The Midwife's Confession

tear out the intruder’s eyes with my bare hands.

But she was alone. Sitting in her bed in the half-light from the moon, she was doubled over, her hands covering her ears, and by the time I reached her, her voice had grown so tiny and strangled sounding that I could barely hear it.

“Help, help,” she whimpered.

“Grace!” I wrapped my arms around her like a cocoon. “Sweetheart. It’s okay.” I rocked her and she settled against me. “A bad dream,” I said. “Just a bad dream.” I remembered this. I remembered her letting me hold her this way when she was little, and while I hated that she was frightened, I loved the feeling of holding her without her pushing me away. “What was it, honey?” I asked. “Do you want to tell me about it?” She always used to tell Sam her dreams. She’d pour them out to him and he’d listen so carefully, as if he’d treasure every detail forever.

I felt her shake her head beneath my chin. She clutched my arm, let go, clutched, let go, reminding me of the way she’d open and close her fist against my breast when she nursed as a baby.

“Was it about Daddy?” I asked, then bit my lip. She hated my probing.

“My fault Noelle died.” Her voice was so soft and muffled that I thought I’d heard her wrong.

“Your fault?” I asked. “Gracie, no! How could it possibly be your fault?”

She shook her head again.

“Tell me,” I said. “Why would you think that?”

She drew away from me, but only a little so that our bodies still touched. When I reached out to stroke her back she didn’t withdraw.

“The day she died, she sent me an email,” she said. “It was the kind she always sent, trying to guilt me into volunteering.”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

“And Cleve sent an email, too. I was writing back to him, telling him how annoying Noelle could be…saying all kinds of negative things about her. About her being a whack job and everything. And right after I hit send, I realized I’d sent it to her, not Cleve.”

“Oh, no.” I was glad it was dark enough that she couldn’t see my smile. I’d done that myself more than once. Who hadn’t? But I felt for Grace and I felt for Noelle being on the receiving end of an email like that from a girl she adored. “We all make that mistake at least—”

“Then she killed herself.” Grace cut me off. “Like a couple of hours—maybe a couple of minutes—after she got my email. She read these horrible things I said about her and then she killed herself.”

“No, Grace,” I said. “You can’t pin her suicide on yourself. Maybe she never even read your email, but even if she did, that’s not enough to send someone over the edge. Whatever was bothering Noelle was deep and had been going on for a long, long time.”

I’d had my own problems sleeping in the two days since Emerson showed me the letter she’d found. I could think of little else. I kept picturing a baby slipping out of Noelle’s grasp. When? Where? How horrible she must have felt! I kept trying unsuccessfully to wipe the image from my head. I wished I could tell Grace about it to ease her mind, but the secret needed to stay between Emerson and me for now. Maybe forever.

As usual, though, I couldn’t bear the silence and distance that began to open up between us again as she recovered from her dream.

“There are some things I know about Noelle,” I said, needing to fill the silence and keep her engaged with me. “There were some reasons for her depression that explain her suicide, honey, and trust me, they have nothing at all to do with you. This would have happened whether you’d sent that email or not.”

“What kind of things?” She looked at me almost suspiciously, her eyes glistening in the moonlight.

“I can’t talk about them yet. Emerson and I are trying to figure out the reasons Noelle was so down. We think something happened to…with Noelle a long time ago that—”

“Like she was molested or something?”

“No. Nothing like that.” I shouldn’t have said a word. There was a good possibility I would never be able to reveal what I knew about Noelle to Grace. “I don’t even know all the details, but I’m just telling you this to put your mind at ease. All you need to know is that you had absolutely nothing to do with what happened to Noelle. Okay?”

She gave a small nod as she lay down.

“You going to be able to go back to sleep?”

“I’m fine.” She settled down under the covers and turned on her side, facing the wall. My body felt chilled where she’d been close to me. I didn’t want to leave. I touched her shoulder. Rubbed it.

“You don’t work this afternoon, do you?” I asked.

“No. Tomorrow.”

“I can drive you home today, then.”

“Jenny’ll give me a ride.”

I hesitated. “I can tell you’re still upset,” I said. “You’re so much like your daddy, honey. You ruminate on things and it’s not good. Maybe tonight we could—”

“Mom!” She rolled onto her back, and although I couldn’t see her face well, I knew she was staring daggers at me. “I want to sleep!”

“Okay.” I smiled ruefully to myself. She’d given me an inch and I’d tried for a mile. I leaned over, kissed her cheek. “I love you,” I said. “Sleep tight.”

I had to fight the urge to check on Grace the next