“I’ve been thinking about this interview ever since we scheduled it last week,” Witt said, pointing a finger at Lock. “The more I think about it, the more I find this whole thing intrusive. I don’t see the problem here. I never filed that report with CPS, my lawyer didn’t, and I haven’t been negligent. So why are you wasting my time? Where’s your problem?”
“I hate to agree with Witt,” said Natalie, “but—”
“You’re agreeing with me about something? That’s a new one.”
“Oh for God’s sake, Witt,” said Natalie, settling into a seat while sliding a mug toward him.
“Please,” said Lock. “It’s important for us to keep focused on the girls and why I’m here. I don’t know who’s playing games with CPS, but it’s not funny. Whoever filed the complaint is guilty of filing a false report to authorities. I could pursue it, but I’m not interested in wasting my time. I want to be able to walk out of here feeling confident your children are all right, and as of right now, I think that’s the case.”
Witt took a quick peek at the business card Lock had placed in front of him on the table. “What do you think of the importance of fidelity in the grand institution of marriage, Mr. Gilkenney?”
“Let’s stay on point, Mr. Mannheim. This is no light matter.”
Ignoring Lock’s caution, Witt continued. “Of course, I’ve flirted…harmlessly. Who doesn’t?”
“Everyone’s falling asleep, Witt,” Natalie said.
“Ask her about her yoga teacher,” he said. “He’s taught her how to bend her body into all kinds of accommodating positions.”
“That’s a vile lie, Witt.”
“I can guarantee you, knowing your wife is out somewhere with someone else hurts a lot.” Witt made a fist and tapped his chest three times. “Especially if you loved her as much as I loved Natalie.”
“I’m here to follow up on a complaint of neglect of your children, Mr. Mannheim,” Lock said. “That’s all. Let’s confine the commentary to that. No editorializing. It’s not helpful.”
“Don’t you want to see the kids?” Witt asked. “The sooner you see that they’re fine, the sooner we can get this over with.” He stood up, as if to end the interview.
Lock had seen all sorts of misbehavior during interviews like this. There was no way Witt was going to make him angry, not in his professional capacity, at least. But a part of him was fuming at the way Witt treated Natalie. What do I think of infidelity? he thought. I think it’s amazing she stuck with you for this long.
Witt stood over them, removed his glasses, and rubbed his eyes.
“I still have a few questions,” said Lock, looking up. Play your power games, buddy. I’m not leaving until we’re done here.
“And I still have a few lawyers,” said Witt. “You can see for yourself that there’s nothing going on here that’s of any interest to your agency whatsoever. Admit it.”
“That’s what I’m trying to ascertain. And you’re right, what I need to do now is to see the kids—in the presence of you and Mrs. Mannheim.”
Witt exhaled slowly, then sat back down. He scowled at Lock and said nothing.
“I need to see them now, with both of their parents,” Lock said.
Witt shouted, “Candice! Get the kids.”
Natalie got up to top off Witt’s coffee. She flashed him a fake smile.
“I know you don’t read much, Nat,” he said, “but there’s a book by George Orwell—Animal Farm—all about Big Brother. Government control. No right to privacy.” He nodded toward Lock, then looked back to Natalie. “Well, right here, right now, you have an example come to life. Big Brother, right here, right now, in our kitchen. An anonymous government bureaucracy injecting itself into our lives and minding our business.”
“Wrong book, Witt. All assholes are created equal, and some assholes are bigger assholes than other assholes—that’s Animal Farm. Big Brother is in 1984.”
Candice arrived with the children. Edwina walked in on her own, and Candice held Dahlia. Lock turned, looking them over slowly, carefully. He focused his attention on the four-year-old. Candice leaned up against the refrigerator, watching. Witt and Natalie watched Edwina approach Lock.
“Hello, Edwina,” Lock said, and his face widened in a warm smile. He got off the chair and, despite wearing a suit, sat cross-legged on the cool tile floor, eye-level with Edwina. “I’m Lock. You remember me. You gave me White-Mane.”
Edwina, now shy, stepped back and wrapped her arm around Candice’s leg, looking at Lock. Natalie and Witt watched the interaction.
Lock reached into his pocket and withdrew a packet of what looked like playing cards. He fanned them open and held them toward Edwina.
“Do you have a favorite color, Edwina?”
The child shook her head in reply.
“You don’t? Wow. My favorite color is green.” He removed a green card from the deck and held it up, arm outstretched. “On the front,” he said, “there’s a funny smiley face.” He showed it to her. She shifted her gaze from Lock to the card. “And on the back there’s a frowny face.” Both sides of the card were glossy and colorful, and glimmered with glued-on sparkles.
Dahlia let out a small cry and lurched forward precariously in Candice’s arms, reaching for the card. Candice jiggled the infant to quiet her. Witt observed quietly. Natalie watched Lock.
“Well, Edwina, if you don’t have a favorite color, maybe your sister does,” said Lock. “But she’s too young to tell us. Do you know which color she likes? We can show her that card.”
Edwina relaxed her grip on Candice’s leg. She glanced at her mother and then back to Lock. “My favorite color is red and blue,” she said, scanning the fanned-out cards. She took a step forward.
“Red and blue! Those are wonderful colors. And I have each one right here.” Lock selected two cards and held them toward Edwina, who reached out and took them. She stepped back to Candice, beaming and examining the cards.
“What do you say, honey?” Natalie said to Edwina.
“Thank you for the smiley faces,” she said to Lock.
“Thank you for telling me your favorite colors,” he said. “You’re lucky. You have two favorites and I only have one.”
Edwina grinned. “Dahlia’s favorite color is purple.”
“If I give you a purple one for Dahlia, will you keep it in a safe place until she gets older? We wouldn’t want her to chew on the card and eat those sparkles. They probably taste yucky.”
“Yes,” she said, holding her hand out expectantly. “Dahlia put my sneaker in her mouth. And Mommy’s phone, too.”
Lock gave her a purple card and put the rest back into his pocket.
Dahlia wriggled in Candice’s arms, wanting to be set down. Candice said, “No, Dahlia. I’m going to hold you.” The baby cried and wriggled more strenuously. Candice held tight.
“Which side of the cards do you like best, Edwina?” Lock asked.
Edwina showed the smiley faces.
“Feel better?” Witt asked Lock. “They look like we feed them? I have to get to the office. Anything else?”
Lock got up off the floor, brushed off the seat of his slacks, and returned to his chair at the kitchen table. He wrote for a moment in his notebook. He looked up at Witt.
“I’m finished with the girls, but there’s one other thing,” said Lock.
“You can take the girls to school now,” Natalie said to Candice.
Lock waved goodbye to the girls. Edwina waved back, and Candice took them out of the room.
“Okay,” Lock said. “Let’s get this drinking and driving business resolved.”
Witt gave Natalie a sharp look. “Thank you for exaggerating that, Natalie. Why don’t you go shit in your bonnet?” He turned to Lock. “I was cited once, three years ago. Kids weren’t with me. Blood alcohol zero point nine. W
hat’s that, half a beer over the limit? No accident, no reckless driving, stopped for weaving. Pleaded guilty. Never did it again.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” said Natalie. “Never did it again…”
Lock made a note. “And a DMV check will bear that out.”
“You are correct, sir. You’ll see my record is spotless.”
“Driving while impaired with your children in the car,” said Lock, “is wholly unacceptable. Mrs. Mannheim has stated it’s happened and continues to happen. I can’t close a case if I think the children are endangered.”
“Mrs. Mannheim states a lot of things. My children are not in any kind of jeopardy, at least not from me,” Witt said. “And any further discussion, since you’re accusing me of being a serial drunk driver, will take place with my attorney present. Is that clear?”
“You have your lawyer. I have the District Attorney. We’re both well represented, so it’s probably not productive for us to be antagonistic.”
“Whatever you say,” Witt said.
Lock rose. “Thanks for your time, Mr. Mannheim,” he said. “There’s nothing else I need right now. This interview is over and I’ll be on my way.”
“I thought you were bringing a female colleague to examine the girls,” Witt said.
“I determined that won’t be necessary at this time. I’ll write up my report and submit it to my supervisor. You’ll hear from our office within ten days.”
Lock shook hands with Witt, who said nothing and immediately turned and left the room. Natalie watched him walk away. Once he was out of earshot, she turned to Lock.
“That wasn’t so bad,” Natalie said, “and even though Witt was surly, he wasn’t as obnoxious as I thought he’d be.”
“I’ve seen a lot worse,” Lock said. He stood up from the table. Now that Witt had departed, they let their guard down a bit. Their eyes met. There was a new sense of familiarity between them. Though they hadn’t seen each other in over a week, to Lock it seemed much longer. Thanks to hours upon hours of phone conversations, he looked at her through new eyes, and to those eyes, she was more beautiful than he remembered.
She took a couple of steps toward him and stood there, looking at his face.
“I feel like I’ve known you forever,” she said.
“Me too.”
Her smile grew into a grin. “What happens next?” she said.
“You mean with the CPS case?”
“No.” She lowered her voice. “With us.”
Lock looked down. He swallowed hard and spoke slowly and softly. “I can’t see how this can continue. It’s just not right. It’s too bad we met because of a complaint. Too bad we didn’t have a fender-bender and exchange contact information, then this would be fine. But that’s not how it happened. And for the girls’ sake, it would be better if things between you and Witt got back on track.”
Natalie winced at that. Lock wanted to reach out and touch her shoulder; he wanted to reassure her that, one way or the other, everything would be okay. He couldn’t do it. His eyes wandered around the kitchen while he searched for the right words.
“I have two hundred and sixty-two children to protect—not including Dahlia and Edwina—and I don’t trust anyone but myself to do it as well as I do. That’s one reason why I don’t dare risk my job.”
“Don’t say that,” Natalie said. She took a step closer to Lock and reached out and took his hand in hers. She squeezed. He gently pulled it away. Her shoulders slumped.
“All that we know about each other?” she said, inhaling deeply and standing up as tall as she could. She leaned her head in a few imperceptible inches closer to him. “You think you can erase that, Lock? I don’t believe you can.”
“Well,” he said, “believe it. I know you’re amazing, Natalie, I know that in my heart. The children I care for have to come first.”
“But—”
“You shouldn’t call anymore,” he said. “This is goodbye, and I don’t say that lightly.”
Lock’s eyes burned. He wanted to hug her, hold her, kiss her cheek, but he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. Instead, he gathered his things and tried to smile.
Natalie said nothing. Lock gave her a slight nod, turned, and walked to the door leading to the driveway. He opened it.
“I really wish you wouldn’t leave,” she said.
He stepped through the door and closed it quietly behind him.
As Lock drove off, he looked over the house at the magnificent tree in the back yard. An image of Witt’s sneer came to his mind’s eye. He felt the impulse to storm back into the house and hit him. Witt was everything Natalie had described and more. He ruined things because he could, because he owned them. Like the tree, and like Natalie. Both of them would wither, unable to get what they needed to live, and now Lock would, too. He was doing the right thing, but he knew that people who said what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger just hadn’t suffered enough. A lot of the time, a deep enough hurt could cripple you. It had happened before, and now it was happening again, to him and to Natalie.
The more he thought about it, the more angry Lock became. He drove recklessly, hating that Witt had made him an accomplice in hurting Natalie. When he was a kid, sometimes Lock had experienced a rage he couldn’t control, but this wasn’t one of those times. He was older now, wiser, he supposed, but at that moment he wished he hadn’t outgrown his anger. It had always frightened him after the fact, even when he was young, but in the midst of it, when the world turned red after he suffered some perceived injustice, there had been a savage joy, a feeling of pure abandon.
Jimmy Rogers had been a neighbor and schoolmate, and he’d stood a head taller than Lock. They were friends the way kids that lived on the same block usually were, but Jimmy wasn’t above making Lock the butt of his jokes when he had an audience. One afternoon when they were twelve, Lock was on the street, walking past the Rogers’ residence, when a second-floor window opened and Jimmy’s father leaned out and shouted to him to come in. Lock entered the Rogers’ house and went upstairs. He’d been there a million times. Jimmy and his father were in Jimmy’s room. Jimmy was trying on a new suit he’d just received for his birthday.
“Watch this,” Jimmy’s father said, and proceeded to put the jacket, tags dangling from the sleeve, on his son.
“Reach into your pocket now, Jimmy,” he said.
“Which pocket?” Jimmy asked.
“Any one will do,” his father said.
Jimmy put his hand in one of the jacket pockets and withdrew a crisp one hundred-dollar bill. He beamed and his father laughed. Lock was less excited.
“Now, try another pocket.” his father said.
Jimmy reached into the jacket’s lapel pocket and came out with another one hundred-dollar bill. Lock watched. The two laughed again, repeating this at each pocket in the suit until Jimmy had six or seven hundred dollars in his grip. Jimmy’s father laughed even louder, took the cash out of his son’s hand, and threw it up in the air, creating a shower of fluttering bills. Lock walked out, bounding down the stairs and out onto the porch.
Lock stood there thinking about what his father had given him for his birthday a few months earlier. Nothing.
“Oh, yeah, happy birthday, son,” Lock’s father had told him after school one evening, two days late. “I’ll have to get you a little something, won’t I? What would be a good present?”
Lock knew his father was perpetually broke. “Nothing much, Dad,” he said. “How about a science fiction book? I like this writer named Fredric Brown. Something like that.”
“Will do, son, will do. Freddy Brown. Science fiction.”
After two weeks passed and his father never delivered, Lock gave up hoping for the book.
At school the next day, Jimmy approached Lock on the playground. Jimmy had the cash on him and fanned it out before Lock’s face, grinning. A c
ouple of other kids stood there watching.
“What did Mr. Drunkie get you for your birthday?” Jimmy asked, now sneering at Lock. “A box of puke?”
Everyone laughed except Lock. He reached out and punched Jimmy in the gut, and he went right down. Lock wasn’t particularly strong, but his aim was good and he had knocked the wind out of Jimmy. The other kids formed a circle and started shouting “Fight! Fight! Fight!”
Lock wasn’t finished. He jumped on Jimmy, grabbed him by the hair, and bashed his head several times into the asphalt until two teachers ran over and wrestled him away.
Lock had to go to juvenile court, but nothing ever came of the charges. It had been the first time he’d ever gotten in trouble, though not the first time he had uncapped the rage inside him, and the judge and social worker didn’t make too big of a deal out of the fight. But Lock’s father did—with a strap, every evening, for days. Every time the belt came out, Lock would look out the window at the lonely birch across the street, trying to put his mind into its wood, strong and alone and impervious to what the world served it. After that week, the tree was a kind of friend, and Lock would sometimes reach out and trail his hand over the papery bark on his way to school.
Lock hadn’t seen Jimmy Rogers in more than twenty years, but he thought Jimmy had probably turned out just like Witt Mannheim.
9
As Lock made his way through the tail end of morning rush hour and got closer to his office, the images of Witt Mannheim and Jimmy Rogers faded, and thoughts of Natalie intensified. He could think of nothing but her standing alone in her kitchen as he walked out. A knot tightened in his stomach, and he felt nauseous.
He tried to push her out of his mind, but she just stood there, looking at him through hard, sad eyes. Then he began to picture himself sitting in a dimly lit bar with a bottle of cold beer sitting in front of him. After almost a full year in AA, he was able to realize he wasn’t really clamoring for a drink so much as he was running from something—in this case, Natalie. The drink was merely the closest hiding place. He wouldn’t give in and drink, he knew that, but he was disappointed that his goodbye moment with Natalie made him want one.
Baby Please Don't Go: A Novel Page 7
