Chapter One

We never talked about the ledgers to anyone but ourselves. Not that we were ashamed-these were just names after all, but on account of the babies who didn't come through-and the pain that such knowledge brought. Most babies like that didn't even have names given them, and when Mama thought me old enough to know, she showed me the lists of Baby Girl Teller, or Baby Boy Switzer, if the woman was far enough along to tell. No matter what, we recorded the names and anything else we could recall about the birthing itself.

"Write it down," Mama told me. "Everything." She was the first to do this, marking little things about the birth that weren't so important in and of themselves, but might be later, when you needed to see the history of the family. Granny Whitely and Granny Denniker had kept most everything in their heads-all but the names and dates. "A written record is more reliable," Mama taught me. And she was right. Kettle Valley is full of Teller, Meroe, and Switzer families, and writing things down kept names and families straight. For a midwife, confusing a family history was one of the worst things you could do, as confusion might make a bad situation worse if you needed to choose the right tonic, or kno