The Midwife’s Confession



Also by DIANE CHAMBERLAIN

THE LIES WE TOLD

SECRETS SHE LEFT BEHIND

BEFORE THE STORM

THE SECRET LIFE OF CEECEE WILKES

THE BAY AT MIDNIGHT

HER MOTHER’S SHADOW

KISS RIVER

KEEPER OF THE LIGHT

THE SHADOW WIFE

(Formerly published as CYPRESS POINT)

THE COURAGE TREE

SUMMER’S CHILD

BREAKING THE SILENCE



DIANE CHAMBERLAIN

The Midwife’s Confession









   1 Noelle   

   2 Tara   

   3 Emerson   

   4 Noelle   

   5 Tara   

   6 Emerson   

   7 Noelle   

   8 Tara   

   9 Emerson   

   10 Noelle   

   11 Tara   

   12 Emerson   

   13 Noelle   

   14 Tara   

   15 Emerson   

Part Two: Anna   

   16 Anna   

   17 Emerson   

   18 Noelle   

   19 Anna   

   20 Tara   

   21 Anna   

   22 Emerson   

   23 Noelle   

   24 Tara   

   25 Anna   

   26 Tara   

   27 Emerson   

   28 Tara   

   29 Noelle   

   30 Tara   

   31 Noelle   

   32 Emerson   

Part Three: Grace   

   33 Grace   

   34 Tara   

   35 Noelle   

   36 Emerson   

   37 Grace   

   38 Grace   

   39 Tara   

   40 Emerson   

   41 Grace   

   42 Anna   

   43 Grace   

   44 Tara   

   45 Grace   

   46 Emerson   

   47 Tara   

   48 Grace   

   49 Tara   

   50 Anna   

   51 Grace   

   52 Anna   

   53 Tara   

   54 Grace   

   55 Tara   

   56 Anna   

   57 Emerson   

   58 Grace   

   59 Noelle   

   60 Anna   

   61 Noelle   

   62 Tara   

   63 Grace   

   64 Emerson   

Epilogue   

Reader’s Guide   

Acknowledgments   



PART ONE

NOELLE





1

Noelle


Wilmington, North Carolina

September 2010

She sat on the top step of the front porch of her Sunset Park bungalow, leaning against the post, her eyes on the full moon. She would miss all this. The night sky. Spanish moss hanging from the live oaks. September air that felt like satin against her skin. She resisted the pull of her bedroom. The pills. Not yet. She had time. She could sit here all night if she wanted.

Lifting her arm, she outlined the circle of the moon with her fingertip. Felt her eyes burn. “I love you, world,” she whispered.

The weight of the secret pressed down on her suddenly, and she dropped her hand to her lap, heavy as a stone. When she’d awakened this morning, she’d had no idea that this would be the day she could no longer carry that weight. As recently as this evening, she’d hummed as she chopped celery and cucumbers and tomatoes for her salad, thinking of the fair-haired preemie born the day before—a fragile little life who needed her help. But when she sat down with her salad in front of the computer, it was as though two beefy, muscular arms reached out from her monitor and pressed their hands down hard on her head, her shoulders, compressing her lungs so that she couldn’t pull in a full breath.

The very shape of the letters on her screen clawed at her brain and she knew it was time. She felt no fear—certainly no panic—as she turned off the computer. She left the salad, barely touched, on her desk. No need for it now. No desire for it. She got everything ready; it wasn’t difficult. She’d been preparing for this night for a long time. Once all was in order, she came out to the porch to watch the moon and feel the satin air and fill her eyes and lungs and ears with the world one last time. She had no expectation of a change of heart. The relief in her decision was too great, so great that by the time she finally got to her feet, just as the moon slipped behind the trees across the street, she was very nearly smiling.



2

Tara


Going upstairs to call Grace for dinner was becoming a habit. I knew I’d find her sitting at her computer, earbuds in her ears so she couldn’t hear me when I tried to call her from the kitchen. Did she do that on purpose? I knocked on her door, then pushed it open a few inches when she didn’t answer. She was typing, her attention glued to her monitor. “Dinner’s almost ready, Grace,” I said. “Please come set the table.”

Twitter, our goldendoodle, had been stretched out beneath Grace’s bare feet, but at the mention of “dinner” he was instantly at my side. Not so my daughter.

“In a minute,” she said. “I have to finish this.”

I couldn’t see the screen from where I stood, but I was quite sure she was typing an email rather than doing her homework. I knew she was still behind. That was what happened when you taught at your child’s high school; you always knew what was going on academically. Grace had been an excellent student and one of the best writers at Hunter High, but that all changed when Sam died in March. Everyone cut her slack during the spring and I was hoping she’d pull it together this fall, but then Cleve broke up with her before he left for college, sending her into a tailspin. At least, I assumed it was the breakup that had pulled her deeper into her shell. How could I really know what was going on with her? She wouldn’t talk to me. My daughter had become a mystery. A closed book. I was starting to think of her as the stranger who lived upstairs.