Baby Please Don't Go: A Novel

by Frank Freudberg

  “Well, that’s just fascinating,” Lock said. “Terrific news. You want me to believe that baby is mine? I believe nothing you say.”

  “Yes, the baby’s ours—it’s all there in what I’ve written,” she said, pointing to the envelope lying in Lock’s lap. “Witt and I have mostly agreed on the terms of a no-fault divorce. No money for me, of course, after what I did, but I’m free and I get to see the girls. Not the worst deal in the world. And I’m evolved. I’m making it on my own—barely, but on my own. I see Dahlia and Edwina every other weekend. It’s the best part of my life. And it’s going to get better. Witt doesn’t want primary custody anymore. His loss is my gain. Starting next month, I’ll have primary custody. Witt’s agreed. Too much for him, I guess. Anyway, he’s volunteered to contribute more than his share to the girls. He’s about to close a deal on a great three-bedroom condo for us in Stoney Springs. He’ll own it, but we’ll live in it rent-free. It’s all in writing. He doesn’t want me to get a cent, of course, but he knows if I’m impoverished, the girls will be too. Witt’s turned out to be a half-decent father, after all. Still pretty much a prick, but a decent father.”

  “And what’s all this have to do with me?” Lock said.

  Natalie looked around as if she worried people were watching. She looked at Abby.

  “Don’t turn away,” she said to Lock. “I know what kind of person you are. I corrupted a decent man. Don’t laugh when I tell you I’m sorry and I’ve changed. And I now realize what we could have together. I pray it’s not too late.”

  Lock felt a smirk begin to form, but managed to resist it. He picked up the envelope from his lap and started to hand it back, but instead stopped and opened the clasp. There were hundreds of pages and dozens of smaller envelopes. At a quick glance, everything appeared to be handwritten.

  “So you feel guilty,” Lock said. “Big deal. You are guilty.” Just like me, he thought.

  Abby just watched, and Lock couldn’t figure out why he didn’t just drive away.

  “That, too, but much more,” Natalie said. “Everyone deserves a second second chance.”

  “Goodbye, Natalie,” Lock said. He turned to Abby. “Please get me out of here.”

  Abby gave Natalie a look and shrugged. “Sorry, dear,” he said. “We knew it’d be a long shot.” He started the car and put it into gear. He was hemmed in between the curb and Natalie’s car.

  Lock said, “You knew about this? Jesus, Abby!”

  Through the open car window, Natalie said, “Please, Lock, don’t drive away. Don’t leave me.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I know what I did,” she said. “The past can’t change, but I can. I did.”

  Abby turned and studied Natalie. She gripped the door handle as if to hold the car from leaving.

  He put the car in park.

  “Thanks anyway,” Lock said. He looked at Abby. “Go.”

  “Don’t listen to him, Mr. Schlamm.”

  “One thing I do want to ask you, Natalie.” Lock pointed to her belly. “Whose is that? Witt’s? Freel’s? Some other sucker’s?”

  Natalie looked at him. Her lips moved a bit, but no words came out.

  “Come on. Let’s go. Drive,” said Lock, thrusting his jaw toward Abby.

  “I told you, it’s ours, Lock,” Natalie said. She grabbed his forearm. “A boy. I didn’t want to know the sex, but they told me in prison anyway.”

  “Mine?”

  “Yes. I’m sure. I’m positive. I know it. It has to be.”

  “Oh, yeah. You’re sure.”

  Lock got out of the car, eyes transfixed on Natalie’s belly. Then, for the first time that day, he really looked at her. Her face was fuller, and she looked five years older than when he had seen her last. He didn’t want to admit it, but she still looked good. She looked her age. He moved closer to her, continuing to be transfixed by the bulge in her waitress attire.

  “You’re sure,” he said. “And I’m sure too—that you’re a liar. Remember, Natalie, words are just warm sounds that come out of your pretty little mouth.”

  The sky was darker now, and Natalie cried some more. “We can make it. We can make it if we both want it, I know it,” she said. Tears rolled down her face and dripped onto the front of her uniform.

  “Maybe I am a liar, by nature,” she said, “but I don’t lie anymore. We can all learn to resist our natural inclinations.” She took his hand and pressed it against her belly. He didn’t pull away. “I wasn’t with anyone but you around the time I got pregnant. I’ll pay for the test if that will convince you. You said you wanted a child, well, now you have one. Not that I planned it. You say you dreamed all your life about having a family. Even if you reject me, you can’t reject him. It’s up to you to decide how much of his life you want to be in. But he’s yours, alright, and I’m due soon.”

  Lock stared, his hand lingering on her belly. He looked at her nametag. “I thought you hated it when people called you ‘Nat.’”

  “I do,” she said, straightening out the tag. “But that’s what they gave me. I accepted it and didn’t say a word. The old me wouldn’t sit still for that. But I do tell the regulars to call me Natalie.”

  Lock looked her in the face, then leaned down and pressed his ear against her belly. He listened for a long moment. He thought he could hear the heartbeat, and then, something poked him in the cheek. He stood straight up, with just a hint of a smile.

  “Abby,” he said, looking through the car window toward the old man. “I think I felt him kick.”

  Abby grinned.

  “He’s a little soccer player, alright,” Natalie said. “Keeps me awake half the night. I play music for him and I swear it calms him down right away.”

  “What does he like?” said Lock.

  “Definitely not hip-hop or show tunes,” she said. “Mostly Bob Dylan. Sometimes B. B. King.”

  That caught Lock’s attention. They were two of his favorite musicians. He couldn’t recall ever telling her that. They hadn’t listened to much music together.

  “Don’t tell me to go to hell, Lock,” she said. “Meet me for coffee. Let’s talk. Hear what I have to say.”

  “What are you going to say that you haven’t just said?” Lock asked. “No thanks, Natalie. Let it rest in peace. And I doubt the baby’s mine.”

  “He is yours. It’s biologically impossible that he’s anyone else’s. And a simple test will prove it.”

  Abby cleared his throat. “Go ahead, son, meet her. Go see what she has to say. You do need to know if he’s yours to have a conversation.”

  “Abby, please, keep out of this.”

  “You might be interested to hear,” Abby said, “that after Natalie got out of prison, she called me. We’ve grown to know each other in the last couple of months. You know I’m a pretty good judge of character. I think she’s learned her lesson. And she’s not a bad cook.”

  Lock was stunned. She was an even better liar than he thought, or age was catching up to Abby. No way has she changed. Not possible.

  “Please, Lock,” Natalie said. “We loved each other.”

  “You loved me? I loved you. You loved what I could do for you.”

  “Don’t you owe it to that family you’ve always wanted?” she asked.

  Lock stared off in thought. Was she making sense, or was she conning him? Again. He didn’t know. In the end, he agreed to meet just to get away from her. He didn’t know how she had fooled Abby, but he knew he couldn’t stand in the street for another minute.

  When Abby drove away, Natalie waved, but Lock just looked straight ahead at the road before him.

  Lock let forty miles pass before he spoke. “There was this tree outside the fence, a white ash. The guards cut the lower branches off so no one could use them to escape, you know? But the high ones hung over the yard, the part of the yard I used to exercise in, and I could see the
tree from my cell, too. That was good. I’d look out every morning and every day, and that ash would be there, and I knew soon enough I’d be outside the fence too.”

  Lock reached into his shirt pocket and carefully pulled out a brittle red-and-green leaf. “The leaves used to fall into the yard. You can use them to stop mosquito bites from itching, so that was a good thing. Lots of mosquitoes this year, or that’s what it seemed like.”

  He held the leaf up so Abby could get a look at it. “This is the last one I kept. I had it pressed in a box jammed full of letters I had received, but it still got a little beat up. It was perfect, though, perfect shape, and how the colors are all there—green shading to orange and then red. Just, you know, a perfect example of something nature gives us. That’s what I like about it.”

  Abby took a good look at the leaf and nodded.

  “I don’t know why I told you that,” Lock said. He took a deep breath. “Now what am I supposed to do?”

  “That’s an easy one, boy. Go meet her. Tomorrow, noon, Main Street café, like you agreed.”

  Lock carefully put the leaf back in his pocket. Darkness fell and no one spoke for a while. Lock drank in his new freedom.

  “There are very few right angles out here, out in the world,” he said.

  “What are you talking about?” said Abner.

  “Compared to inside the walls, I mean,” said Lock. “Everything in prison is constructed of right angles. The cell, the bars on the cell. You walk down a short hallway, and you have to turn right or left. There’s nothing circular, and nothing that goes straight for very long. All these right angles you’re forced to adapt to. It makes your mind think in right angles. Everything is right or left, yes or no, up or down, on or off. I couldn’t think abstractly in prison.”

  “Not quite following you, son,” said Abby. “But whatever you went through, it’s behind you. Unless you drag it around in your head. It’s up to you.”

  Abby drove only a bit faster than the posted speed limit, but as he made his way down the road, his car drifted slightly out of its lane.

  “Maybe you’re getting a little tired, Abby,” Lock said. “I’m itching to drive. Pull over, would you?”

  “I’m fine,” said Abner.

  “Well, if you start to feel weary, let me know. I haven’t driven in almost half a year.”

  The image of Lock’s cell flashed in his head. The cot, the sink, a few prison-approved toiletries on a stainless steel shelf, and a small stack of books and magazines. And besides the world’s thinnest pillow, not much else. Then he looked around the car and into the backseat. The cabin of the vehicle was smaller than his cell, but to Lock, it offered much more freedom.

  Abby cleared his throat as if he were about to say something, but he remained silent.

  “I can’t even begin to imagine what you see in her,” Lock said. “You’ve read all the police and D.A.’s reports, the psychiatric evaluation, and you know what she did to me. She must have hypnotized you or something. Or she’s gotten you to fall in love with her.”

  Abby glanced over at Lock, who was staring straight ahead at the road. “I’m too old for romantic love, and I know it. She hasn’t fooled me. I feel for her. She’s just a mixed-up human being.”

  “You could say that about most everyone in prison.”

  “I could say that about almost everyone walking down the street, too, and I’d be right,” said Abby. “She’s got her own story, like all the rest of us do, Lock. She’s no better or worse than anyone else. As I always say, we are our choices, and hers were inexcusable. But I made worse when I was younger. And yours weren’t anything to crow about, either.”

  “I know all that. But what I don’t understand is how you could—”

  “Befriend her?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s another easy one, son. As you know, in AA we say the only requirement for membership is the desire to stop drinking. So when Natalie called me, I expanded that philosophy a bit and decided that the only requirement for me to help her would be her desire to grow into being a better person. And I absolutely believe that’s what she wants.”

  “I don’t know, Abby. She’s a genius at manipulation.”

  “We drunks all have our doctorates in manipulation. She’s not unique in that.”

  “Well,” said Lock. “Just be careful. You know the scorpion and the frog story?”

  Abby shrugged. “Enlighten me.”

  “Okay,” said Lock. “One summer afternoon, a scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream. The scorpion asks the frog to carry him across to the other side. The frog says, ‘How do I know you won’t sting me?’ The scorpion says, ‘Because if I do, I’ll die too.’ That makes sense to the frog, so he agrees. Midstream, however, the scorpion stings the frog in the neck. So the frog asks the scorpion, ‘Why? Why would you do that? Now we’re both going to drown.’ The scorpion shrugs and says, ‘Because, my friend, that is my nature.’”

  Abby said nothing for a beat, then spoke up. “Natalie has a heart and a higher power, son, and you can’t necessarily say the same for a scorpion.”

  Now it was Lock’s turn to be silent. I hope you’re right, Abby, he thought. But probably you’re just like the frog and you can’t see it.

  Abby pulled into the driveway at Lock’s carriage house. Lock had used his savings to keep the place while he was away. Lock leaned over and gave him a hug of gratitude. Lock picked up Natalie’s envelope filled with letters and got out to get his box from the back.

  “See you in the morning at the six thirty meeting,” Lock said, leaning in through the open door.

  “How’s that make you feel?” Abby said.

  “How’s what make me feel?”

  “Tomorrow will be the first time you’re at the Hang-About since the last time.”

  “Since the morning I overdosed?”

  “Yes. Since then.”

  “It will feel fine, like being home again. I’m looking forward to it. I’ve been looking forward to it for almost six months.”

  “Okay, then. Don’t oversleep. I’ve been coming here every couple of weeks as agreed to start your car for you, so don’t use a dead battery as an excuse not to show up.”

  “I know. I appreciate it. And when was the last time I ever tried to duck a meeting?”

  Abby nodded. “Okay, you’re right. You’ll be there, bright and early.”

  “I guess the coffee is still terrible,” said Lock.

  “Then come with a Starbucks in hand if you’ve developed a gourmet attitude, now that you’re used to all that excellent prison coffee.”

  “Good night, Abby. Thanks for picking me up. Literally and figuratively.”

  Lock stood in the driveway and watched the red lights of Abby’s car pull away. He looked up at the stars, took a deep breath of the chilly air, and climbed the stairs to his apartment.

  Inside, Lock’s first instinct was to light a fire in the wood-burning stove and burn Natalie’s envelope. He put his box of things down and then had a bad feeling. He had been holding the box tight against his chest while he fiddled with the lock, and when he reached for the leaf, he found it broken into a dozen pieces.

  He took the biggest pieces and reassembled them on the coffee table. He looked at the puzzle he had made for a minute. Then he looked at the envelope Natalie had left him.

  What if the baby really is mine? What if I’m tied to Natalie for the next twenty years? Shouldn’t I at least read what she wrote? Shouldn’t I give her a chance to explain herself?

  Lock placed the envelope on his kitchen table, went into his bedroom, and immediately fell asleep, fully dressed, on the most comfortable bed he’d ever felt.

  30

  As Lock drove to the café to meet Natalie, he couldn’t keep his mind off of one thing—her bulging belly.

  Whose baby w
as she carrying? If he knew beyond a doubt that the boy was his, well, that would change everything. He’d put up with anyone to have a son—or a daughter. Pink or blue, it wouldn’t matter in the slightest.

  Lock had imagined he would intentionally arrive a half hour late to his meeting with Natalie, just to show her he wasn’t over-anxious to see her, but on second thought he decided that would be childish.

  He was at least pleased to realize he’d continued to think of it as a meeting rather than a date. He’d stay in control of his feelings if he saw it that way. Part of him wanted her back, and another part thought she was shallow, gorgeous, psychotic, ruthless, and driven to get anything denied her, all at once. That was what this might be about. Maybe she wanted him now because she thought she couldn’t have him.

  He had dreamed of prison the night before, of his cell and the yard and then the tree beyond the fence. Natalie’s snake tattoo had been in the dream, too, and the snake was wound around the base of the tree. He didn’t remember any more, but he had been wondering all morning if she still had the tattoo. It had been henna, not permanent, and she had told him it needed to be reapplied every three or four weeks. If she’d changed as much as she claimed, he guessed that the tattoo was long gone. It had been a symbol of her darker side. It’s her nature, he thought.

  When Lock drove up to the café, he wasn’t surprised to see a very pregnant Natalie already there, waiting out front. She was dressed as usual—an ankle-length sweater most likely covering shorts and a colorful t-shirt that he figured would accommodate her bulging belly. Her toes didn’t disappoint, either. They were bejeweled and sparkling.

  “I have to admit, I thought I might get stood up,” she said, walking toward him.