The Midwife's Confession Part 22

I would take action.

39.

Tara Grace was in the kitchen when I got home from church. She sat at the table with a mug of coffee, her phone in front of her.

"How was your solo?" she asked.

I didn't even think she'd heard me when I mentioned the solo earlier. "It went well," I said. People had told me I sounded wonderful, and I'd forgotten how it felt to fill that beautiful s.p.a.ce with my voice. But I'd felt empty inside and it wasn't until I was driving home that I realized why: Sam wasn't there. He always said my singing moved him. Not in so many words, but I knew how he was feeling by the way he'd hold my hand when I came back to the pew.

"When are you going out?" I asked. She was wearing cropped pants and a long-sleeved striped T-s.h.i.+rt and her hair was damp.

"In a little while," she said. "I cleaned my bathroom."

"Excellent!" I leaned over to give her a hug and her cool, damp hair stuck a little to my cheek. It was rare for me to only have to ask her once.

She folded her hands on the table, pressing them together so hard that her knuckles were white.

"Mom, listen." She looked up at me. "I know you're going to say no right away, so just listen to everything I say before you react, okay?"

It seemed like the longest sentence she'd said to me in months.

"Okay." I leaned back against the counter. This was good. I would not say no right away. I'd let her talk.

"I'm going to Chapel Hill this afternoon. For the night. I-"

"Chapel Hill? Today? Why?"

She gave me her frustrated look. "There's this girl," she said. "She's a graduate student and Jenny knows her and she-this girl-wants to see some friends in Chapel Hill, but she doesn't have a car, so she'll go with me and be my supervising driver and I'll come back tomorrow."

I was, for once in my life, speechless. Grace was terrified to get behind the wheel of a car and I was just as terrified to have her there. "Well, first of all," I said, "you can't go."

"Mom, I told you not to just react!" She pressed her hands together even harder and her eyes were wide, imploring me. "Listen to the whole explanation," she pleaded.

"Does this have to do with Cleve?" I asked, although that made no sense. Cleve was home for the weekend so why would she want to go to Chapel Hill?

"Yes," she admitted. "He had to go back today and I absolutely have to see him. Plus, I want to see UNC, too, because I'll probably be applying there."

I knew that was bulls.h.i.+t. She might be applying there, but this sudden need to see UNC was such a weak excuse that even she knew it, and she turned her head away, unable to look me in the eye.

"You know that doesn't make sense, Grace," I said. "If you want to see Cleve, at least be honest with me and don't make up some nonsense about wanting to see UNC all of a sudden."

She flattened her hands on the table. "Cleve didn't realize he had to go back early today and we didn't get to finish talking last night and he asked if I could come."

"Are you two back together?"

I could see her trying to decide how much to reveal to me. "He's mixed up about us," she said. "He thinks we should stay broken up, but we need to talk about it more and didn't get the chance." She frowned up at me. "I'm upset, Mom! I need to talk to him in person."

"And where exactly would you stay?" I asked.

"With Jenny's friend."

"What's her name?"

"Elena."

"How does Jenny have a friend who's a grad student?"

"She was... I don't know. A neighbor or something. Do you want to talk to her? I can-"

"No, because you're not going."

"What if I let Elena drive instead of me?"

"No, Grace. I'm sorry you and Cleve are still struggling, but you'll have to talk it out on the phone. If you want to go to UNC sometime in the future, we'll plan it ahead of time. You'll have to show me you're comfortable driving first and-"

"Elena can drive."

"This is too half-baked a plan, all right? You can't go. I'm sorry, but this is a nonnegotiable."

She sprang out of her chair. "You don't understand!" she said, and in an instant, tears had filled her eyes.

"Then help me understand." I caught her shoulders and held on tight as she tried to squirm out of my grasp. "Why can't you and Cleve resolve this on the phone?"

She pried my hands from her shoulders. "I just wanted to go, that's all!" She turned and headed for the stairs.

"Grace!" I called after her. "Don't run off like that. Talk to me!"

But her footsteps skittered up the stairs and I lowered myself to a chair. I'd blown it again, yet I didn't know what I could have said or done differently. This is normal, I told myself. Mothers and daughters fight.

I touched my cheek where I'd pressed it against her hair. I wanted to feel that sweet damp hair against my skin again. It had reminded me of when she was little and I'd hold her and rock her and she was so happy in my arms.

A long, long time ago.

40.

Emerson My plan was not going well so far. I hadn't counted on Jenny feeling too sick to go out that afternoon, so I was anxious as I stood by the living room window watching for Ian's car. The sky was gray and thick with clouds. We were going to get a downpour soon. In my hands I clutched Noelle's record book and the thin file folder with her letter to Anna and copies of the information I'd printed from the Missing Children's website.

I left the window for no more than a second to take the tray of leftover spanokopita out of the oven, and when I returned I saw his car out front but no sign of him, and I knew he was already heading up my driveway toward the side door.

People always just walked in my kitchen door without knocking, so I raced through the house to head him off, opening the door just as he was about to walk in. "Jenny's home," I whispered. "I was hoping she'd be out, but she's sick, so just...play along with whatever I say."

Ian frowned. "What's going on?" he asked.

I put a finger to my lips. "I'll tell you-"

"Hey," Jenny said from the doorway to the kitchen. She was still wearing her pajama shorts and a tank top and her hair stuck out on one side.

"Hi, Jenny," Ian said. "You're not feeling well?"

"Too much wild party for me last night," Jenny rasped, rubbing her throat. She gave me a confused what's-Ian-doing-here? sort of look.

"Ian and I have some issues to talk about related to Noelle's estate," I said. I thought she was looking at the book and file in my arms with suspicion, but that might have been my paranoia. "What can I get you, Jen?" I asked her. "Some tea with lemon and honey?"

"I'm just going to crash again," she said.

"Good idea. Want some juice to take up with you?"

"Yeah. Maybe." She headed for the refrigerator, but I beat her to it. I set the record book and file on the kitchen table and quickly poured a gla.s.s of orange juice. Ian stood quietly next to the island, and I knew he didn't know what was safe to do or say. I handed the gla.s.s to Jenny.

"Thanks," she said. "See you all later."

"She sounds miserable," Ian said as we watched her head for the stairs.

"I know." I moved the spanokopita from the baking pan to a plate. "We can nibble party leftovers," I said, setting the plate on the kitchen table.

"Your hands are shaking," Ian said, and then he lowered his voice. "Is this really about Noelle's will or the...other things we've been talking about with regard to her?"

"Neither." I rested my hands on the island and let myself simply breathe in and out for a moment. "I'll tell you in a minute," I said finally, glancing toward the hallway and the stairs. I'd really wanted no one home for this conversation. Especially not a sick kid who might need me. I motioned to the table. "Have a seat," I said. "I have coffee? Iced tea? I can brew decaf if you like. Or you might actually need a gla.s.s of wine when I tell you what I have to say."

"Coffee's good." He lowered himself to one of the kitchen chairs, his eyes never leaving my face.

I poured him a cup, then sat down at the end of the table, glancing toward the hallway again.

Ian looked at the book and file on the table, but didn't touch it. "What's this?" he asked.

I let out a long breath. "I've opened a gigantic can of worms and I don't know how to get them all back in the can," I said quietly. "I thought of just keeping it to myself, but I can't. I don't know who else to talk to." I pressed my fingers to my temples. "I need your help to know what to do."

"It's a legal matter?" he asked.

"Yes and no." I pulled out the typed letter Noelle had written to Anna and set it in front of him. The color drained from his face as he read it.

"Holy..." He looked up at me. Shook his head. "What's next? I mean, seriously. What the h.e.l.l is Noelle going to dump in our laps next? And who is Anna?"

I explained how I'd stumbled across the letter and how Tara and I finally figured out Anna's ident.i.ty. "But to answer your question about what's next, I can tell you exactly what's next."

He looked as though he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

I leaned toward him. "I believe the baby Noelle dropped was Tara's," I said quietly.

He jerked back as if I'd stung him. "What the... Why would you think that?"

"I found the date Anna Knightly's baby disappeared on the Missing Children's website," I said. "Or, at least, the date she was born. The only baby Noelle delivered during that time was Grace. Or the baby who...the real Grace." I pulled a sheet of paper from the file on the table. "This is from the Missing Children's website. It says that Lily Ann Knightly was born on August 29, 1994, and disappeared from a Wilmington, NC, hospital shortly after her birth."

He still wore his frown as he looked up from the paper. "Wasn't Jenny born around the same time?"

"Jenny was born on the thirty-first and Grace on September 1, but I had Jenny in the hospital and Noelle wasn't involved at all. Tara was in labor while I was having a C-section."

Ian looked up at the ceiling. "I distinctly remember the night Grace was born," he said. "Noelle and I were engaged back then, remember?"

I nodded.

"She called me a few times from Sam and Tara's, telling me how rough going it was. She was really worried. She'd talked about getting Tara to the hospital, but in the end, it worked out all right." He abruptly shook his head. "This doesn't make any sense, Emerson," he said. "Tara would have known if another baby was suddenly subst.i.tuted for hers."

"I don't remember it all that well since I was busy having a baby myself, but I do remember Tara telling me she was so zonked after the delivery that she barely remembered even holding Grace until the next morning."

"But Sam was there," Ian said. "He would have been awake and alert and known if his baby was suddenly dead."

"Don't say it like that." I s.h.i.+vered.

"Well, that's what we're talking about, isn't it?" Ian sounded suddenly angry. I wished he would lower his voice. "Noelle killed a baby and somehow got rid of it and then she came up with this-" he waved at the letter "-this lamebrain plan and went to the hospital and found an appropriate subst.i.tute and brought it back and all that supposedly happened when? While Sam and Tara were sleeping on the most exciting night of their lives? It's hard to swallow."

"We know it happened, though," I said. "We have it in Noelle's own words."

"Maybe there were babies Noelle delivered that she never recorded in her logbook," Ian suggested.

"Then I think there would have been torn-out pages and there are none from 1994."

"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 gla.s.ses 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 a.s.sumed 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."