“What did Noelle say?” I asked.

“Her voice was really quiet and I couldn’t hear, but my husband said she didn’t put up a fight. Almost like she agreed with him. She apologized and said she was having back pain and had probably taken too many pills. She was really upset and apologetic and my husband ended up comforting her. Noelle called this other midwife, Jane Rogers, and said she was sick and could Jane take over. Jane came right away and she was great.”

“She sometimes did need to take pain medication,” I said.

“I’m sorry it had such an impact on you.”

“My husband thought maybe she was an addict.”

“I don’t think she was an addict,” I said, though what did I know? Our theory about the blacked-out name belonging to the woman whose baby had been replaced was crumbling. She was blacked out because Noelle didn’t deliver her baby at all. Still, Petra didn’t look like she came out of the body of this svelte blonde. Might something have happened when Jane delivered the baby and Noelle helped cover it up? I wanted to ask her what she remembered of the delivery. Was the baby out of her sight for a while? Could Noelle have come back? But the questions would make no sense in light of what I’d given as my reason for coming.

“At least Noelle had the good sense to let someone else take over,” I said.

“That’s true,” Rebecca said. “I was angry at the time. My husband thought we should file a complaint against her, but she did the right thing by bringing in someone else and we had a beautiful healthy little girl and that’s what we focused on.”

“She’s adorable,” I said. “I have a teenage daughter, too.”

Rebecca smiled. “You know the challenge, then.”

I felt so comforted by those words. I was not the only mother trying to cope with a teenager. Emerson had so few problems with Jenny that we couldn’t really commiserate.

“Definitely,” I said. I got to my feet. “Thanks so much for taking the time to speak with me.”

“Did I help?” she asked.

“Yes, I think you did. We all missed something going on with her that you picked up on. I feel bad about it.”

“I know,” she said. “One of Petra’s friends killed herself last year and she’s been feeling guilty about it ever since, but everybody missed the signs. You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.”

As I drove away, it was no longer Noelle I was thinking about, but Rebecca’s comment about Petra’s friend. Teenagers killed themselves. I thought of Grace’s moodiness. Her nightmares. I’d been spending all this time trying to figure out what had been going on with Noelle while my daughter was the greater and more immediate mystery. I felt suddenly frightened. Could I be missing something going on with her, right under my nose? How would I ever know?

Let me in, Gracie, I thought as I drove. Please, honey, let me in.



27

Emerson


Jacksonville, North Carolina

Grandpa looked better when I walked into his room at hospice. Either that, or I was simply getting used to the emaciated, drawn features of his face.

“Hello, honey.” He smiled when he saw me, reaching a frail arm out to draw me into a hug as I leaned over his bedside.

“You look good,” I said, pulling a chair close.

“I let them shave me.” He ran a tremulous hand over his chin. “Just in your honor.”

“I brought you pumpkin bread,” I said. “I left it with your aide and she’s going to bring it to you with dinner.”

“Always loved your pumpkin bread,” he said.

“That’s because you’re the one who taught me how to make it.”

“Oh, hogwash.” He shook his head with a smile. “You outpaced me in the baking department by the time you were ten.” He looked directly at me then, and we both sobered. The nurse had said he wanted to see me alone, without Jenny or Ted, and I knew Grandpa must be seeing this visit as some sort of farewell. Just the thought put tears in my eyes.

“Now don’t cry,” he said. “I haven’t even said anything yet.”

“You wanted to see me alone.” I reached over the bar of the bed to hold his hand.

He nodded. “I need to talk to you,” he said, “and I’m afraid this will shock you a little, honey.”

I pressed my lips together, unable to imagine where this was going. He looked worried about me. “I’m fine,” I said. “You can tell me anything.”

“You have a good friend,” he said. “Noelle Downie.”

He’d met Noelle a few times over the years, but I couldn’t imagine why he’d be talking about her now. I hadn’t mentioned her death to him. There’d seemed no reason to mention it, and something in his voice told me not to bring it up now.

“Yes.” I nodded.

“Noelle is your half sister.”

I leaned toward him, frowning. A few times in recent weeks he’d said things that made no sense. There are butterflies in the bathroom or They always give me spaghetti for breakfast here. The staff told me it was the medications talking. Was that what was happening now?

“What do you mean, Grandpa?” I asked.

“Just what I said. She’s your half sister and my granddaughter. You were never supposed to know.”

“I… Would you explain—”

“Yes.” He turned away from me, looking out the window at the manicured landscape. “I can’t die without telling you the truth about Noelle.” A tear slipped from each of his blue eyes and I reached for a tissue and blotted his cheeks. My mind scrambled to take in what he was telling me.

“Your mother had a baby when she was fifteen years old,” he said.

I sucked in my breath and sat back. “Oh, no.” I tried to picture my mother as a teenager. Discovering she was pregnant. Grappling with a decision. “You’re saying…that was Noelle?”

He licked his parched lips. “Susan was going with Frank at the time, but another boy got her pregnant. We didn’t know until she was pretty far along. Frank didn’t know. No one knew, and Susan wanted it that way. We sent her to your great-aunt Leta’s in Robeson County. She told Frank…well, I don’t remember exactly what she told Frank. That Leta was sick, I think, and she had to help out. Leta found this midwife to take care of your mother and…make the problem go away, so to speak.”

A midwife? Noelle? I felt suddenly, thoroughly confused. I rubbed my forehead. “I don’t understand how—”

“The midwife wanted a child,” he said. “She and her husband adopted the baby.”

“But…how do you know it was Noelle?” I asked. I felt a crushing pain starting low in my rib cage as the loss of one of my closest friends began to grow into a greater loss than I ever could have imagined.

“Around the time your parents moved to California, your mother began toying with the idea of finding her daughter,” he said. “She held off, though. She was afraid to tell your father the truth, even after all that time. Afraid he’d be angry she’d lied to him. But, anyway, your mother knew the midwife had the last name Downie and she knew where she lived and I guess it wasn’t that difficult to find out Noelle’s name. She found all that out right around the time she died, but we never realized you were friends with her…with Noelle…until a while after her death. We were shocked, your grandma and me, the first time you mentioned her name to us. It wasn’t such a coincidence that you both went to UNCW, but to end up friends was just…” He shook his head, then gave me a long look. “Do you think somehow she knew?” he asked.

I thought of Noelle’s will. Naming me executor. I thought of the surprise split of her money with seventy-five percent of her assets going to Jenny. I remembered the first time Tara and I met her in our dorm room. Even years later, we joked about how weird Noelle had been that day, questioning me about my family, my name, my grandparents.

“She knew.” I could barely speak. “I don’t know how she figured it out, but she knew.”

“Your grandma and I decided we’d best keep it to ourselves, since your father never knew about her. We didn’t want to do any harm to his memory of Susan. But now your father’s gone, and I’m about to leave this good earth myself, so it’s time.” He looked at me with hope in his blue eyes. I’d always loved those eyes and suddenly I saw Noelle in them. “I want to ask you a big favor, Emerson,” he said. “Only if you’re comfortable with it, okay? I know it’s a lot to ask.”

I nodded. “Anything,” I said.

“I’d like her to know the truth. I want to spend some time with her. My granddaughter.” His lips trembled in a way I couldn’t bear. “Would that be all right?”

“Oh, Grandpa.” I took his hand again, holding it between both of mine, and then I told him the part of Noelle’s story that I knew. The ending.



28

Tara


Wilmington, North Carolina

Emerson and I sat side by side on the back steps of Noelle’s house, our arms around each other’s shoulders as we looked out toward the garden. We were waiting for Suzanne to stop over to see the house in the hope that she’d become the new tenant. Her current lease wouldn’t be up until the spring, but that was fine with Emerson and Ted, who needed time to renovate.

Suzanne had been in the house many times over the years, but it had been such a mess that when Emerson asked if she was interested in renting, she’d made a face before saying, “Maybe.” She would have to look past the scarred floors and dirty walls and the empty places in the kitchen where new appliances would go. Hopefully, she’d be able to see the potential, because we wanted someone who’d loved Noelle to have her house.

We also wanted to pick Suzanne’s brain a little to see if she knew any more than we did about the waning years of Noelle’s practice. We doubted it since Suzanne herself had been stunned to learn Noelle was no longer a midwife, but it was worth a few questions.