The Midwife's Confession

“You and Tara should have come to me right away with this,” he said.

“We… Honestly, Ian. We had no idea how deep this was going to get. I think we were hoping we’d find out it was all a mistake somehow.”

He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “How much of this does Tara know?”

“She has no idea it could be Grace,” I said. “Noelle quit practicing in 1998, so we naturally assumed the patient whose baby was…lost was from around that time.”

Ian reached for the logbook. “Let me see her record of Grace’s birth,” he said.

I had the pages marked and I opened it for him. I watched as he scanned the account of Grace getting stuck during Tara’s labor. “Posterior arrest,” Noelle called it, and it was followed by hours of manipulation and excruciating pain that put me in awe of both Noelle and Tara. Reading the account, I’d thought Noelle had been a miracle worker to be able to deliver her at all.

“This sounds ghastly.” Ian winced. “But there’s nothing here about a dropped baby,” he said.

“She didn’t write that part, obviously,” I said. “She falsified what happened. In case you haven’t figured it out by now, my sister Noelle was pretty good at lying.”

“Where’s the baby?” Ian asked. “Tara’s real…the baby she gave birth to?”

“I don’t even want to think about that.” I felt my eyes burn. Tara was more sister than friend to me, and I was haunted by what might have happened to her baby. Did she end up in a shallow grave? A Dumpster somewhere? What happened to the baby we should have been allowed to love and grieve? I put my hands to my face. “What do I do, Ian?” I asked.

“Well, first off, Tara needs to know,” he said.

“Oh, God,” I said, because of course she did. I knew that, but I’d needed to hear someone else say it. “It seems so cruel,” I said.

I thought I heard the faintest creaking sound from the direction of the stairs and I glanced toward the hallway, but Ian didn’t seem to notice.

“Let’s say Tara and I knew that Jenny wasn’t your biological child,” he said, “would you want us to tell you?”

“Yes, of course, but I would….” I shut my eyes, trying to imagine getting that news. “It would kill me to know my own child had died and I’d known nothing about it. And that Jenny had been stolen from some other woman.” I shook my head. “Oh, my God. It would just kill me.”

“No, it wouldn’t, because Tara would be there for you,” Ian said. “You two have seen each other through thick and thin, and you’ll be there for her, all right? And I will be, too.”

“She just lost Sam, though, Ian,” I nearly wailed. “How can we take away her daughter?” I was upset, but felt relief that suddenly I could use the word we instead of I.

“We’re not talking about taking away anyone’s daughter,” he said. “To be honest, I have to do a little research into this to figure out the best approach, but we’ll take it one step at a time. It shouldn’t be too difficult to track down the officers who investigated this case back in ’94. I may even know some of them.”

“I think we need to let Tara know before you talk to anyone else, though,” I said. “I’m afraid she’ll be angry that I told you before I told her. And I can tell her that maybe I’m wrong. When it comes right down to it, we don’t have proof, do we? I can just tell her what I know. Maybe somehow I’m misinterpreting things.”

“That’s very true,” he said. “There will have to be DNA tests and interviews, and as I said, we’ll take it one step at a time.”

“Should we tell her today?” My voice was so tentative. I was dreading what lay ahead of me.

Ian folded his arms across his chest. “Can you wait another couple of days?” he asked. “I’m leaving tonight for Charlotte and I’m in a golf tournament all day tomorrow.” For the first time since his arrival, he smiled, then rested his hand flat on the logbook. “Not that I think my golf game is more important than this,” he said, “but tomorrow’s a holiday and this has held for sixteen years. I won’t call the investigator until after we talk to Tara, so if you can handle waiting, we can talk to her Tuesday afternoon when she gets out of school.”

I heard another creak coming from the direction of the stairs, and this time both Ian and I looked toward the hallway.

“Jenny?” I called, but there was no answer.

I turned back to Ian. Licked my dry lips. “Yes,” I said, my voice very low now. “I can wait.”

41

Grace

It was like having a giant ball of thorns in my chest, the pain was that bad. I felt like I was having some kind of breakdown. I’d gotten my hopes up that Cleve and I would get back together. They were still up and I wanted to try calling him again in the worst way. It made me realize how often I’d been calling and texting him. Had I been annoying him? I could call to apologize for calling him too much. I couldn’t stop thinking of excuses to contact him. But I knew I couldn’t or I’d drive him even further away.

Instead, I lay on my bed with my feet up on my headboard and texted Jenny all afternoon while my mother was out. I told her how I’d come up with the plan to drive to Chapel Hill and what a bitch my mother was. I told her I’d made up that Elena girl in case my mother ever asked about her. I hardly ever lied. Everyone else I knew lied all the time, but I really didn’t and it had felt amazingly easy. My mother was so gullible. I had to admit the whole thing had been a really stupid idea, although I still wanted to do it. It was pouring rain out now, though, and I wouldn’t be able to get there until dark and wouldn’t know where I was going. I had his dorm address, but…it was just a stupid idea.

I’d look like the pathetic girl he thought I was.

Jenny texted me that she needed to get some juice, so for a few minutes it was just me and my phone. Dangerous. I typed Sorry i annoyed u so much to Cleve, but I erased it without sending.

Jenny was taking forever to get her juice. R u there yet? I texted her, but she didn’t text me back. Somehow I