The Midwife's Confession Part 7

I stopped walking and stood still, snooping.

"Can't miss it or she'd disown me," Grace said. I pictured her reading the text message from her phone display. I could hear the smile in her voice. The hope.

Oh, Gracie, I thought. He's eighteen and in college, honey. There's no place for this to go.

Downstairs, I headed for our home office where the box of Noelle's cards was waiting for me. The box was beginning to feel like another person in my house, a person with too much power for the s.p.a.ce she took up. It was our last hope, that box. Nothing in Noelle's house had given us answers. Tara and I had spoken with the staff at every single obstetrical office in a twenty-mile radius, and they all knew what we hadn't known: Noelle gave up midwifery years ago. Few of them had seen her recently, so we didn't bother asking if they knew she was depressed. Suzanne and the other volunteers were all coming to us with that question. Whatever had been bugging Noelle, she'd kept it to herself. I suspected that the box wasn't going to give us the answer, either, but if I ignored it, at least it gave me hope.

No more excuses. I had time now. I was going to start digging.

Ted and I shared our home office. It was a big low-ceilinged room that the previous owners had added on as an in-law suite...for in-laws they must not have liked too much. The low ceiling was oppressive, but the s.p.a.ce worked for us. Ted's desk and office equipment were on one side, while my smaller desk was on the other. We'd had bookcases built into one windowless wall, and two long tables were set up in front of the windows where Ted could spread out his area maps. At that moment, Shadow and Blue were snoring beneath the tables. Before I'd opened Hot! I'd used my part of the office for household records. Now, I had my own filing cabinet devoted to the cafe. It was so wonderful how things had fallen together for me, and I'd started to feel as though my life was charmed. Now Sam and Noelle were dead and I was about to lose my grandpa, and I knew I would never have that everything's-right-in-my-world feeling again.

I sat down in the armchair by the window and lifted a fistful of cards and letters from the box, but I quickly realized that a leisurely approach wasn't going to do. In my hands I had a letter dated a month ago and another dated eight years ago. There was a copy of an email exchange between Noelle and another midwife. Two pictures of babies. A picture of a teenage boy. A birthday card from Jenny that I remembered picking out for her to send Noelle years earlier. It was as though Noelle had taken a giant Mixmaster to the box and scrambled the contents. I wished Tara had the time to help me. In thirty minutes, she could have this mess alphabetized and arranged by date.

I stood, cleared off one of the tables by the windows and began sorting the cards and letters and pictures and a few newspaper clippings. Ted still thought I should just toss the whole mess, but Noelle had kept these things. They'd been important to her. I wanted to try to feel whatever she'd felt as she dropped each of them into the box. Why did she keep them? Ted thought I was becoming maudlin, grieving over Noelle and worrying about my grandfather. He said I was obsessed, and maybe I was, but the box felt like my last link to one of my two best friends. These were the things she'd cared about enough to save.

If I approached the items chronologically, maybe I'd be able to follow what had gone on in her mind over the years. Maybe I could even write a minibiography of her. If we ever found her now-adult child, maybe he'd appreciate having that remembrance of his-or her-birth mother.

"Like you have time to write," I said to myself as I neatened the stack of cards. Shadow lifted his head to look at me on the off chance I was talking about food.

I spotted the card I'd sent Noelle for her last birthday. Her very last birthday. I touched the card, heavyhearted, then pulled another handful from the box. There was a newspaper clipping from the year before about the obstetrical practices in the area getting rid of their midwives. I shook my head. That was why we thought she'd quit. She told us that, didn't she? That she was getting out while the getting was good, when the truth was, she'd gotten out long ago. "Why didn't you tell us?" I asked out loud.

My plan to organize the items chronologically quickly fell apart because so many of the cards and letters had no dates. So I stacked them according to type: cards in one pile, letters in another, printouts of emails in a third pile and newspaper articles in a fourth. Tucked in the bottom of the carton, caught halfway beneath the flap, was a valentine Grace had made for Noelle when she couldn't have been more than four. I pictured Noelle holding the card above her trash can, then deciding to add it to this box of keep-sakes instead.

I heard the girls leave the house and used that interruption to take a break. In the kitchen, I made a cup of tea and unwrapped one of the scones I'd brought home from the cafe, breaking off the corners to give to the dogs. Then I carried the scone and tea back to the office.

When I walked into the room, a little blue-and-white-checked note card on the top of a pile jumped out at me. I rested my mug and plate on my desk and picked up the card. When I opened it, I had to sit down in the armchair as it hit me: the card was from me, and it was ancient. Seventeen years old, to be exact.

Noelle, Thank you for taking care of me. You seem to understand exactly how painful this has been for me and know just the right things to do and say to help. I don't know what I'd do without you.

Love, Em I remembered writing the words a few weeks after my second miscarriage. My second baby lost. Ted and I had lived near the campus then, and Noelle moved in with us for a couple of weeks to take over everything. She cooked and cleaned and, most important of all, listened to me grieve. Ted had run out of words to comfort me by then; he had his own grief to deal with. Noelle knew how badly I'd wanted those babies. Little more than a year later, I'd be holding Jenny in my arms. She couldn't make up for the loss I felt-the loss I still felt when I thought of those babies I never got to know-but Jenny brought me back to life.

I held the card in my hand for a while. What was the point of keeping it? Of keeping any of the notes written to Noelle? Yet I put it back on the pile. I didn't need to make any decisions right now.

I sipped my tea as I read through some of the letters. They were filled with happy words of grat.i.tude, the sort of sentiments you wrote when you were bursting with joy, and I needed to read them after being broadsided by my own sad old card. I held the stack of letters on my lap, scanning most of them, reading every word of others, turning each of them upside down on the arm of the chair as I finished with it.

I came to a nearly blank sheet of notepaper and it took me a moment to recognize it as Noelle's stationery. There was a familiar, faint peach-basket-weave pattern to the paper. I hadn't seen her stationery in years-did anyone still write letters by hand?-but I remembered getting the occasional note from her on this paper. There was only one line on the sheet.

Dear Anna, I've started this letter so many times and here I am, starting it again with no idea how to tell you That was it. Just that line. Tell her what? Who was Anna? I sifted through the letters and cards looking for anything from an Anna. There was a card signed by an Ana. All she wrote was, "Noelle, Our family adores you! Ana." Spelled differently from the Anna in Noelle's letter. No surname. No date. There was a picture of a little boy attached to the card with tape, and when I pulled it off I saw a name written on the back: Paul Delaney.

No idea how to tell you.

The letter was old. The peach-colored paper was soft with age. What could it possibly matter now?

I shrugged off the unfinished letter and continued making my way through the pile, nibbling my scone and sipping my Earl Grey. It wasn't until I reached the bottom of the stack that I found another partial letter Noelle had written, this one typed. It was a bit crumpled. I remembered needing to flatten it when I first stacked the letters. I read it, sucking in my breath and forgetting to let it out again, and I stood so quickly, so violently, that I knocked my cup of tea to the floor.

13.

Noelle UNC Wilmington

1988.

The second day after the freshmen filled the Galloway dormitory, Noelle made her rounds, saving Room 305 for last the way she saved the blueberries for last in her fruit salad each morning because they were her favorite. She never felt anxious about those blueberries, though, and she was definitely feeling anxious about Room 305.

In the hallway, she heard laughter coming from the room even before she neared the open doorway. They were bonding, the two girls. Emerson McGarrity and Tara Locke. She knocked on the doorjamb, peering inside. The girls were sitting on the bed closest to the window, culling through a stack of record alb.u.ms. They looked up at her and she knew immediately which one was Tara-the brown-eyed blonde-and which one was Emerson. Her hair was long, dark and curly. Noelle knew exactly how hard it would be to pull a comb through that hair.

"Hi." She smiled. "I'm Noelle Downie, your Resident a.s.sistant. I'm making the rounds to get to know everyone."

The blonde hopped to her bare feet and held out a hand. "I'm Tara," she said.

Noelle shook the girl's hand, then turned her attention to Emerson, who had a stack of records in her lap and didn't bother to get up. Noelle had to lean forward to shake her hand. "Emerson?" she asked.

"Right." She had a nice smile, warm and encouraging, and Noelle had a hard time letting go of her hand.

"You want to sit?" Tara motioned to the desk chair and Noelle was surprised at her need to drop into it, her knees suddenly too soft to hold her upright.

"I could hear you two laughing like you've been friends for a long time," she said. "Did you know each other before you got here?"

They laughed again and looked at each other. "It only feels that way," Tara said. Of the two of them, she was clearly the more outgoing. You could see it in her bright eyes, hear it in the self-a.s.sured volume of her voice.

"We clicked right away," Emerson said. "I mean, we talked on the phone once over the summer about what we were bringing and everything, but we didn't know each other at all, really."

"And then when we met yesterday it was like we'd known each other forever," Tara said. "We stayed up all night talking."

"That's super," Noelle said. "Doesn't always work out that way." Doesn't always last, either, she thought. She hoped it did work out for these two. Already, she wanted everything good for Emerson. Her feelings scared her; they were so visceral, so deep. She had to watch what she said and did. She could lose herself too easily here in this room. She had to treat Emerson no differently than she did the other students.

She glanced at the dressers. Framed photographs stood on each of them. Testing her legs, she got to her feet and picked up one of a young man with dark hair so long it brushed his shoulders. He looked familiar. He had a symmetrically shaped face and that combination of blue eyes and black hair that was hard to forget. "Who's this guy?" she looked from Emerson to Tara.

"Sam," Tara said. "My boyfriend. He's here. Prelaw." She sounded proud of him. "He lives off campus."

"Ah," Noelle said. "I think I've seen him around. Will it be good to be closer to him?"

"h.e.l.l, yes." Tara laughed as though it had been a stupid question and Noelle supposed it had been, but she was not thinking as clearly as she usually did.

"He cut his hair over the summer so he looks totally different now," Tara said.

Noelle picked up the photograph from the second dresser. It was the one she was really after. The blueberries in her fruit salad. A family shot. Emerson with a man and woman. The woman's hair was short, auburn, frizzy. She had a wide, wide smile and she looked young. Mid-to late thirties, maybe. Noelle looked at Emerson. "Your parents?" she asked.

"Uh-huh. No boyfriend, yet." She laughed. "Gotta get me one of them."

"Where do they live?" She was having trouble taking her eyes off the face of the woman.

"California."

"California!" Could she be wrong? "So...Wilmington is... You haven't lived here before?" It was a weird question to ask and she knew it as soon as it left her mouth, but Emerson didn't seem to notice.

"Actually, I lived here until my soph.o.m.ore year of high school and then my dad got transferred to Greensboro, so I finished high school there. Then in July, he got transferred to L.A., but I wanted to stay in North Carolina. I love Wilmington."

"And I'm from Wake Forest," Tara volunteered.

Noelle forced herself to put the photograph back on Emerson's dresser. "Where did you get your name?" she asked Emerson.

"My mother's maiden name," Emerson said.

Yes, Noelle thought. Yes. "Well, tell me more about your families," she said, sitting down again. She hadn't asked that question of any of the other students. With them, she'd talked about their schedules, their majors, their interests. But she would make this conversation sound like her usual getting-to-know-you drill.

Tara went first, as she'd expected her to. Her father was an accountant, her mother a homemaker, and she was an only child.

"Me, too," Emerson piped in.

No, you're not, Noelle thought to herself.

Tara could talk a blue streak. She was a theater major, which didn't surprise Noelle a bit. In any other circ.u.mstance, Noelle would have found her intriguing-her energy, her extroversion-but right now, she was desperate for Emerson to have her turn.

"So you're an only child, too," she said, when she was finally able to s.h.i.+ft the focus back to Emerson.

"Yeah. My mom's a nurse and my dad's in sales for this big furniture company."

A nurse! "I'm a nursing major," she blurted out. This is not about you, she reminded herself. Yet this conversation was entirely about her and she knew it. She glanced at the photograph of Emerson's parents again, drawn to the woman and her wide smile. "Will they visit you here sometime, do you think, or will you be going to California to see them instead?"

"Right now they're gaga over California," Emerson said, "but my grandparents live in Jacksonville, so they'll have to come back to North Carolina sometime."

Noelle's heart gave a thud. Grandparents. She thought of the manila folder she had in her room down the hall-one thing of her mother's that she had kept for herself. "Your mother's parents or your father's?" Was she sounding like a nutcase? She hadn't asked any other student about her grandparents. Why would she?

"My mother's," Emerson said. "My father's parents are both dead."

"I've got all of mine," Tara said. "But they all live in Asheville where my parents grew up, so I hardly ever see them."

"That's a shame," Noelle said. "You'll have to try to visit them sometime soon." She swept her attention back to Emerson, hoping she didn't seem as rude as she felt. "Any other interesting names in your family?" she asked. "What's your father's name?"

"Plain old Frank," Emerson said.

Tara was frowning. Noelle could see her expression out of the corner of her eye. Tara wasn't exactly on to her-who could possibly figure out what she was up to? But Noelle was afraid Tara was beginning to think the Resident a.s.sistant was not all there. Yet she had the answer she needed. She had all the answers now, and she couldn't stay in the room another second. Something was going to burst inside her if she did.

She looked at her watch. "Whoa," she said, "I've been here way too long! I need to move on but wanted to get to know you two. We'll have a hall meeting tomorrow night with cake and games, so make sure you're around." She stood, holding on to the back of the desk chair because she felt wobbly. "Meantime, if you have any questions or problems, you know where my room is, right?"

"Right," Tara said.

"Thanks for stopping by," Emerson added.

Noelle made it out the door before she had to lean against the wall to hold herself up. From Room 305, she could hear giggling, then Tara whispering to Emerson, "I think she's totally in love with you."

She was not far off.

Back in her room, she dialed Miss Wilson's house and was relieved when her mother answered. "I need to talk to you, Mama," she said. "Seriously talk."

"Are you all right?" Her mother sounded breathless as if she'd run to answer the phone.

"I'm fine." Noelle sat down on her bed, not fine at all. "Do you have time?"

"Hold on." Her mother left the phone and Noelle could hear the clank of dishes. Then she was on the line again. "I'm back. What's wrong?"

She'd thought about this conversation a hundred times in the past few years but had never honestly expected to have it. She hadn't expected Emerson. She hadn't even known that Emerson existed. Meeting her changed everything.

Noelle drew in a breath. "When I helped you move out of our house before my freshman year, I saw one of your files. Not on purpose. It was windy that day and... It doesn't matter. I saw it. The file on me."

"On you?"

"On my birth. My adoption. I took it. The file."

Her mother was quiet and Noelle imagined she was trying to remember exactly what had been in that file.

"It had the social worker's notes about my birth mother and...everything."

Her mother was quiet once again. "Why are you bringing this up now?" she asked finally.

Noelle remembered the conversation on the way back from the birth of Bea's first baby, when her mother told her about the girl who had given birth to her and relinquished her for adoption. "You said you didn't know who she was. Just that she was fifteen."

"I didn't see any purpose in telling you her ident.i.ty. Her ident.i.ty was unimportant."

Noelle shut her eyes. "Mama," she said, "there's a girl here. She's on my floor. She's a freshman. Her name is Emerson McGarrity."

Her mother sighed. "Emerson was the surname of your biological mother, but I don't see why that would make you think anything-"

"McGarrity, Mama. Her father's Frank McGarrity. Isn't that name familiar to you?"

"Should it be?"

"It was in the social worker's notes." She wondered if, after all this time, her mother had simply forgotten the story. "Susan Emerson got pregnant at a party. She didn't even know the boy's last name. But she had a boyfriend, Frank McGarrity, and she didn't want him to know what she'd done. Her parents didn't want anyone to know, either, and they sent her to live with her-"

"Her aunt." Her mother sighed again. "Yes, I know all this, Noelle. I know it all very well, although I'd forgotten the boyfriend's name. He wasn't really in the picture. I don't understand..." She suddenly gasped. "My G.o.d," she said. "You think this girl in your dorm is her daughter? Susan Emerson's daughter?"

"She's my half sister, Mama. You should see her."