The Midwife's Confession

day to be sure she was okay after her rough night. That was both the benefit and the curse of teaching at your child’s school: access to her was way too easy. She wouldn’t appreciate my interference, though, and I actually went out of my way to avoid seeing her during the day.

When I walked into the house after school that afternoon, the message light was blinking on the kitchen phone. I punched in the pass code and lifted the receiver to my ear.

“Hi, Tara,” Ian said. Then he chuckled. “I have to tell you, I get a jolt every time I hear Sam’s outgoing message on your voice mail. It’s nice, though. Nice to hear his voice. So I’m just checking on you. Hope you and Grace are doing okay.”

I set down the phone.

Well.

I had honestly, completely, forgotten that Sam had recorded our outgoing message. Emerson mentioned it in the first few weeks after he died, but someone could have told me my house was purple back then and it would have sailed clear over my head. I guessed no one had had the nerve to mention it to me since. Except Ian, and he did it in a nice way.

I pulled my cell phone from my purse and dialed our home number. The phone on the counter rang four times while I bit my lip, waiting. Then the voice mail picked up.

“Hey, there!” Sam sounded like he was in the next room. “You’ve reached Sam, Tara and Grace and we hope you’ll leave us a message. Bye!”

I stared at the phone in my hand for a moment, then started to cry, hugging the phone to my heart. I sat on the stool next to the kitchen island and sobbed so hard my tears pooled on the granite. I’d thought I was done with this part of the grief—this sucking-down, soul-searing pain—but apparently not.

It took me twenty minutes to pull myself together. Then I looked at the phone again, with determination this time. I needed to change the message. The thing was, I had no idea how to do it.

I wondered, too, what Grace would say. I remembered her reaction when she walked into our bedroom to see that I’d packed all of Sam’s clothing in black trash bags marked for Goodwill. He’d been gone two weeks by then, and I’d felt an extraordinary need to get rid of the clothes he would never be able to wear again. I’d heard that some women hung on to their deceased husband’s clothing for years, but another piece of my heart chipped off when I saw those suits and shirts and khakis and tracksuits in the closet each morning.

“You’re erasing him!” Grace had screamed at me when she saw the bags. I’d tried to hold her—I’d wanted us to cry together—but she’d pushed me away and run to her room. I’d thought, Tomorrow she’ll talk to me, but now two hundred tomorrows had passed and she was as cut off from me as ever. Why had I gotten rid of Sam’s things so quickly? Was it normal? I’d thought it would help, not seeing his clothes in the closet each morning. I hadn’t thought about how hard it would be to see the emptiness in their place.

I picked up the phone and pushed a few buttons, trying to figure out how to change the message. Grace would probably not even notice, anyway. She never used the house line.

I was listening to the instructions when Grace walked into the kitchen. I jumped. I hadn’t realized that she’d beaten me home from school, and I hoped she hadn’t heard my breakdown. From the start, I’d felt the need to be strong for her. Now I turned the phone off quickly, not wanting to change the message in front of her.

“What are you doing?” She stood on the other side of the island, eyeing the phone with suspicion.

“I thought it was time I changed the outgoing message,” I admitted, “but I can’t remember how.”

“To take Dad’s voice off it, you mean.”

I tried to determine if there was an accusation in her words. “Yes,” I said. “I thought it was time.”

She looked at the phone in my hand instead of at me. “I guess.” She reached for the receiver. “I can do it if you want.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

She deftly hit a few buttons, then said, “Hi, this is Grace.” She held the phone out to me and I stared at it, not certain what she wanted me to do. She gave me a look that said, You are a dork, and pressed a button. “I’ll say, ‘This is Grace,’ and you just add, ‘And Tara,’ and then I’ll finish it. All right?”

“Yes. Good.” I moved closer to her, our heads touching. I could smell her shampoo. I was so lonely for that scent. It put a lump in my throat.

“Hi, this is Grace.”

“And Tara.”

“Leave us a message,” she said, and then she hung up. “There.”

“Thank you.” I smiled.

“Anytime.” She picked up an apple from the fruit bowl on the counter and turned toward the hallway. I wanted to grab her. Keep her in the kitchen with me. Were you able to get back to sleep after your nightmare last night? I wanted to ask her. Tell me about your day! Who’s your favorite teacher this quarter? Have you spoken to Cleve lately? But I forced myself to keep my mouth shut, because what just happened between us, insignificant though it seemed, felt like magic to me and I didn’t want to ruin it.

21

Anna

Washington, D.C.

Bryan and I sat across the desk from Doug Davis, the transplant specialist at Children’s, as he leafed through Haley’s thick file. He pulled out one of the sheets of paper, set it on the desk and tapped it with his finger. “I have the report on Haley’s bone marrow,” he said, “and unfortunately she has a cell type that’s a bit more challenging to match but certainly not impossible, so there’s no reason to be pessimistic.” He was looking directly at me. Did I look pessimistic? I was scared out of my wits. Was that the same thing?

It felt strange to be at Children’s without Haley. She was with Marilyn and the kids for a long weekend and I couldn’t wait to hear all about it tonight. I was glad she was having a getaway, but three days without her and I was in withdrawal. I missed my daughter. I hated that I’d have to bring her back to Children’s tomorrow for another