He lifted his cheek from mine. For a moment, I thought I saw a flash of doubt cross his face, but then he smiled. Nodded.
“Here she is.” Noelle walked into the room carrying the tiny bundle. “Your mama’s waiting for you, darlin’.” She leaned her head close to the bundle and I felt a hunger unlike anything I’d ever known. If I could have leaped out of the bed to grab my child I would have, but I held out my arms and let Noelle settle the baby into them.
Sam tipped his forehead to mine and we stared into the face of our daughter. I slipped the tiny yellow hat from her head to reveal light brown hair. Her cheeks were round and rosy, her eyebrows smudged pale crescents. She blinked her eyes open and looked at us blindly but with interest, as though she’d been waiting to see us as anxiously as we’d been waiting to see her, and I felt my own eyes fill at the miracle in my arms. I couldn’t tear my gaze from her, but Sam lifted his head to look at Noelle. She sat, a small smile on her lips, at the foot of the bed.
“We’re going to name her Noelle,” he said.
I looked up in time to see the smile leave her face. “Oh, no, you’re not.” She made it sound like a warning.
“Yes,” I said. “We want to.”
Even without my contacts, I could see the sudden rise of color in Noelle’s cheeks.
“Please don’t,” she said. “Promise me you won’t saddle this child with my name.”
“Okay,” Sam and I said together, quickly, because clearly we’d caused her distress. I didn’t understand. Did she hate her name? I’d always thought it was a pretty name, lyrical and strong. For whatever reason, though, the thought upset her. It didn’t matter. We’d pick another name, a beautiful name for our beautiful little daughter.
Now, sitting in the church next to the daughter born that night, I remembered my closeness with that daughter. Physical. Emotional. Spiritual. It had blossomed between us so easily in those early years. How did that closeness turn into this unbearable distance? Was there any hope of ever getting it back?
6
Emerson
God, I felt like a zombie. The reception after the service was in my own house, but I could hardly find my way around the rooms. Faces and voices blended together into a jumble of sight and sound. Nearly everyone was wearing black except me. I had on my favorite green blouse and the green-and-tan floral skirt that was getting too tight in the waist. Just plucked them out of the closet that morning without thinking. Noelle would have hated all the black, anyway.
I was only vaguely aware of what was happening: Jenny and Grace going upstairs to escape the adults; the caterer Tara’d hired floating through the rooms with trays of bruschetta and shrimp; Ted keeping an eye on me from wherever he was. He knew I was a wreck. I was glad that Noelle’s mother had left with her aide after the service. I didn’t think I could bear to see any more of her sorrow.
Tara was doing her social-butterfly thing, but for the most part she stayed close to my side. Ted and Ian were holding their little plates and talking in the corner of the living room, probably about sports. I still hadn’t adjusted to seeing the guys together without Sam. Now Noelle was gone, too. Not only that, but my grandfather’s nursing home had called that morning to tell me they were moving my beloved grandpa into hospice. I was losing everyone. Nothing was going to feel right again for a long time.
A few volunteers from Noelle’s babies program had come over. I knew most of them, though not well. I tried to make small talk with everyone, nodding, smiling, shaking hands. People said nice things about Noelle. Nobody said, “Why did she do it?” At least, not to me. They asked me how the café was doing and I answered with my usual “Great! Stop in sometime!” But I heard their voices and my own through a thick fog. I kept searching the room for the one person who was missing: Noelle. When I’d catch myself looking for her, my body would suddenly jerk back to reality. I was losing my mind.
An hour into the reception—an hour that felt more like three—Tara finally pulled me away from a woman who was going on and on about knitting baby clothes. “Break time,” she said in my ear.
I let her guide me through the living room and out to the sunroom we’d added on the year before. Tara took me by the shoulders and lowered me to the sofa, then plunked down on an ottoman in front of me. The voices from the living room were a hum through the closed sunroom door. They sounded wonderfully far away. I looked at Tara. “Thank you,” I said. “I was drowning out there.”
Tara nodded. “I know. It’s hard.”
I scrunched up my face. “I keep looking for Noelle,” I admitted. “That’s insane, isn’t it? I mean, seriously, I’m not joking. I keep expecting her to walk through the door.”
“Me, too,” Tara said. “I still think I see Sam sometimes. I thought I saw him in the grocery store the other day. And there was a guy driving down Water Street and I almost turned the car around to follow him.”
“I don’t get why there weren’t more people at the service,” I said. The turnout—or lack of turnout—hurt me. “I honestly thought there’d be…that every mother whose baby she delivered…” I shook my head. “You know the kind of relationship she had with her moms. That closeness. I thought they’d all come.”
“I know.” Tara rubbed my hand where it rested on my thigh. “I thought the same thing, but maybe they didn’t see the article in the paper.” She’d written the piece about Noelle and she’d done a great job with it. A bit of melodrama in her description of Noelle, but that was Tara.
“Word would have gotten around, though, article or not,” I said.
“They’re probably so busy with their families,” Tara said.
I suddenly pounded my fist on my thigh. “I just don’t understand why she did it!” I sounded like a broken record. “What did we miss? What did I miss? How did we fail her?”
Tara shook her head. “I wish I knew.” She massaged her forehead. “It wasn’t financial trouble, right? She had that money socked away, so that couldn’t have been it.”
“She didn’t give a damn about money, anyway,” I said. “You know that.”
“I keep thinking maybe she was sick and didn’t tell us,” Tara said. “She didn’t have insurance and maybe suicide seemed like her only way out. Has the final autopsy report come back yet?”
“Not yet. I don’t think she was sick, Tara, I really don’t. I’m sure the report’s going to show a massive dose of tranquilizers and narcotics and that’s it.”
Tara leaned back on the ottoman. “She was terrible at asking for help,” she said.
“Or showing weakness,” I added. “She always had to be the strong one.”
The sunroom door opened a few inches and a woman poked her head into the room. “Is one of you Emerson?” she asked.
“I am.” I wanted to get to my feet, but my body had other ideas and I stayed rooted to the sofa.
The woman crossed the room like a drill sergeant, all sharp edges and quick movements, jutting her hand toward me for a shake. I actually recoiled. I felt like a balloon she could pop if I let her get too close. “I’m Gloria Massey,” she said. She was in her mid-sixties, with short, no-nonsense gray hair. Khaki pants. Navy blue blazer.
Tara stood from the ottoman and offered it to her and the woman sat down in front of me, her knees pointy knobs beneath her pants. Gloria Massey. Her name was familiar, but God only knew why. I glanced at Tara, frowning, and I could tell she was trying to place her, too. Both our minds were mush. She seemed to figure that out.
“I’m an obstetrician with Forest Glen Birth Center,” she said. “Noelle used to be a midwife in our practice.”
“Oh, right.” I gestured toward Tara. “This is Tara Vincent. We were Noelle’s closest friends.”
“Yes, I remember,” Gloria said. “You went to UNCW with her, right?”
Tara nodded. “She was a few years ahead of us, but yes, we did.”
“Well, I’m sorry to get here so late,” Gloria said. “I had a delivery this morning so I missed the service
, but I wanted to be sure to see you two and tell you how sorry I was to hear about Noelle. She was one of a kind.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“I hadn’t seen her in…oh, it must be ten years now, but she’s the sort of person you never forget.”
Ten years? “Maybe I have you mixed up with someone else,” I said. “I thought she left your practice just a little over a year ago.”
Gloria Massey raised her eyebrows in surprise. “No,” she said. “I was actually confused by the article in the paper. It said she left us a couple of years ago, but it’s really been at least ten. Probably more like twelve. I’d have to think. It was around the time she started that babies-in-need program.”
I frowned, trying to remember. “I thought she’d worked with you all these years.” I looked at Tara. “Am I that out of it? Wasn’t she affiliated with Forest Glen right up until her retirement?”
Tara nodded. “I referred someone to her there just a couple of years ago,” she said.
“Well, we always had requests for her, that’s true,” Gloria said, “but we referred them on to the other midwife working with us.”
“So where was Noelle working, then?” I asked. “I’m confused.”
“I…” Gloria looked from me to Tara. “I’m quite sure she quit midwifery altogether when she left us,” she said. “I would have known if she’d gone to another practice.”
Both of us stared at her. I felt like I was slipping into a long dark tunnel. I didn’t think I could handle learning one more thing that didn’t fit with what I knew about Noelle. My brain hurt. I wanted to shout to the universe, “Noelle was not a big mystery! Stop trying to make her into one!”
“I think,” I said to Gloria, “for some reason, she didn’t want you to know she’d gone someplace else.”
With her sharp little machinelike gestures, Gloria pulled her cell phone from the purse slung over her shoulder. “Hold on.” She quickly dialed a number. “Laurie, it’s me,” she said. “Do you recall when Noelle Downie left us?” She nodded, looked at me and repeated what she was hearing, “Twelve years as of December 1,” she said. “This is my office manager on the phone and she says she remembers the date because it was the day her husband asked for a divorce. Which he didn’t get and it’s all patched up now, right, Laurie?” She smiled into the phone, while my mind scrambled to take in this bizarre information.
“Where did she go?” Tara asked.
“Did she go somewhere else?” Gloria asked her office manager. She nodded again. “Uh-huh. That’s what I thought. Okay, thanks. I’ll be in a little later.” She dropped her phone back in her purse. “Noelle let her certification lapse after she left us,” she said.
“What?” I said. “No way!”
“That doesn’t make any sense at all.” Tara dropped down next to me on the sofa.
“Maybe this Laurie person has her mixed up with one of your other midwives,” I suggested.
Gloria shook her head. “I don’t think so.” She looked straight at me and I could practically hear her thinking what a shitty friend I was for not knowing what Noelle was up to. “I remember there being talk about it and everyone saying she just wanted to focus on the babies program,” Gloria said. “I know she was having a lot of back pain. I remember that. One of the other practices tried to get her to join them when they realized she’d left us, but she told them she was out of the business.”
“But she’s been delivering babies all this time!” I said.
“That’s true,” Tara agreed. “She’s been practicing as a midwife.”
“Are you sure?” Gloria tipped her head to one side. “Under whose supervision?”
I looked at Tara, who shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said.
“She’d tell me she was with a patient sometimes,” I said, but I spoke slowly, suddenly unsure about what I was saying. Unsure about everything. Did she tell me that? I pressed my fingers to my temples. “Twelve years? This is ludicrous!” As far as I knew, Noelle had had three passions for the past twelve years: her local midwifery practice, the babies program and what she called her “rural work.” Every couple of years she’d spend a few months in an impoverished rural area volunteering her skills as a midwife. She grew up in an area like that and it was her way of giving back. Could twelve years of Noelle’s life have slipped past without us knowing what was really going on with her? “I know I heard her mention her patients,” Tara said. If I was crazy, Tara was, too.
“I’m so sorry.” Gloria stood. “I’ve upset you both and that was the last thing I meant to do when I came here.” She leaned down to give me a quick, soulless hug, then another one to Tara. “I need to run,” she said. “Again, please accept my condolences. This is such a loss to the whole community.”
She left the room and Tara and I sat in quiet confusion for a moment. My gaze blurred on the sunroom door.
Tara rubbed my back. “There’s an explanation for this,” she said.
“Oh, there’s an explanation, all right,” I said. “And I know exactly what it is. I hate it, but we have to accept it.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“The explanation is that we never really knew Noelle.” I looked at Tara, determination suddenly taking the place of my confusion. “We have to figure out why she died, Tara,” I said. “One way or another, we need to get to know her now.”
7
Noelle
Robeson County, North Carolina
1984
Her mother stood in the middle of their living room, looking around with a worried sigh. “I hate to leave you with this mess,” she said. “The timing of this is all wrong.”
“You’re making too much out of it, Mama,” Noelle said as she ushered her mother toward the door. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
Her mother looked through the open doorway to the two cars in the gravel drive. Her old Ford stood next to Noelle’s “new” car—a dented, faded Chevy she’d picked up for six hundred dollars. The weather was threatening to storm and a hot wind blew through the treetops.
“Everything’s changing so fast,” her mother said.
“For the better.” Noelle gave her a little shove toward the door. “It’s not like you ever loved living here.”
Her mother laughed. “That’s the truth.” She touched her daughter’s cheek. “It’s being apart from you. That’s the change I can’t stand.”
“I’ll miss you, too,” Noelle said. She would. But she had her future spread out in front of her and that would make up for any sense of loss she felt over being apart from her mother and leaving the house she’d grown up in. “I’m going to see you in a couple of days,” she added. “It’s not like this is goodbye.”
Her mother’s car was packed to the gills for the short trip to New Bern but not everything would fit, so Noelle had promised to bring the rest of her things to her in a few days. Then she’d have to turn around and come home to pick up her own belongings and head to UNC Wilmington.
“Remember, Miss Wilson has a spare room you can stay in on vacations.”
“I’ll remember,” Noelle said, not sure she’d ever want to stay in the house of a stranger, even if her mother would be there. Miss Wilson was the elderly sister of one of her mother’s friends. She’d broken her hip and needed a live-in aide and was hiring Noelle’s mother for the job. With Noelle going off to college on a full scholarship, the timing was right to sell the house. They’d sold it nearly overnight to a young couple from Raleigh who were looking for a place in the country. It had all happened fast. They’d donated their old furniture, but there was so much left to do.
“I love you, honey.” Her mother pulled her into a hug, then stood back and tried to smooth Noelle’s unsmoothable hair.
“I love you, too.” She gave her mother a gentle shove through the doorway. “Drive safely.”
“You, too.”
Arms folded tightly across her chest, Noelle watched her mother’s car crunch down
the gravel drive to the dirt road. She felt so much love for her mother that her eyes filled as the car disappeared around the bend. Fifty-eight years old now, her mother was. She was active, vibrant, full of life. Yet fifty-eight seemed so old to Noelle and it worried her. Her father had died two years earlier at fifty-seven. She’d learned about it in a stilted letter from Doreen. The letter arrived nearly a month after his death with a check for four hundred dollars, made out to Noelle. “He didn’t have a will,” Doreen wrote, “but I thought Noelle should get something from his estate.” His estate. The word made Noelle and her mother laugh for hours, the sort of laughter that was borne of hurt and pain. But the four hundred dollars had helped her buy the car, which she named Pops, and she hoped it would treat her better than her father ever had.
Aside from Noelle’s trimmed-down belongings and the boxes she had to transport to Miss Wilson’s, the only other thing left in the house was an old recliner. James was borrowing a truck to take it to his house. After the night that Bea’s baby was born, James became a fixture around their house, mowing their lawn at first out of gratitude but later for the few dollars Noelle’s mother insisted on paying him. That family had been full of surprises. As it turned out, James wasn’t Bea’s brother, but her boyfriend and the father of the baby she had that night. That baby was now five years old and he already had two younger brothers, both “caught” by Noelle’s mother, as she would say, with Noelle as her assistant. Noelle’s mother had tried to persuade Bea and James to practice birth control, but her pleas had fallen on deaf ears. Bea, it turned out, liked being a mother and she doted on her kids.
Noelle was carting boxes to her car when James showed up with his truck.