The Midwife's Confession

there. That was just as well. I knew he was upset that he’d never gotten to spend time with Noelle and it hurt me to see his sadness and regret.

By the time I got home, Ian had left a number for the last woman Noelle had served as a surrogate. I was glad Ted and Jenny weren’t home yet. I sat at my kitchen table and dialed the number. The woman’s name was Angela and she sounded weepy as I explained who I was and why I was calling.

“The lawyer told me she killed herself,” Angela said. “I’m in total shock. We loved her so much. We wouldn’t have our two children if it wasn’t for her.”

“Did Ian explain that we didn’t know Noelle was a surrogate?” I asked.

“Yes. I guess that’s not a huge surprise to me, because she was a very private person. Rob and I didn’t know much about her life, either. We were nervous about using her in the beginning because she didn’t have kids of her own. They always say the surrogate should have her own family. But we’d spoken with another couple she’d been a surrogate for and they recommended her so highly, we felt confident going ahead with her.”

“So…” I was having trouble formulating my questions, even though I’d thought them through before dialing the phone, “where did she live when she was waiting to give birth?”

“When she was pregnant with our son, we put her up in a hotel. But by the time our daughter was conceived, we felt much more comfortable about the whole thing and she lived with us the last three months of her pregnancy. She was a huge help, actually.”

“Did she say why she did it?”

“She said it was her calling. That was the word she used. Her calling.”

“Did she ever seem like she was drugged to you?” I hadn’t expected to ask the question, but there it was, popping out of my mouth, and Angela didn’t answer right away.

“Why would you ask that?” she said finally. “It specifically said in the contract that she was to use no drugs without her doctor’s—and our—approval.”

“She had back problems and needed pain medication for a while and I wondered how she made out without it.”

“I knew about her back,” Angela said. “I knew she was in pain sometimes, but she just put up with it. Plus, she was with us 24/7 those last three months. We would have known if she was using something. I trusted her completely.”

“Did you think she was mentally stable?”

Angela laughed. “I would say Noelle was crazy in a stable way, if you know what I mean. I mean, she was lovably crazy. Not a psych case. Just…” She sighed loudly. “She loved what she was doing,” she said. “She was happy doing it. I’m absolutely certain about that. I’m so sorry you lost her. It’s hard for me to imagine her taking her own life.”

“Did she talk about her family?” I asked. “I know I’m badgering you with questions, but I—”

“No, that’s fine. I’d feel the same way if I suddenly discovered someone in my family had led a secret life. And yes, she talked about her sister—about you—a lot. She raved about your cooking and baking.”

“She called me her sister?”

“Yes. You are, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but I only learned that recently.”

“Wow. She always called you her sister. Unless she has some other sister.”

“Just me,” I said, but in the back of my mind I was thinking, Who knows what else she was hiding? “I have just one more question,” I said. “Did she ever mention a woman named Anna Knightly to you?”

“Anna Knightly.” Angela sounded as though she was mulling the name over. “I don’t think so. Was she another parent Noelle helped?”

I shut my eyes. Hardly, I thought. “No,” I said. “Just someone I’m trying to track down.”

Now as I lay in bed, all I could think about was Noelle and her secrets and I stared at the moonlight reflected on the ceiling. Ted was finally asleep next to me, but it had taken him a long time to get there. As bizarre as Noelle’s surrogacy seemed to me, it was a hundred times more so to Ted. He’d barely recovered from the realization that Noelle and I were sisters when I hit him with the real purpose of her “rural work.” We’d stayed up late, talking about it, but I didn’t think that either of us had fully accepted the truth by the time we went to bed. He didn’t know the half of it. I wished I could tell him about Anna Knightly. At the same time, I felt protective of Noelle. Ted was starting to make a face every time he said her name. I could only imagine his reaction if I told him everything else I knew about her.

Tara and I thought we’d figured out Noelle’s motivation: she’d stolen a child. Through surrogacy, she’d found a way to give one back. It was her penance. Yet, one child hadn’t been enough to absolve her for what she’d done. She’d had to give and give and give. The baby she’d accidentally killed and the baby she’d stolen—they must have haunted her every day of her life until she found a way to permanently lay them to rest. It made me so sad. I knew she’d wanted children of her own. She loved kids. She must have felt undeserving of ever having them. If only she’d let me know we were sisters. If only she could have confided in me. Maybe I could have helped her.

I kept picturing those surrogacy contracts and imagining Sam being a party to the whole thing. He’d known about the surrogacy. What else had he known?

I pictured Noelle’s record books, wondering if the identity of the woman whose baby had died was truly locked away somewhere in their pages or if we were way, way off in our search. I was beginning to think that the page she’d torn from the logbook held the answer we were looking for and that page no longer existed. We had no way of knowing who that patient might be. The Birth Center wasn’t going to give us the information—if they had it to begin with. Only if we went the legal route would they turn over their old records and Tara and I weren’t ready to go there. Part of me was slipping back into denial. I had to remind myself of the letter Noelle had written to Anna Knightly to remember that this whole mess was real.

I kept thinking about Denise Abernathy’s green-eyed blond kids. Denise’s daughter had been the last girl Noelle delivered. Lying next to Ted, wide-awake, I imagined Noelle desperately searching for a newborn baby whose eyes might turn green like her mother’s and older sister’s. Noelle had a sixth sense about eye color. She could always tell