42 Anna   

   43 Grace   

   44 Tara   

   45 Grace   

   46 Emerson   

   47 Tara   

   48 Grace   

   49 Tara   

   50 Anna   

   51 Grace   

   52 Anna   

   53 Tara   

   54 Grace   

   55 Tara   

   56 Anna   

   57 Emerson   

   58 Grace   

   59 Noelle   

   60 Anna   

   61 Noelle   

   62 Tara   

   63 Grace   

   64 Emerson   

Epilogue   

Reader’s Guide   

Acknowledgments   

PART ONE

NOELLE

1

Noelle

Wilmington, North Carolina

September 2010

She sat on the top step of the front porch of her Sunset Park bungalow, leaning against the post, her eyes on the full moon. She would miss all this. The night sky. Spanish moss hanging from the live oaks. September air that felt like satin against her skin. She resisted the pull of her bedroom. The pills. Not yet. She had time. She could sit here all night if she wanted.

Lifting her arm, she outlined the circle of the moon with her fingertip. Felt her eyes burn. “I love you, world,” she whispered.

The weight of the secret pressed down on her suddenly, and she dropped her hand to her lap, heavy as a stone. When she’d awakened this morning, she’d had no idea that this would be the day she could no longer carry that weight. As recently as this evening, she’d hummed as she chopped celery and cucumbers and tomatoes for her salad, thinking of the fair-haired preemie born the day before—a fragile little life who needed her help. But when she sat down with her salad in front of the computer, it was as though two beefy, muscular arms reached out from her monitor and pressed their hands down hard on her head, her shoulders, compressing her lungs so that she couldn’t pull in a full breath.

The very shape of the letters on her screen clawed at her brain and she knew it was time. She felt no fear—