The Midwife's Confession

license. The guard looked at it and, without even glancing at me, asked, “Where’s your supervising adult?”

My hands were shaking and I wondered if I looked guilty. “My mother and sister are inside,” I said.

He started yelling, “Hey! You!” at a guy somewhere behind me, and he must have been more interested in the guy than me, because he just nodded at me to walk through the entrance. I walked fast. I knew I’d lucked out.

The lobby was big and open, and I thought if I were a kid coming here to see a doctor, I’d be comfortable. It was colorful and didn’t feel at all like a hospital and nothing like the emergency room where they’d taken my father. But I wasn’t a kid and I wasn’t there to see a doctor. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure what I was doing there. The lobby was filled with parents and children and doctors and nurses, everyone looking like they had someplace to go except me.

I spotted an information desk on one side of the lobby and walked up to the woman sitting behind it. She was African-American with gray hair and gray glasses and she smiled at me. I tried my best to look eighteen. I was afraid of getting kicked out.

“Hi,” I said. “I have to get an important message to someone. She’s the mother of a patient here. If I write a note can someone take it to her?”

“Patient’s name?” the woman asked. In spite of her smile, she sounded a little annoyed.

“Haley…” Did Haley have the same last name as her mother? “Her mother’s name is Anna Knightly. K-N-I—”

“I know how to spell it. Her daughter’s in the East Wing. Room 416. Give me your note and I’ll ask a volunteer to take it up when they have time. We’re short. Might be a while.” She held out her hand for the note I hadn’t written yet.

“I have to write it,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

I found a flyer announcing a Fun Run for Children’s! The other side was blank and I sat down on one of the benches and pulled a pen from my backpack.

Now what?

“Mrs. Knightly,” I wrote. “My name is Grace Vincent. Please come to the lobby. I have to talk to you. It’s very important. I’ll be by the information desk. I have very long hair and am sixteen.”

I folded the note and took it back to the woman, who acted like she’d never seen me before. “This is the note for the woman in Room 416 in the East Wing,” I said.

She took it from me. “It’ll be a while,” she said again.

I went back to the bench. After about twenty minutes, a volunteer—an old man—went up to the information desk, picked up a vase of flowers and headed for the elevator. The woman behind the desk didn’t even hand him my note.

There were signs everywhere, and one of them said East Wing with an arrow pointing down a hallway. Don’t be a chicken, I told myself. I stood and walked down the hall to a bunch of elevators. I stood with a couple of doctors and a nurse and a woman with a little boy who leaned sleepily against her leg. The elevator came and we all got on. The nurse pushed the button for the fourth floor and I felt dizzy as we started going up. I hadn’t eaten in forever.

The nurse and I got off on the fourth floor. She kept walking down the hall, but I just stood there, frozen. The carpet had huge geometric patterns on it that only made me dizzier. A sign pointed the way to the rooms. Room 416 was to my right, but I couldn’t seem to move. I hadn’t noticed the hospital smell in the lobby, but it was definitely up here on the fourth floor.

Don’t think about Daddy. Just don’t.

“Can I help you?” a woman asked. She was probably a nurse. She wore a stethoscope around her neck and the fabric of her medical jacket was covered with dogs. “You look lost,” she said.

“No.” I managed to smile. “I’m good.” I started walking, pretending I knew exactly where I was going and why.

I reached 416 and stood near the open door. My heart was beating so fast I thought I might end up in the E.R. myself. There were people walking up the hallway toward me and I knew I couldn’t just stand there forever. I got up my courage and peeked around the doorframe as though I needed to slowly, slowly see whoever was in the room.

They’d just been names before. Not real people. Suddenly, though, reality smacked me in the face. A nearly bald girl was sitting in a huge bed. A woman sat in a chair next to her bed and they were looking at something in the girl’s lap. A book or magazine or something. The woman laughed. The girl smiled. In one single second, I felt the tenderness between the two of them. They were like a little clique that did not include me. All at once, I knew I didn’t belong in that room. I belonged nowhere.

The woman glanced in my direction and our eyes locked, just for a second. I stepped quickly away from the door and pressed my back against the wall. My heart was going so fast it was more like a buzzing in my ears than a beating. I didn’t know what to do.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the woman walk into the hallway.

“Hi,” she said.

I took a step away from the wall and turned toward her. Her smile was beautiful.

“Hi,” I said.

“Are you a friend of Haley’s from the unit?” She looked puzzled.

“I’m your daughter,” I said.

The woman’s smile disappeared. She took a step away from me. “What do you mean?”

“I just found out,” I said. “I live in Wilmington, North Carolina, and I found a letter…or some friends found a letter that this woman who was my mother’s midwife wrote to you, only never mailed.” I lowered my backpack from