The Midwife's Confession

one of our set designers. “Would you be in charge for a few minutes?”

“Me?” He looked surprised.

“Yes,” I said. Then I called to the rest of the students. “Everyone! I have to make a quick phone call, so Tyler’s going to talk to you about the set. Give him your input and I’ll be back in a minute.”

They were quiet as I left the auditorium and I knew bedlam would likely break out the second the door shut behind me, but they’d survive for a few minutes. I’d be fast.

I walked down the hall toward the teachers’ lounge, hoping I hadn’t set Tyler up for failure. I could have picked a different student; I knew many of the other kids better than I did him and there were some real stars among the junior actors. I was careful always to pick a different student for any special task, though. I didn’t want anyone to accuse me of having a pet. Never again.

I’d always hated that expression “teacher’s pet.” When I was in high school, people used it to describe me because Mr. Starkey, the head of the drama club, doted on me. He saw talent and passion in me and thought he’d found a student who could help him raise the drama club above the mundane. It was probably his belief in me that fed my arrogance about my talent and led me to think that I could somehow get into Yale, which had been my dream school, without paying much attention to the rest of my studies. In retrospect, I was angry at him for making me into his prodigy. It cut me off from the other students who resented the attention he paid me and it gave me an unrealistic sense of my own ability. Just because I was the best actor in my small high school did not mean I was a good actor. I was only the cream of a lackluster crop.

When I became a teacher myself, I vowed never to have a pet. I knew I’d have favorites, gravitating to the students who made my life easier with their dedication and who made me feel like a success through their achievements. But I promised never to treat any of them with favoritism, and I honestly thought I’d succeeded in reaching that goal. Somehow, though, even as I worked to hide the fact that Mattie Cafferty amazed me every time she took the stage, people knew. I didn’t even realize it until after the accident, when people would say how ironic it was that my favorite student had been driving the car that killed Sam. Worse, Grace knew. “And you thought she was so perfect!” she said to me when we’d learned it had been Mattie behind the wheel of that car. Mattie texting her boyfriend. I would have put Mattie in charge of the group in the auditorium in a heartbeat. I knew I could count on her.

My cheeks grew hot, thinking about Mattie, and when I walked into the teachers’ lounge, one of the science teachers was just leaving and she gave me a worried look. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“Fine.” I smiled. “Just rushing, as usual.”

Grace had been right. I had thought Mattie was perfect.

I’d been teaching my Improv class when the police officer showed up in the doorway of the classroom. My first thought was that something had happened to Grace and my heart started to skitter.

“It’s your husband,” the officer said as he walked with me toward the principal’s office, only a few doors down from my classroom. “He’s been in a very serious accident.”

“Is he alive?” I asked. That was all that mattered. That he was alive.

“Let’s talk in here,” he said, opening the door to the principal’s office. The two administrative assistants looked at me with white, flat expressions on their faces, and I knew that they knew something I hadn’t yet been told.

One of them stepped forward, gripping my forearm. “Shall I get Grace out of class?” she asked.

I nodded, then let the officer usher me into one of the counselor’s offices, which we had to ourselves.

“Is he alive?” I asked again. My body was shaking.

He pulled out a chair for me and nearly had to fold me into it, my body was so frozen in place. “They don’t think he’s going to make it,” he said. “I’m sorry. As soon as your daughter gets here, I can—”

I stood again. “No!” I shouted. “No. Please!” I pictured the office staff looking toward the door. They could no doubt hear me, but I didn’t care. “I need to get to him!” I said.

“As soon as your daughter gets here, we’ll go,” he said.

The door opened and Grace stood there, her eyes full of fear. “Mom,” she said. “What’s going on?”

I pulled her into my arms. “It’s Daddy, honey.” I tried to sound calm, but my voice splintered apart. I was squeezing her so hard in my arms that neither of us could breathe. I knew I was frightening her. I was frightening myself. In the back of the police car, I held Grace’s hand in a death grip as the officer filled us in on the details. Sam had been crossing the Monkey Junction intersection when his new Prius was broadsided by a girl sending a text message. He didn’t tell us the girl was Mattie. He would have had no idea the significance her identity would have for either of us.

A month or so ago, I was looking through the school’s online newspapers trying to find a particular review from a play we’d put on last year, when I stumbled across a photograph that had appeared in one of the winter issues. There we were, Mattie Cafferty and me. The caption read Mrs. Vincent Directs Mattie Cafferty in South Pacific. Grace had seen this picture, of course. She worked on the news paper. She may even have written the caption. In the picture, I stood next to Mattie, my hand on her shoulder, her dark hair spilling over my wrist. I remembered how I felt, working with her during that play. I’d had the feeling I’d discovered the next Meryl Streep. I wondered how Grace must feel now when she’d stumble across a picture of Mattie as she worked on the paper. I wished I could delete all of Mattie’s pictures from the school files—or at least delete the moment captured in that particular photograph, when my attachment to Mattie was so evident, even to me.

Mattie’s parents pulled her out of Hunter immediately after the accident. They moved to Florida, and a month later, I received a heartfelt letter from her filled with grief and regret. “I can’t ask you to forgive me,” she’d written. “I just want you to know I think of you and Mr. Vincent and Grace every single day.”

I had forgiven her. She’d been irresponsible and stupid, but it could have been Grace. It could have been me at her age. Grace would never forgive her, and I had the feeling she would never forgive me for once caring about Mattie. For connecting to Mattie in a way I couldn’t seem to connect to her.

I found a quiet corner of the lounge and reached into my purse for my phone. “Tara!” Emerson answered.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“I need to talk to you,” she said. “Meet me for dinner tonight?”