The Midwife's Confession. Diane Chamberlain

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 assets.”

      “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.

      I wasn’t sure what I was looking for in the album, anyway. A picture of her with a stranger, maybe? A grown son or daughter whom she’d hidden away from us? Someone who had the answers we needed? As I dug through the pages, it was the pictures of Noelle herself that I lingered over, each one giving me a bittersweet twist of pain in my chest. I was mad at her for leaving the way she did with no explanation and mad at her for the lies, but I hated being angry with her. The only way to get rid of the anger was to make sense of what she’d done.

      “I love this picture of her,” I said to Ted, who was pulling books from the shelves on either side of the fireplace and stacking them in boxes. He was working like a dog while I played detective. I knew he thought I was merely brooding and he felt sorry for me. He hadn’t gotten on my case at all. Yet.

      “Uh-huh,” he said as he dropped another couple of books into the box. I’d mentioned to him my need to find answers to Noelle’s mystery life, but he thought I should just let it go, so now I was keeping my sleuthing to myself. I’d never had the sort of close—quite honestly, passionate—relationship with Ted that Tara had with Sam, but he was a good provider, a faithful husband and a caring dad. They were my three main requirements and he met them handily, so I was keeping him.

      In the photograph, Noelle stood in front of a decorative wall hanging. The picture was overexposed with far too much light on her face. It made her fair skin look like alabaster. Simple silver hoops hung from her ears. The intense light brightened the already neon-blue of her eyes and nearly erased her eyebrows. She was very slender and always had been, even before her Spartan vegan diet. I envied her skinniness, but I loved food too much—my TV was always set to the food channel. I’d carry a few extra pounds around with me for the rest of my life and that was just the way it was going to be. She and I both had thick and annoying hair. In the picture, Noelle’s wild, unruly hair was pulled back from her face, which was the way she always wore it. The unruliness was there, but under control. That’s how I would have described her to someone who didn’t know her: unruly, but under control. I guessed the description still fit. She’d played her cards exactly the way she’d wanted, right down to the bitter end.

      Ted straightened up from the box he was filling, his hands on the small of his back. “Em,” he said, “we’re never going to get out of here if you pore over everything you find.”

      I laughed. “I know,” I said. Enough. I closed the album and leaned forward to add it to the box of stuff we were keeping. I’d sort through her personal things later. Right now, we needed to get everything out of the house. Ted and I had decided we’d renovate before putting it up for rent. We’d redo the kitchen and the scratched hardwood floors and paint inside and out. And we’d tend the garden, as Noelle had asked. Tara was more into gardening than I was, so she said she’d be responsible for it. It wouldn’t take much work until the spring and by then the house would have a tenant. Suzanne Johnson was interested. She’d been renting ever since her divorce years ago, and with Cleve at college in Chapel Hill, she was ready to downsize. Plus she loved Sunset Park. I’d need to make sure she also loved gardening. My anger at Noelle didn’t erase even a molecule of the love I felt for her. She wanted her special little garden cared for, so I’d make sure that happened.

      Patches was now part of my household and she didn’t seem thrilled at finding herself living with two dogs. She’d adjust. It struck me as strange that Noelle had asked us to take care of the garden in her note, but not her cat. Maybe she’d figured her neighbors would keep Patches once they found out what happened, but Noelle had loved that cat and I didn’t want