Baby Please Don't Go: A Novel

by Frank Freudberg

  Another reason being invited out by his father was so important was because, while growing up and living at home, Lock never saw much of him. He was a pretty busy guy. His father wasn’t one of those work-obsessed absentee fathers. It was more like he was always at this bar or that bar, this poker game or that darts tournament. He was around, all right. It wasn’t like he traveled for business, or as if Lock’s parents were separated. It was more that he was a drunken son-of-a-bitch, fully self-absorbed and not really giving a damn about anything other than where he could find the next job to replace the most recent one he’d been fired from, usually for showing up drunk or hungover.

  On the day of the game, Lock’s father was too drunk to go. Lock didn’t know why, but he had been buoyed by the certainty that this time he would, for once, actually get to do something fun with his father. Instead, his father fell asleep at noon in a stupor. Lock teared up as he tried to rouse him. He’d been thinking about the game all week long. Lock tried in vain to reach into his father’s trouser pockets in search of the tickets. His father woke just enough to slap him across the face and then pass out again.

  Lock’s mother was at work. She had been sick for years with kidney problems, and being unhappily married didn’t help her regain her health. But she worked anyway. She waitressed at a Greek diner a few blocks from the house, but Lock wouldn’t have told her about the slapping incident anyway, even if she were home. At fourteen, he had the sense to protect her from his father. Lock’s father caused her more pain than he caused Lock by hitting him all the time. But what hurt the most was the way he ignored his son. So instead of a ball game with his dad, he sat in his room and watched reruns of Star Trek.

  The next morning, on the way to school, Lock dropped the glove into a trashcan behind Greene’s drugstore.

  Fuck Dad, he thought.

  Lock sat at his desk, fiddling with some papers. He pushed the memory away and tried to ignore the queasy feeling in his stomach. He knew he should go to the game with Abby, but he thought he wouldn’t. It wasn’t fair to Abby, who had been more of a father than his real dad ever had, but as everyone in the office knew too well, things that happened to kids echoed forward through the rest of their lives.

  Enough, he thought. He dialed the phone number of the Kennett Square police and arranged to meet them in thirty minutes at the U–Rent–a–Space to look for the kids allegedly living there. When he hung up, he noticed a waiting voicemail. From the caller I.D., he recognized Natalie Mannheim’s phone number.

  He listened to the message. She wanted him to return that night, a day earlier than scheduled. She must have canceled her yoga lesson. At first, he didn’t plan on going, but then he got to thinking about her eyes and the way she had watched him. He decided he would call her after he returned from Kennett Square. He hurriedly left the office.

  When he arrived at the storage facility, the police were there. Together with the manager, they found four children, all seemingly in good shape but frightened by the authorities. The group stood outside a shed filled with sleeping bags and a mattress. The manager speculated irritably that the parents were illegal immigrants, and they were nowhere to be found. The children spoke no English, or pretended they didn’t. They shrugged without speaking when one of the police officers questioned them.

  Lock addressed the tallest of the children, a girl wearing a red shirt and black pants.

  “Dónde está tu madre o padre?” He squatted and spoke slowly and softly.

  “En el trabajo,” she said.

  “Dónde trabajan?” Lock asked.

  “Ellos trabajan en una granja de hongos,” she said. “No te preocupes, ellos vendrán aquí con la comida después.”

  Lock stood and turned to the police. “Their parents are working at a mushroom farm somewhere, probably Kennett Square. She says they’ll be back later with food.”

  “Let’s go lock up their parents,” one of the officers said. Two of the smaller children cringed and looked at each other. Obviously those two, at least, spoke enough English to understand.

  “We’re not arresting anyone,” Lock said loudly and clearly, for the benefit of the children. “We just want to make sure these boys and girls are okay.”

  The police officer said nothing. Lock turned to the children and knelt on the asphalt. “Who likes McDonald’s?”

  The oldest girl said something to her siblings and their eyes widened.

  “We love McDonald’s,” she said. She barely had an accent. “And my baby brother, Miguel, likes the chalupas at Taco Bell, too.” She pointed to a smiling, dirty-faced boy who looked about three.

  “Well, that’s good, because I know a McDonald’s very close to here. All we have to do is wait for my friend who has a bigger car so we can all ride together. McDonald’s will be the first place we go.”

  The girl translated and the kids lit up, hugging each other and hopping up and down.

  After a brief stop at a McDonald’s drive-thru, it took Lock most of the morning to get the children checked out at the hospital and processed into the child welfare system. Lock knew, of course, that the children would prefer to be with their real parents—regardless of the sleeping conditions—rather than be placed in temporary foster care with outsiders who would give them strange foods and unfamiliar accommodations. It bothered Lock that he was the one officiating over the separation, no matter how brief or how necessary.

  He kept thinking about a gin and tonic. But why? This situation was nothing compared to some of the things he’d seen in his profession. If he had children, he knew, he’d dedicate his entire being to them, find a way to provide everything they needed. But these four? What was really better for them? He knew what it felt like to be neglected, but there were different kinds of neglect. As far as he could tell, these kids had parents that loved them, even if they weren’t able to take care of them as well as they should have.

  Just before noon, after a brief conversation with the temporary foster parents who would care for the kids until the matter was resolved, Lock decided to skip lunch and catch an AA meeting. Something was gnawing at him that he couldn’t identify, but he knew through experience that a meeting could be a great cure-all. Meetings reminded him to seek progress, not perfection. Lock drove to the church in Media that hosted the lunchtime meetings and took a seat in the back row.

  That day’s speaker, a young man wearing a flannel shirt and several days of facial stubble, told how he had come to be a member of the group, explaining that after three failed suicide attempts, he decided to take a different approach to solve his drinking and drug problems. He described how two attempts to hang himself didn’t work out—once, the neckties he’d fashioned into a noose broke, and the other time, he didn’t make the rope short enough. On his third attempt to end his life, he thought he’d try a gunshot to the head.

  “I actually missed, if you can believe that,” he said. “All I did was mess up the side of my face a little.” He angled his head so the audience could see a deep, angry scar at his temple and a horrifically mangled ear. “Next stop,” he said, grinning, “was AA.”

  Lock made a mental note not to try that—not that he’d never considered ending his life. A decade or so before, after a break-up with a woman he had dated for almost a year, he did more than casually think about it. He spent hours on the Internet, visiting the Hemlock Society website to read up on the most painless and effective suicide methods. From that website, his research took him all over the Internet and into bookstores. He found a paperback, Final Departure, in which he read about common, non-violent ways people used to kill themselves.

  One approach in particular had appealed to him. He studied the details of assembling a “helium hood” and made note of the supplies he’d need. Certain and fast, just like falling asleep. Before proceeding with his shopping list, he’d toyed with the idea of a suicide note and wondered if he really needed one, and if so, who,
besides the police and the medical examiner, would ever see it. To whom would it be addressed? He had no one close to him.

  He’d worked on a goodbye letter and jotted down some bullet points first—addiction, alcoholism, depression, loneliness, the unlikelihood of ever being attractive to someone decent enough to have a family with—and then wrote and re-wrote and wrote some more. He couldn’t get it to say what he wanted it to say, to where it felt right. He thought it sounded like he was whining, and that was not the impression he wanted to leave.

  Lock had then realized a fundamental truth—he didn’t want to die. He simply didn’t want to be so unhappy. He told himself he was long past due getting clean and sober, and now was the time. The right moment had finally arrived. Upon this realization, he poured his remaining supply of alcohol and cocaine into his garbage disposal and flipped the switch. In an instant, it was gone. He grinned and snapped his fingers. Goodbye, suicide.

  He’d gone to his first AA meeting with a neighbor. It had no impact on him, and worse, he hated it. One of the first things he heard was an elderly woman joking that someone, someday, would declare that unceasing attendance at AA meetings was itself an addiction.

  Lock believed she might be right, so what was the point? He thought the seats were uncomfortable, the coffee not hot enough. Nothing stuck. And he didn’t like all the talk about God, which he thought was funny, because he did have confidence that there was some kind of master consciousness at the heart of the universe. He just didn’t call it God.

  Three days later, he was on his cellphone with his coke supplier as he drove to a bar in Philadelphia. He knew where it would inevitably end. But before things came crashing down around him, he would feel very little pain. Hello, oblivion.

  But that was then, and although the cravings for cocaine and alcohol continued, sometimes intensely, they were less and less powerful over time. The urges weakened with each passing day. Now he had the tools acquired from AA, and he used them. He had met people he respected who were there to support him. His sponsor told him the key to success was simple—don’t drink, don’t think, and come to meetings. That made sense.

  There had been relapses, but he had stuck with the program. Things couldn’t be more different now, and they were radically better—a year of continuous sobriety and a profession he loved. The job was fulfilling, and he helped the helpless every day. He’d never felt better, and he’d been told by an admirer at work he had never looked better, either.

  5

  Around three o’clock, Lock drove out to see what Natalie wanted. Bullshit, he told himself. You’re driving out to see Natalie. He hadn’t returned her voicemail. He wanted to surprise her again.

  This time, she wore cut-off jeans and a sea-green t-shirt. It went perfectly with her eyes.

  She smiled and swung the door open wider. “Welcome back, Mr. Gilkenney.”

  “You can call me Lock, if you want.”

  “Okay, Lock. But probably not in front of my husband.” She smiled. “Come on in.”

  He looked at her as she led him in. She had beautiful legs, and she wore sandals, her toe rings sparkling as she walked.

  He walked in and sat at the kitchen table. He opened his clipboard, slid out a folder, and removed a notebook.

  She pointed toward the sliding glass door that led to the solarium. “Why don’t we talk out there?” she said. “Candice is at the mall with the kids. She won’t be back until after dinner, and Witt’s in New Jersey until late. And I can’t stand being near all these dirty dishes.” She flipped her hand at the sink, which was full.

  “Sure,” Lock said. “I’d like to see your flowers.”

  He followed her, and when she turned into the solarium, Lock caught a glimpse of what he at first thought was a birthmark on her leg, but it proved to be the tattooed tail of a reddish snake slithering up her leg in the direction of her inner thigh. He made sure to raise his eyes before she looked back at him, but he knew she wouldn’t mind if she caught him looking. There was something between them, that much was clear, and Lock knew she had decided—as he had—to find out what it might be.

  The solarium was well-equipped. There was a hot tub, a few yards of sand that sloped down to a small built-in pond, a water cooler with an inverted plastic jug sitting on it, a laptop on a stand, and an enormous TV. His eyes wandered around the room, but kept settling on her.

  Natalie gestured for Lock to take a seat. He picked the loveseat. A paperback book lay on it, face down.

  “What are you reading?” Lock asked.

  She picked the book up and moved it to an end table. He sat down, setting his clipboard next to him.

  “It’s The Road Less Traveled,” she said. She sat upright on a lounge chair directly across from him and tucked her legs under her in some kind of yoga position. “I’m only halfway through, but it’s speaking to me. I love it.”

  “Life is difficult,” Lock said, quoting the first line of the book.

  “I’m impressed.”

  “I always liked that idea,” he said. “If you wake up each morning expecting life to be demanding, then suddenly it’s not so hard.”

  “Exactly,” she said. “And the hard part is being able to remember that when things go wrong.”

  Lock retrieved a pen from his pocket. “That is the hard part,” he said.

  Natalie draped one of her legs over the other, showing more of the snake tattoo. “I want you to hear something before you meet my husband tomorrow night.”

  “Okay,” he said, “but anything you tell me goes into my notes, and it’s all discoverable in court. I have to be totally neutral.”

  “Fine with me,” she said, adjusting her t-shirt where it had ridden up her abdomen, exposing a tiny belly-button ring. She took a deep breath and said, “Witt is a spoiled little boy whose father left him nine million dollars. He’s the kind of guy you’d think would blow it all. Anyway, we met in a bar and dated for few months. He wasn’t that bad, and he made me laugh. I grew up poor. My father was the superintendent of a run-down apartment building in Newark, and we lived in four small rooms in the basement. We didn’t even have windows. I never had the kind of security that money brings. We got married five months after we met. He started changing right away, and not for the better. He went from affectionate to cold overnight. Then he took all that money and bought worthless land in Florida. Everyone thought he was a fool. Especially me. Then the developers began to see the land as prime real estate. Thousands of acres. He sold out and quadrupled our money.”

  “Nothing wrong with money,” Lock said, “but what does this have to do with the children?”

  She fidgeted and looked away, then took a breath and turned back to Lock. “I was stupid,” she said. “I was sick of Witt and I still am. I got bored and lonely and I found someone to hang around with. A guy. Nothing serious, and it’s over. I got caught with him at the Four Seasons by some greasy little private detective Witt put on me. I was only intimate with the guy one stupid night, but Witt had something on me and that was what he wanted. And I was surprised at how hurt he was. I thought he couldn’t care less what I did. I was wrong about that, too. He’ll never forgive me.”

  Lock looked off into the middle distance, thinking about what he was hearing.

  “Am I boring you, Lock?”

  “No, I’m listening carefully, waiting for something relevant,” Lock said. There wasn’t anything else to say, really. He kept his attention on her face and waited for the tie-in to the children, though he thought he knew where she was headed.

  “Well, between his lawyers and his private eye, in a divorce I’ll probably wind up with something like a thousand a month. I could barely live this way on a thousand a day. My God, yoga lessons twice a week cost me that much. And if he gets custody, I’d just be a visitor in my own kids’ lives.”

  “What’s your lawyer say?”

 
“You mean the lawyer I don’t have because I have so little money of my own I can’t come up with a retainer fee? He even gives the grocery money directly to Candice. I guess he’s afraid if I have it, I’ll buy a pack of gum without his say-so. And he pays the yoga instructor by check each month.”

  “No lawyer? That seems a little naïve for someone like you. You’re the one telling me how much is at stake.”

  “Witt explained why it’s better to work it out between us, out of court.”

  “Better for him, maybe,” Lock said. “Keep in mind that if you agree to a custody schedule now, even out of court, you’re Krazy-Glued to it. Unless there’s a significant change in circumstance, judges aren’t wild about altering existing schedules that aren’t causing major distress for the children involved.”

  “See?” she said, her eyes lighting up as she sat upright and leaned forward. “That’s the kind of thing I didn’t know. Witt’s turned off my credit cards and let my checking account run dry. He knows what he’s doing.”

  Lock made an entry in his notebook. “Get a lawyer as soon as you can. You need one. A good custody arrangement is obviously better for your daughters.”

  Natalie shifted in her seat and rearranged her legs. His chest thumped again, and he thought of what she had told him, that she was so done with Witt that she had found a lover.