Suddenly, the squeal of brakes filled her head and she opened her eyes to see headlights swerving toward her. Letting out a scream, she turned her wheel sharply to the left and stepped on the gas. The oncoming car caught her right bumper, spinning her car around and tossing her, unbelted, against the dashboard. She pressed hard on the brake and felt as though every muscle in her back snapped in two as her car jerked to a stop.

A man jumped out of the other car and began running toward her, shouting, waving his arms wildly in the air. She locked her car doors. Was he crazy? Furious? It took her a moment to understand what he was saying.

“You don’t have your lights on, asshole!” he shouted. “Where the fuck are your lights?”

No lights? God! What was wrong with her? Her hands shook as she flicked the knob for her headlights. She saw the man pull a phone from his pocket. The police. Jumbled thoughts raced through her mind, one of them rising quickly to the top: she didn’t want to have to explain to anyone what she was doing in Wrightsville Beach in the middle of the night.

She stepped on the gas pedal and took off across the intersection, speeding away from the man and his shouting, hoping she was disappearing into the darkness too quickly for him to be able to read her license plate number. When she was a few blocks away, she pulled into a deserted parking lot, turned off her car and sat very still, waiting for her heart to settle down. But as the beat slowed and steadied, the muscles in her back contracted into a knot that was tight and sharp and savage, and she knew that her betrayal of Tara was not all that would haunt her about this night.



30

Tara


Wilmington, North Carolina

2010

I hadn’t been in Sam’s office since before he died. Ian had brought two boxes of personal items to me a few weeks after his death and I wished he hadn’t bothered. The spare pair of sunglasses, a couple of business awards, framed photographs of Grace and me and other odds and ends—I would have just as soon not seen them. Now Emerson and I sat on the sofa in front of the windows in Sam’s old office waiting for Ian. Sam’s desk still had a monitor and keyboard on it, but nothing else. The only other things in the room besides the furniture were the floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled with law books and three gleaming wooden antique file cabinets. They were the file cabinets Ian had slowly been making his way through as he tried to determine which of Sam’s old cases needed his attention.

“You want something cold to drink?” he asked as he walked into the office. “Water? Soda?” He had a legal-size manila folder in his hands. It was neither thick nor thin. The edges were worn as though it had been beaten up a little over time.

“We’re good,” I said. I knew we both just wanted him to get to the point.

Ian sat down in one of the leather chairs in front of Sam’s desk. “Well.” He looked at me—apologetically, I thought. “Noelle continues to surprise us.”

“Ian,” Emerson said impatiently. “What did you find?”

He held up the folder. “This was with Sam’s old cases. The name on the file is Sharon Byerton. It’s a made-up name, I’m sure.”

“Why a made-up name?” I asked.

“I’ve done it myself,” Ian said. “If I’m working with a client whose identity I want to protect from anyone who might stumble across the file, I’ll give it a false name. When I opened the folder, though…” He shook his head. He wore an expression of disbelief, as if he still couldn’t fathom what he’d found inside. He opened the file now and I could see a stack of the heavy, creamy sort of paper Sam used for legal documents. “Remember Noelle’s so-called ‘rural work’?” he asked.

We nodded.

“She wasn’t practicing midwifery then,” he said, “except maybe on herself.”

“What are you talking about?” Emerson asked.

“These are contracts,” he said, holding the papers in the air. “She was a gestational surrogate.”

“A…?” The words wouldn’t come out of my mouth.

“Five times. When she went away to do her rural work, she was actually in Asheville or Raleigh or Charlotte, finishing the last few months of a pregnancy and turning over a baby to that child’s biological parents.”

I couldn’t speak and Emerson seemed to have lost her voice, as well. It was too much to take in. Way too much.

“How can this be?” Emerson looked at me. “How can this possibly be? Why would she do this?”

“Oh…my…God,” I said slowly. “Are you sure?”

Ian leaned forward to hand us each a contract. I looked down at the pages of legalese. There were the names of strangers in the blanks marked genetic father and genetic mother. Noelle’s name in the blank for embryo carrier. I looked up at Ian. “Who are these people?”

He shook his head. “I have no information other than what’s in those contracts. The contracts are well drafted, but they’re not your typical surrogacy contract, not that I’ve seen a lot of them. Usually surrogates are married and have children and the husband would sign the contract also. Of course, that’s not the case here. She went into each contract prior to the in vitro fertilization, which I’m glad to see. She covered herself carefully. Or, I guess, Sam did. In each case, the parents paid all her expenses, of course, plus fifteen thousand dollars, which is low for this sort of thing, but I could see Noelle thinking that was just fine. She didn’t have many personal expenses.”

“We didn’t charge her much rent.” Emerson’s voice was husky.

“There’s the usual restrictions on the surrogate not interfering with the raising of the child or ever trying to assert parental rights. And there’s—”

“When did she start doing this?” Emerson asked.

“The first contract was signed in April 1998.” He cleared his throat and looked down at the contracts in his lap, and when he spoke again, his voice was thick. “Usually there’s something in a surrogacy contract about a psychiatric evaluation of the surrogate, but there’s no provision for that here, and I…” His voice trailed off and he lowered his head, his hand rubbing his chin, his eyes glistening behind his glasses. I felt so sad for him. I stood and crossed the room to lean over to hug him.

“She wasn’t right, Ian,” I said. “Something was off with her and none of us saw it.”

“I want to talk to some of these parents,” Emerson said. “At least the last couple. Can I do that?”

Ian lifted his head again and squeezed my arm in a little thank-you gesture as he regained his composure. “I’ll contact them and see if they’re willing,” he said. I stood next to his chair, my hand still on his shoulder. My own eyes had misted over, not for Noelle but for him, and I realized that I cared about him more than I’d thought.

“We missed her being pregnant,” Emerson said. “Five times!”

“The way she dressed, she could cover up a lot,” I said.

“Could this be why she and Sam were meeting at the restaurant in Wrightsville Beach?” Emerson asked.

“Possibly,” Ian said. “Although the last contract was from 2007 and she was forty-four when she died, so I think she was…finished. It would be very rare for someone to hire a surrogate her age.”

“Well, they hired her unmarried and without children,” I said as I sat down next to Emerson again. “How could Sam do this?” I asked. I was stunned by Sam’s involvement and especially by the fact that he’d known something like this about Noelle when the rest of us were in the dark. “Wasn’t this unethical of him? Shouldn’t he have tried to stop her?”

“He probably did,” Ian said. “I’m guessing he saw the contracts as the only thing he could do for her. It looks to me as though every i was dotted and t was crossed.” He held up the folder in his hand. “It bothers me that she had psychological problems none of us knew about, but if she was determined to be a surrogate and she refused to get therapy, I have to trust that Sam was protecting her interests the best way he knew how. Through the contracts…” He opened the folder again. “He has no notes in the file about any meetings he had with her, but that’s not uncommon,” he said. “I often toss those notes myself, especially if it’s about something sensitive. The only thing other than the contracts in here is this.” He held up the folder itself, open to the inside back page. From where I sat, I could see something written in pencil, but I couldn’t make it out.

“What does it say?” I asked.

“Just one word with a question mark,” Ian answered. “Penance?”



31

Noelle


Wilmington, North Carolina

1993

She sat in the lounge of the women and newborn unit at the hospital, waiting for Tara. She was heartbroken, but trying to hold it together because the waiting area was full of anxious families and kids and she didn’t want to cry in front of them.

She’d left Emerson and Ted in the recovery room, where Emerson was still blissfully groggy after the D and C. Her first pregnancy had ended just before the twelve-week mark, but she’d made it eighteen weeks this time and everything had seemed to be going so well. Noelle would not agree to be her midwife the next time. It was hard enough going through pregnancy loss with one of her patients. With Emerson, the sadness was too much for her.

Tara nearly burst into the lounge, all energy and worry. “I ran a red light,” she said after giving Noelle a hug. “Where is she?”

“In recovery. Ted’s with her.”

Tara sank into the chair next to Noelle. Her dark blond hair was pulled up in a messy ponytail and she wore no makeup, a sure sign she’d rushed out of the house. “I can’t believe she has to go through this again,” she said. “It was so bad the last time, Noelle. This is going to be so much worse. I’m afraid for her.”