“Hey, Miss Noelle,” he said as he hopped out of the cab, “did I miss your mama?”
“She took off an hour ago.” Noelle heaved a box into the cramped trunk of her car.
“What we gonna do without her?” he asked.
“You and Bea better stop having babies, that’s what.”
James grinned. He’d grown into a handsome man and he had the sort of grin that made you grin back. “Too late for that,” he said.
Noelle put her hands on her hips and stared at him. “Again? What are you going to do with all these kids?”
James shrugged. “Love ’em up,” he said.
People have a right to make their own choices, Noelle, her mother had told her when Noelle complained the last time Bea announced she was pregnant.
“Well,” Noelle said now, “let me help you carry that recliner out to your truck.”
It took them nearly half an hour to carry the recliner through the tight doorway of the house, across the windy yard and into the truck. Then James helped her with the rest of her mother’s cartons.
She was walking from the car toward the house to pick up another box, when she saw James suddenly drop one of the cartons to the grass, his arms flung out in the air.
“Girl!” He nudged the box with the toe of his shoe. “Where these boxes been? They got spider shit all over ’em.”
Noelle hadn’t noticed, but he was right. Round egg sacs hung from the corners and cottony webs crisscrossed the untaped flaps.
“Leave it there, James,” she said. “Nothing’s alive, I don’t think, but I don’t want to drag these filthy things into that Miss Wilson’s house. Let me get a rag and I’ll clean them up.”
“You got some tape?” James squatted down next to the box. “I’ll check inside a couple to make sure they ain’t no infestation or nothin’.”
Finding a rag in the cleaned-out kitchen was easier said than done, and Noelle finally resorted to pulling one of her washcloths from her suitcase. She dampened it under the tap and headed back to the front yard.
By the time she reached James and the box, he was on his feet, a manila folder in his hands. He looked at her from behind a frown.
“Was you adopted?” he asked.
She froze. How would he know that? She’d only found out herself the night Bea’s first baby was born, when her mother finally told her the truth. They’d sat together on the hammock in the backyard while her mother apologized for not telling her sooner. “You had a right to know way before now,” she’d said, “but I didn’t want you to think that you being adopted had anything to do with Daddy leaving.”
Noelle had felt stunned, like a huge void opened up inside her. “My mother?” she’d asked. “Who were my real mother and father?”
“Your father and I are your real parents,” her mother said sharply. “But your biological mother was a fifteen-year-old girl like that one we just left. Like Bea. Your father…” She’d shrugged. “I don’t think anybody knew who your father was.”
“I’m not yours,” Noelle said, trying on the fit of the words.
“Oh, you’re mine, honey. Please don’t ever say that again.”
“I’m not part Lumbee?” She felt the magic drain out of her. The Spanish moss hanging above the hammock suddenly looked like nothing more than Spanish moss, not the hair of an Indian chief’s wife.
“I believe you’re a mishmash. A little of this and a little of that.” Her mother had taken her hand and held it on her lap. “What you are,” she said, “is the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Now, Noelle looked at James. “Yes, I’m adopted,” she said, as though the fact meant nothing to her. “But how did you know?”
He handed the folder to her. “Some papers fell out of this thing in the wind,” he said. “Ain’t nothin’ to me,” he said. “But maybe mean somethin’ to you.”
His soft brown eyes told her he’d seen something he shouldn’t have seen. Something she’d never been meant to see, either. And when he gave it to her, he touched her hand. Not like a man would touch a woman. It was the touch of a friend who knew that the papers in that folder just might change her world forever.
8
Tara
Wilmington, North Carolina
2010
Oh, God, this felt strange.
I sat across the table from Ian at the Pilot House, wondering if I was on a date. It had seemed casual enough yesterday when he said he had two tickets for a film at Thalian Hall. Then he suggested we grab something to eat first, and when you put dinner on the waterfront together with a film at a place as nice as the renovated Thalian Hall, what else could it be but a date? I liked Ian. I’d known him for so long and in some ways I could honestly say I adored him, but I didn’t want to date him. I didn’t want to date anyone. The thought of kissing or even holding hands with someone other than Sam made me shudder—and not with desire. It was actually repellent. I felt a deep, deep loneliness in my bed at night, but it wasn’t for just any man. It was for my husband.
“This isn’t a date, is it?” I asked Ian after the waiter had poured my second glass of wine.
Ian laughed. “Not if you don’t want it to be,” he said.
“Were you thinking it was? Is?” I was smiling. I liked that I could talk easily to Ian. I needed a male friend much more than I needed a lover.
“I was just thinking it would be good to see you smile,” Ian said, “like you are right now.”
The moment he said that, I felt my smile disappear. There was something I needed to tell him. I’d planned to wait until tomorrow so that tonight we could both relax and unwind. Suddenly, though, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to keep my mouth shut.
After school that afternoon, I’d driven to Noelle’s to help Emerson start cleaning out the house. Emerson had been waiting for me on the porch, and as soon as I’d reached the top step she grabbed my hand and sat down with me on the glider. Her face was red and gleamed with perspiration, and I knew she’d already been hard at work inside the house. But the stress in her face was from more than physical labor.
“You’re not going to believe the autopsy report,” she said.
“She was sick,” I said. I wanted that to be the case. A terminal illness that Noelle could see no escape from. I could envision her making the choice to end her life then, not wanting to put any of us through a long drawn-out illness with her.
But that wasn’t it at all.
Now I looked across the table at Ian. “Noelle had a baby,” I said.
He stared at me, then laughed. “What are you talking about?”
“Emerson got the autopsy report today. Cause of death was the overdose, as we’d expected. But the autopsy showed that, sometime in her life, she’d been pregnant and given birth.”
All signs of levity left Ian’s face. “When?”
“I don’t know.” I hesitated for just a moment, then asked, “Could it have been yours, Ian?”
He looked jarred by the thought. I was certain we were both remembering back to the abrupt end to his and Noelle’s engagement. Was there a connection?
“I don’t see how,” he said. “I—all of us—would have noticed if she’d been pregnant. Especially pregnant enough to actually give birth.”
“It must have happened when she was a teenager, then,” I said. “Before any of us knew her. Emerson and I figure that she relinquished the baby for adoption. Maybe she’s been dealing with sadness from that experience all these years and none of us knew.”
“Well,” Ian said, “maybe you’re right or maybe the baby died or… I guess we’ll never know. I just…I thought I knew her so well back when we were together. Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Why didn’t she tell Emerson or me?” I added. “Her best friends?” I looked down at my plate where a few bites of flounder remained. I wasn’t sure I could finish it. “Anyhow, it probably has nothing to do with why she killed herself,” I said.
“Unless it’s something she never go
t over.” He looked miserable.
“I’m sorry I brought this up tonight. I should have kept my mouth shut.”
“No, I’m glad you told me,” he said.
I ate another bite of flounder without really tasting it. I was tired. Emerson and I had packed up everything in Noelle’s kitchen, filling boxes with items Ted would take to the women’s shelter. There wasn’t much. Noelle had pared down her life. She’d never been a pack rat, but I’d been surprised at how empty her kitchen cabinets had been. A few plates. A few glasses and cups and bowls. Nothing extraneous. Her dresser and closet had been the same way, stripped down to the necessities. It had been hard to see her familiar old long skirts and loose cotton blouses, knowing we’d never see Noelle in them again. Then there were the black garbage bags filled with baby items that had been all over the house. Ted and Emerson piled the bags into their car to take home with them, where Grace and Jenny promised to organize the mess and turn it over to Suzanne.
I’d been shocked when Grace told me she planned to help out with the babies program as Noelle had requested. Emerson had given her Noelle’s old sewing machine and shown her how to hem the little blankets that were part of the layettes donated to sick or needy infants. When Grace told me what she was up to, I put my hand on her forehead as if checking for fever. “Are you all right?” I’d smiled. Wrong move.
She’d jerked her head away from my hand. “I’m fine,” she said. “Don’t make a big production out of it.”
I doubted she’d be one of the volunteers who delivered the layettes to the hospital. Ever since Sam’s accident, she’d been nearly phobic of hospitals. She’d told me that if I ever needed hospitalization, she wouldn’t visit me. She wouldn’t even visit Cleve in the hospital, she’d said. I blamed myself. When we reached the emergency room after Sam’s accident, I plowed through the treatment room doors in a panic with Grace close on my heels. Even I couldn’t bear to remember what we saw in that room—Sam’s beautiful face, bloodied and torn apart. Grace had fainted, dropping to the floor behind me like a stone.
“So,” Ian said, “did you find anything at Noelle’s that seemed…out of the ordinary?”
I shook my head. “Emerson had to examine everything she touched for clues,” I said. “She thinks something in that house is going to tell us why she killed herself or what happened to her child or why she lied to us about being a midwife.”
Noelle and midwife. The words went together like milk and cookies. “Midwife” defined who she was in my mind. In all of our minds. Hadn’t at least one of us introduced her as a midwife over the past decade and hadn’t she said nothing to correct us? It was bizarre.
Ian tapped his fingertip against the base of his empty wineglass. “Noelle…” He shook his head. “It was impossible to know what was going on with her sometimes.”
I felt sorry for him. I knew how much he’d once loved her. “It must have been so hard on you when she broke off the engagement.”
“Oh, God, Tara.” He brushed the comment aside. “It was so long ago. Another lifetime ago.”
“I don’t remember you getting angry. I think most men would have been furious.”
“I was more worried about her than angry,” he said. Then he shifted in his chair and smiled again. “Let’s lighten up, okay. Let’s not talk about Noelle or Sam or anything sad for the rest of the night.”
“Perfect,” I agreed.
“So—” he cut a plump scallop in half on his plate “—when’s the last time you actually went out to a movie instead of watching a rental at home?”
I thought back through the recent months, then wrinkled my nose. “Not since Sam,” I said.
He laughed. “Okay, let me try that again.” He looked up at the ceiling as if searching there for a safe topic. His eyes suddenly brightened behind his glasses. “I’m thinking of getting a dog,” he said.
“You’re kidding!” I knew he loved our dog, Twitter, but I couldn’t picture him with one of his own. “A puppy? Or an older rescue, or—”
“Puppy,” he said. “I haven’t had one since I was a kid. I’d have to do more of my work at home for a while, I guess.”
“I think it’s a great idea,” I said. “Maybe you could get two so they could entertain each other while—”
“Tara?” I looked up to see an older woman walking toward our table. I was so caught up in the idea of Ian with a puppy that it took me a moment to recognize her.
“Barbara!” I rose to my feet and gave her a hug. “It’s good to see you.” I hadn’t seen Barbara Read since her retirement party a couple of years ago. Ian was getting to his feet, as well. “Ian, this is Barbara Read,” I said. “She used to teach math at Hunter.”
“Sit down now, both of you.” Barbara smiled. She looked great, her coppery hair cut very short and her skin satin-smooth. Retirement definitely agreed with her. “Oh, honey,” she said to me once I took my seat again, “I’m glad to see you looking so well. I was just devastated to hear about Sam. And poor Grace. I know this must be a terrible time for both of you.”
“Thank you.” I nodded toward Ian. “Ian was Sam’s law partner,” I said. I felt the need to explain why I was sitting in a restaurant, sipping wine with another man a mere six months after Sam’s death. I saw a smile play on Ian’s lips. He was on to me and my guilt.
Barbara barely seemed to hear me, though. “And I just heard about Noelle Downie,” she said. “Oh, my Lord, what a tragedy.”
I nodded. “It’s very sad,” I said.
“I know you were close to her,” Barbara said. “She had a big heart. I saw her and Sam at the South Beach Grill a couple of times last year and it’s hard to believe they’re both gone. Did he mention seeing me? I told him to tell you hello.”
I thought I’d misunderstood her. “You saw Sam and Noelle at the South Beach Grill? In Wrightsville Beach?”
“I love that restaurant, don’t you? I often go over there for lunch. Off season, of course. I don’t go near the beach during the summer.”
“When was this?” I didn’t want to sound upset—or worse, jealous—but this was very strange. Noelle and Sam were friends, but certainly not the meet-for-lunch sort of friends.
“Oh, let me think.” Barbara tapped her chin as she looked out the window toward the river. “Well, it must have been the spring. April, maybe?”
“Sam died in early March.” I felt impatient with her. I glanced at Ian and saw the crease between his eyebrows.
“Hmm, then maybe late winter, or it might even have been last fall.” Barbara laughed. “Retirement messes with the calendar in your head, just you wait and see! It was twice, I remember that. I talked to Sam both times. I didn’t know Noelle personally, but everyone knows who she is. Was. I figured he was probably the lawyer for that baby program she ran.”
“Probably right,” Ian said. He was looking at me and his eyes told me to get rid of her.
“Barbara, it’s been so good seeing you,” I said, “but Ian and I’d better finish up here or we’re going to miss our movie.”
“Oh, same here.” She looked over her shoulder in the direction she’d come from. “My husband probably thinks I got lost in the ladies’ room.” She leaned over to pat my wrist. “Wonderful seeing you, honey. And nice meeting you, Ian. Y’all have a good evening.”
Ian and I stared at each other until we were sure she was out of earshot. “The babies program needs a lawyer?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I’m sure that’s not it,” he said, “but I just wanted her to leave. I could see she was upsetting you.”
“I’m not upset. I’m confused.”
“Look.” Ian licked his lips and studied his plate for a moment. “I think it was probably the will.” He raised his eyes to mine. “It was written in February, and I’m sure Sam and Noelle had to have a couple of meetings to talk about it. There were papers having to do with her mother’s care that Sam had to draw up, and…he probably helped her think through how she wanted to divide her ass
ets.”
“Why at a restaurant and not his office?”
“Because they were friends, so they decided to be comfortable while they worked. I do it, and Sam took his clients out all the time.” He reached across the table and rested his hand on mine. “Hey,” he said, “you’re not thinking…?”
I shook my head. “Noelle and Sam? No way. Sam always liked her but he also thought she was wacky. It’s just weird to hear something like that out of the blue, when I had no idea…” My voice trailed off.
“You had no idea about it because Sam was ethical,” Ian said. “He didn’t tell you about her will for the same reason I didn’t tell you about it when I came across it in his files. Until she died, it was frankly none of your business.”
“Right.” I nodded. It wasn’t the first time I’d discovered that Sam had handled the legal affairs of someone I knew without telling me. I’d learned early in our married life not to ask questions.
Our waiter delivered our bill and Ian leaned back in his chair to pull out his wallet. “Well—” he laughed as he set his credit card on the table “—we didn’t have much success not talking about Noelle or Sam, did we?”
“Not much.” I set my napkin on the table. “Let’s go lose ourselves in a movie.”
“Deal,” he said, and it wasn’t until we were walking from his car into the theater that I realized I’d let him pay for my dinner.
I guessed it was a date, after all.
9
Emerson
The human race lost something when digital photography was invented. I sat cross-legged on the floor of Noelle’s small living room, my back against the sofa, as I paged through one of her old photo albums. Like my own albums, hers had few recent pictures. They were all on her computer. Generations to come—my grandkids, for example—would never get to look through my photo album and wonder, Who is this guy and why was he important to Grandma? Honestly, it made me sad. The handful of recent pictures in Noelle’s album were Jenny’s and Grace’s not-very-flattering school pictures and some photographs taken at fundraising events, like the big baby shower Noelle held each year on the grounds of our church.