The Midwife's Confession

how she’d turned out. I honestly wasn’t sure how much I had to do with the person Haley had become, either. She’d been born smart and self-confident and independent. The independence was a problem, since I wanted to keep her chained to my side. I’d lost one child and I had no intention of losing this one.

“Dad hasn’t ridden a bike in a long time,” Haley said, “but he only crashed three times.”

“Twice,” Bryan corrected her, grinning.

I could tell how much Haley liked saying that word. Dad. She used it a lot, as though she was making up for all the years she’d never been able to say it.

“Stay for dinner?” I asked, but Bryan shook his head.

“Gonna give you two some girl time.” He drew Haley into a hug. “Want to do this again tomorrow?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said.

“You have homework?” I asked.

“Not much.” She was keeping up with her schoolwork even during the weeks in the hospital. I didn’t think I’d have her motivation if I were in her place. She didn’t want to fall behind her friends.

“Go do it and I’ll finish up my work and then we can eat.”

“Okay,” she said, heading for the stairs. She looked over her shoulder at us. “Bye, Dad,” she said.

“See you tomorrow.” Bryan waved.

We listened to her clomp up the stairs. “Thanks for your help today,” I said.

“It’s my pleasure. Believe me.”

“She’s enjoying getting to know you.”

“Not half as much as I’m enjoying getting to know her.”

I felt angry all of a sudden and I turned away from him to take two plates from the cabinet above the dishwasher. We’d had long conversations about Haley’s condition and treatment. Long talks about Haley. I’d shown him videos of her in ballet class and playing T-ball and beating the crap out of another swim team with her phenomenal breaststroke. But we hadn’t talked about the way he left. His cowardice. The sheer meanness of it. “I can’t handle the possibility of losing another child,” he’d said before he left us the first time Haley got sick. Well, neither could I, but that didn’t give me the right to walk out the door.

Neither of us had uttered a word about Lily. When I told him I’d been named the director of the Missing Children’s Bureau, I’d watched his face for a sign that he got it, but he acted like I’d said I was the director of a publishing company or a preschool, something that had nothing at all to do with our lives.

I’d have to talk to him about it at some point, because I’d burst if I didn’t and it was really pissing me off that he acted as though he could waltz back into our lives without consequence. Right now, though, I didn’t dare do anything that would hurt the relationship he was forming with Haley.

I set the plates on the counter, then walked to the garage door. “So we’ll see you again tomorrow?” I asked, pulling the door open.

“Right.” He walked to the door, then turned to face me, smiling. “She’s going to grow up to be just like you,” he said. “She already reminds me of you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know,” he said with a shrug. “Just…pretty incredible.” His smile was sort of rueful. I could see the regret in his eyes. “See you tomorrow,” he said.

He left and I watched him walk through the open garage door to his car where he’d parked it on the street. Don’t you fall for him, too, I told myself. I wouldn’t. Too much water under that ol’ bridge.

I had salmon baking in the oven when the phone rang an hour later. I picked up the receiver from its cradle near the fridge. I always answered the phone, never bothering to look at the caller ID. That came from years of wanting the phone to ring. Of wanting answers. I always answered the phone with hope in my voice.

“Hello?” I turned the heat down under the rice.

“It’s Jeff Jackson.”

Oh, shit. Haley’s oncologist, calling at six o’clock. Not a good sign. I tensed.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. She’s doing so well, I wanted to say. Please, please let her have this week in peace.

“Just got the lab reports,” he said. “Her blood count’s low.”

“Oh, crap.” I ran a hand through my hair. “Jeff, she looks great. She went for a long bike ride today and—”

“She needs a transfusion.”

I shut my eyes. “Now?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Damn it!”

“I’ll call Children’s and have them get a room ready for her,” he said, then added softly, “Sorry.”

It took me a few minutes to pull myself together before I went upstairs. I stood quietly in the open doorway of Haley’s room. She had no clue I was there and she was Skyping with one of her cousins. I could see one of the twins—Madison or Mandy, I could never tell them apart—on her monitor. Madison or Mandy was laughing and talking. She held a boxy little Westland terrier in her arms and was making the dog wave at the camera with its paw. Bryan’s sister, Marilyn Collier, lived an hour away in Fredericksburg and she and her four girls had remained a