The Midwife's Confession

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Wilmington, North Carolina

Now that I was sitting in my van in front of Rebecca Baker’s house, I was having second thoughts about the plan we’d come up with. Emerson and I must have exchanged a dozen emails trying to figure out what to say to the two women we’d agreed to contact.

I thought we should come as close to the truth as we could without revealing what we knew. We would tell the women that we were Noelle’s closest friends and that we were devastated by her suicide. We knew she’d had some personal problems around the time their children were born, and since they’d had intimate contact with her, maybe they could help us figure out what had been going on with her. We’d say that we just wanted to understand Noelle better. That was certainly the truth. Hopefully, we’d each be able to see photographs of the women’s daughters and, like magic, some utter lack of resemblance would give them away.

That hadn’t happened in Denise Abernathy’s case, though.

Emerson said it had taken all her courage to walk up to the Abernathy’s front door, but when she told Denise why she’d come, Denise invited her in and talked her ear off, raving about Noelle.

I don’t think she’s it, Emerson emailed me after her visit. There are four kids and they’re all green-eyed blonds, like their mother. Denise said Noelle had been wonderful and made it a great experience. Noelle also delivered her older daughter and she said she was upset when she found out Noelle was no longer practicing when she had her last two kids. I bet it’s going to be your Rebecca.

My Rebecca.

I could have used Sam’s guidance as an attorney. Was what we were doing legal? It was certainly unethical, but what choice did we have? Even if Sam were alive, I wouldn’t have been able to talk to him about it and I certainly couldn’t ask Ian. Emerson and I were on our own with this burden.

So now I sat in front of Rebecca Baker’s house, reminding myself I was an actress. I could do this.

I’d dawdled as much as I could since leaving school a few hours ago. Suzanne’s birthday party was only three days away and I’d met with the caterer to iron out a few last-minute details and stopped at the party store to order several dozen helium balloons. I had no more excuses to get in the way of seeing this woman. I stepped out of my van and started walking up the long driveway, hoping no one was home.

I’d had a bigger challenge finding Rebecca Baker than Emerson had had finding Denise, who still lived at the address Noelle had for her in her record book. Rebecca’s address had been blacked out along with her name. Emerson finally found her for me on the LinkedIn professional website. Rebecca Baker was an accountant. There was nothing about a husband or children in her profile, but her age and location fit the woman we were looking for.

On the front porch, I pressed the doorbell and heard a protracted chime from inside the house. Someone was home. I could hear a dog barking. Footsteps. In a moment, a girl a few years younger than Grace opened the door.

“Hey,” she said. She was pixyish, athletic, dark-haired. Her eyebrows were raised in a question. And you are? they asked.

“Hey,” I said back. “I’m Tara Vincent. I’m looking for Rebecca Baker.”

“Hold on.” She pivoted on her heel and headed down the central hall toward a kitchen. I could hear the clang of pots and pans. “Mom!” she called. “It’s someone for you.”

A woman walked toward me dressed in sweats. She raised her eyebrows in the same motion as her daughter, yet she looked nothing like her. Her hair was white-blond. Her eyes a vibrant blue. Nothing like her daughter at all.

“I’m so sorry to interrupt your evening,” I said. “And I know this will sound kind of strange and intrusive, but my name is Tara Vincent and I was a close friend of Noelle Downie.”

She frowned as if trying to follow me. I couldn’t blame her. “I heard Noelle killed herself,” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “And I…I’d like to talk with you for a few minutes if you have time. I could come back on a different day if—”

“What about?” she asked.

“Do you have some time now?”

She looked over her shoulder. “Well, you’ll be taking me away from cleaning the kitchen and I don’t mind that sort of interruption.” She pointed to the rockers on the porch. “Have a seat.”

“Thanks.” We moved to the rockers. They were dusty. A little grimy. My cardigan was white and I had to fight the urge to clean the chair with a tissue before I sat down.

“I have to say, I wasn’t surprised to hear that Noelle killed herself,” Rebecca said as she lowered herself into the rocker. “I mean, you were her friend and I’m sorry for your loss, but I’m not surprised.”

Her words jarred me. Those of us close to Noelle had been surprised. What did this stranger know that we didn’t? “Really?” I asked. “How come?”

“She was such a mess the last time I saw her.”

“When was that?”

“Oh, a long time ago. She was my midwife for my first two kids. My son and the girl you met at the door. Petra. Though she didn’t actually deliver Petra. Long story. So what did you want to talk about?”

My mind spun. Noelle didn’t deliver Petra? How did that fit the puzzle we were trying to put together?

“My friends and I were shocked that Noelle killed herself,” I said. “It sounds like you knew her better than we did in a way. We’re really trying to understand why Noelle did what she did. She stopped being a midwife more than ten years ago and we wondered if something happened around then to start her downfall.” The downfall we hadn’t recognized. “So we’re trying to talk to some of Noelle’s last patients to see if we can understand why she became so depressed.” The explanation sounded ridiculously hokey to me, but Rebecca was nodding as though it made perfect sense.