The Midwife's Confession

“Hi,” I said.

“Wow, you are so not what I expected Lily to look like,” she said.

I had the feeling I was disappointing both of them. I clutched my backpack to my chest. “Well, I didn’t expect to have a sister, period.” I tried to smile again, but seemed to have lost the ability.

“And you may not have a sister,” Anna warned. “Grace’s mom is on her way here, Haley, so we’ll get some answers then. Right now I’m going to call your dad.” She glanced at me. “Why don’t you have a seat, Grace?” She pointed toward the couch across the room from Haley’s bed. I walked over to it and sat down, still hugging my backpack. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Anna said, and then I was alone with Haley. My phone rang again and I pulled it from my backpack and turned the ringer off.

“Maybe that’s your mother,” Haley said.

“That’s okay.” I wasn’t sure what to say to Haley. I felt sorry for her for being so sick. I knew she was a lot braver than I’d be, hooked up to all that stuff. “How do you feel?” I asked.

“Mom explained the whole thing about the midwife and all that drama,” she said, like I hadn’t asked her a question. Her eyes bored into me while she talked. “You look freezing.”

I was shivering, though I didn’t think it had anything to do with the temperature in the room. “I’m okay,” I said.

“Look under this techno bed,” Haley said. “Grab a blanket to wrap up in.”

I got up and pulled a blanket from the shelf beneath her bed. It was pale blue and soft and I wrapped it around my shoulders.

“Do you really think you’re my sister?” Haley asked.

“Did your mother tell you about the letter?” I reached into my backpack one more time and pulled out the letter. I handed it to her and watched her read it.

“Omigod,” Haley said when she finished the letter. “This is totally crazy! It would be so cool if it’s real, though. I mean, me and my mom have made it, like, our job to find Lily. I never expected her— you—to just pop up like this.”

I took the letter back, folded it in half and slipped it into my backpack.

“What are your parents like?” Haley asked. “The people who raised you? Did you ever feel like you didn’t belong?”

“All the time,” I said, although it wasn’t quite the truth, was it? I’d belonged to my father, just not my mom. “I never felt like ‘oh, I’m adopted’ or anything like that,” I said. “But I don’t get along with my mother at all.”

“What about your father?”

“He died in a car accident in March. One of my mother’s students—she’s a teacher—killed him because she was texting while she was driving.”

“Holy shit,” Haley said. “That’s so terrible!” A machine on one of the poles next to her bed started beeping and she turned off the sound with a push of a button, like it was no big deal. “I never really knew my father until now,” she said. “I mean, I knew who he was and everything, but he left when I was little. When I got sick this time, he sort of showed up. I actually like him. I mean, I’m pissed at how he wasn’t around for most of my life, even though he sent money and everything, but Mom says he was just really immature and he couldn’t take it when I got sick so he just pulled out of the picture. First Lily disappeared and my mom was sick and all that was hard for him to handle, and then I got sick and it was too much for him, which totally screwed up my respect for him. I mean, my mom didn’t have the luxury of walking out, right? But he’s back now and he’s trying to be a dad. He’s doing this big drive to try to find bone marrow donors for me.”

“He’s my father, too,” I said, still shivering beneath the blanket.

“If you’re Lily, then, yeah,” she said.

I thought of how that must feel to Haley. She finally got a relationship going with her father and then this strange girl shows up to claim part of him. “I didn’t ask for this,” I said. “I’m not trying to step on your toes or anything. I just need to—”

“Hey, chill,” Haley said. She was smiling. “If you’re Lily, we want you, okay? We’ve prayed to find you. Or, at least, I have. My mom doesn’t really pray, but I’ve been looking for you since I was a little kid.”

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Almost thirteen.”

I couldn’t believe she was more than three years younger than me. She was pale and a little puffy and it was clear she was sick, but she seemed so together. So confident and sure of herself, like Jenny. I already felt in competition with her and I’d known her five minutes. “You’re so…you’re not like me at all,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re very…you seem more like my mother. I mean the mother who raised me. You’re more like her than I am. You seem really positive and outgoing.”

Haley shrugged. “I’m not always so positive,” she said. “I can get majorly depressed. Like, I’ve been on antidepressants a million times. But I’ve got hope, with a capital H. That’s my middle name. I mean my actual middle name is Hope. I’ve had leukemia before and went into remission. I think this time, though, hope’s not going to be enough.” She glanced up at one of the bags hanging from the pole next to her bed. “This disease sucks.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Your mother said a bone marrow transplant could help you.”

“Only we can’t find a donor. She’s hoping that if you’re Lily, you might be a match.”

“I know,” I said.

“My mom always hoped she’d find Lily,” she said. “She looked for her everywhere. She never gave up looking for her. We went to Wilmington a bunch of times, just looking for someone who looked like me.”