Baby Please Don't Go: A Novel

by Frank Freudberg

  Natalie fidgeted with the strap of her handbag.

  “I told you, you’re asking too many questions for your own good. You’ll get all the answers you need in due course. All you need to know now is that you have to move out. You need to be out of here in…I’m giving you…two weeks, and that’s generous. Jerome said twenty-four hours, but I want to be fair. You’ll need to find a place.”

  “You’re giving me two weeks? This is a joke. A sick one.”

  “It’s my name on the lease, not yours,” she said, “just the way Witt arranged it.”

  “You’re frightening me, Natalie.” Lock’s breathing was deep and labored.

  “No, Lock. There’s nothing to be afraid of. You will be okay, I will be okay, and Augie will be fine. You gave him a great start in life, but now we’re all going our separate ways.”

  “No, we’re not,” Lock said, shaking his head and pointing his finger at her. “We’re both going to stay put and figure out what’s wrong and fix it. That’s all there is to it.”

  “No,” Natalie said, “that’s not all there is to it. There’s more, and I’m warning you, stop pushing me. I have this all figured out. You’re still young and handsome and you’ll find someone else and have a family of your own in no time.”

  “I have a family of my own now, and I’m going to keep it, no matter how crazy you’re acting. And even if you do hateful things to me, I don’t care. I have a family and I’ll never, ever give up on it. You can fight me and hurt me all you want. It doesn’t matter.”

  “You insist on hanging on to your fantasy about us living happily ever after?”

  “I love Augie, and the girls, and I love what we have together. I’m a father and I’m going to fight for my family.”

  “You’re in denial,” she said. “You must have known down deep this wasn’t working. It’s over.”

  “No it’s not, Natalie. Remember what you told me—that you’re a changed woman. That prison changed you for the better. You’ve had counseling, and you go to your group therapy and the AA women’s meetings and—”

  “All lies, Lock. I haven’t been to a meeting in months, except a few with you. I’ve been with Jerome.”

  Lock pounded a fist once, hard, on the living room wall. “I don’t care about your stories,” he said, “I have a family and I’m going to fight for it.”

  “Your family is all in your head, Lock. I don’t love you anymore. Are you listening to me? And something else. Augie is not your son.”

  Those last words didn’t register. “What did you mean when you said I’ll find out in due time?” he asked. “Find out what?”

  “I told you to stop interrogating me,” she said. “You’ll find out in court.”

  “Court?” Lock, deliberately and softly, pressed his fist against the wall, trying to calm himself. “We don’t need court. There’s no reason for animosity. Have it your way, then. If you don’t love me, I’ll let you go. We’ll share Augie equally. He needs his mother and his father.”

  “Exactly,” she said, snarling. “He needs his mother and his father, not some weak, recovering alcoholic.”

  Lock stood up and paced in and out of the dining room. I’m an alcoholic, he thought, but I’m not weak. And I’m a good father. He took a few steps toward Augie’s room to see if he was stirring. Lock wanted to see his boy, to hold him, to breathe in his baby-smell.

  “You’re acting as crazy as you were when we were planning to set up Witt,” he said. “You’re like a different person. Maybe you need a doctor and medication.”

  “That won’t get you out of this, Lock. It’s already in motion. I’m finished with you and I’m keeping Augie with me. And you have to be gone no later than two weeks from today.”

  “I’ll never leave,” he said. “And if you want to fight, you’ll lose. You want court, you’ll get court. I’ll get the best lawyer in the world—”

  “With what, your four hundred dollar-a-week paycheck? Before taxes.”

  “I’ll get the best lawyer in the world and demolish you in court. I’ll win primary custody.” Lock paced frantically. “No…I’ll win full custody, and then I’ll be dictating your visitation rights to you. How’s that sound?”

  “Sounds pathetic to me. Especially since you don’t know the half of it.”

  He returned to the sofa and sat down heavily. “Enlighten me, Natalie. Go ahead. Make it worse.”

  “If that’s what you want,” she said, “that’s what you’ll get.” Natalie sat in a chair opposite the sofa where Lock sat, slumping. “You may as well start accepting this now.” She removed the small mirror she kept in her handbag and looked at herself, fixing her makeup. “You’ll have no visitation rights with Augie. Augie isn’t your son. He’s Jerome’s. We’ve already done the paternity test.”

  Lock stood there, expressionless. “You’re lying. Augie is ours and you know it. You’re making that up.”

  Natalie reached into her handbag and took out an envelope. She handed it to him. His hands quivered as he removed the report. He stared at it for a full minute, reading it repeatedly, then crumpled it up and dropped it to the floor. He looked down, poker-faced. She looked into her mirror again and pursed her lips.

  Natalie spoke. “I didn’t want to have to show you that test result, but you forced me to.”

  Lock tried to speak, but no words came out. He felt hollow.

  “Augie and I are moving in with Jerome,” she said, “and he wants you out of the picture. And now. All he has to do is walk into court and file a one-page custody petition and you’re gone, not to mention your death threat. And believe me, Lock, he’ll do it if you give me a hard time. He loves me and he’s very protective.”

  “Do you think he’ll really love Augie?” Lock tried to make this into a bad dream. He begged God to make what was happening a nightmare and to wake him up from it.

  “It’s going to happen. Accept it. Get yourself to a lot of meetings. You don’t want to start drinking over this.”

  Natalie returned the mirror to the purse and looked up at Lock. She stood up.

  “Jerome told me this would happen,” she said. “But I told him you’ve grown up and would understand. Another case of me being wrong.”

  “If you don’t love me anymore, okay, fine,” he said. “I can almost understand that. If you want to be with Freel, fine. Go ahead.”

  “I will,” she said.

  “And if you move out, I’ll stay here and you’ll be free of me, but we can still raise the baby together.”

  “Get this through your head, Lock. You can’t stay here and Augie is not your son. If you love him like you say you do, you’ll let him go. I know you love him, but don’t feel bad. He’s going to be just fine with his biological parents.”

  Natalie stood up, grabbed her purse, and stormed out of the apartment. She didn’t slam the door. She left it wide open, and inside, Lock slumped further on the sofa.

  He sat there for a long while, trying to think. He couldn’t organize his thoughts. The room grew dark.

  Lock thought then of Dominique and Hannah and how, back then, one tragedy had turned into two. He lost the woman he loved and then he lost Hannah. He vowed to himself that he wouldn’t let that happen again. Natalie’s acting insane, he thought. There’s something wrong with her. He believed they could have a rich life together. It’s her nature, the cynical part of him said. But I don’t have to be the frog.

  41

  Later that day, in the interior of a darkened motel room, Freel awoke and felt for his clothes and got dressed as best he could without being able to see what he was putting on.

  “I have to go,” he said. “Have to be in court in an hour and I have to stop back at the office first.”

  “I’ll miss you,” she said.

  “And I can’t find one of my shoes,” he said. “I think I kicked it
under the bed. Sorry, but I have to turn the light on.”

  “Do I have to go back to work too?” she asked through the pillow, under which she had buried her head. “Wasn’t I a good girl?”

  Freel walked over to her side of the bed and cupped one of her breasts.

  “Yes, you were a very good girl,” he said. “And no, you don’t have to go back to work. You can take the rest of the afternoon off. I’ll leave you a couple hundred bucks on the dresser. Take a ride up to King of Prussia and get yourself something at Victoria’s Secret. How’s that sound?”

  “Wow, thanks for nothing, Jerome. Leaving money on the dresser like that makes me feel cheap. Isn’t that how you pay a hooker?”

  Freel laughed.

  “You’re no whore, Jennifer. You’re the best paralegal I’ve ever had.”

  42

  Lock arrived at home after work looking forward to seeing Augie.

  It had been a long day at the mind-numbing auto parts job and thinking about seeing his son helped time go by. Occasionally during the day, little flits of thought about the terrible things Natalie said about him not being Augie’s father came into his head—but by then enough time had passed and they were easier to dismiss. She had said those things to hurt him. Why? He didn’t know. But they weren’t true, and he wasn’t going to let them drag him down. He knew, when it served her, she didn’t hesitate to say things that weren’t true.

  Lock bounded up the stairs to find Natalie sitting in the living room—on the sofa that had become his bed at night. He’d been sleeping with a blanket and a pillow that Natalie had shoved onto the floor. When she saw him enter, she picked up the remote and clicked off the television.

  “You’ve let four days slip by since I told you that you need to move out and you haven’t lifted one finger to pack,” she said. Then she stood up. “Do I have to put it in writing and have you served with an eviction notice?”

  He walked out of the room to see if Augie was in his crib. He wasn’t. He looked in the girls’ room. They weren’t there either.

  Lock didn’t want to deal with Natalie immediately upon getting home, but he had no choice. “Where is everybody?”

  “Have you made any plans for somewhere to stay? Are you going to Abby’s?”

  “Where are the girls? Where’s Augie?”

  “The girls are with Witt in California. We’re working out a new custody agreement. Witt’s relocating to Sacramento. Some involved real estate deal there. I’ve agreed to let him have the girls. He’s already got an au pair on the job. All four of them are en route to Sacramento as we speak.”

  Lock flinched. He uttered the word no under his breath.

  “You’re giving up your girls? Natalie, you’re out of your mind. You can’t be that cold.”

  “Witt’s going to pay to fly me out there every month to see them. First class. And once the details are all worked out, he’s going to give me a generous allowance, too. I get sick to my stomach every time I think of that bastard, but I don’t mind playing him for his money. He fucked me over by canceling the settlement, and now he’s trying to be the guy who saves the day with his wallet. I’ll find a way to pay him back, believe me. Anyway, all I know is that I won’t have to work much longer.”

  “And what about Augie—where’s he?”

  “Augie’s with his father,” she said. She sat down again and turned on the television. “Jerome and I hired a full-time babysitter for Augie, someone to help me. I’ll be moving in there as soon as Jerome says it’s okay. He’s not too good with babies yet, but he’s learning. Don’t worry.”

  Lock didn’t give a damn about the words printed on the lab report she had shown him. He knew Augie looked like him and recalled how Augie lit up like Times Square when he saw him. And Augie grabbed his finger every time he got a chance. Augie is not with his father, Lock thought. Because he’s not here with me. I’m his father.

  He walked quickly back into the master bedroom—now Natalie’s room—closed the door, and sat on the bed. A drink would be perfect right now, he thought, but Lock knew what he really needed was a meeting.

  He found the schedule under a couple of books sitting on the dresser. There was a meeting in Red Cedar Woods in forty-five minutes. He thought of the times he and Natalie had taken the baby in his carrier seat into a meeting. Miraculously, Augie always slept through them.

  Lock thought of Augie, his handsome face usually on the verge of laughing, and of his baby-smell. My beautiful little boy.

  He dropped the schedule on the bed and rested his elbows on the dresser, his face in his palms. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

  In a minute, he composed himself. Natalie already thought he was weak, and he didn’t want her to see him crying—not that that would have any noticeable impact on her. He stood up and went out into the living room. She didn’t look up.

  He cleared his throat. “Come with me to a meeting. We have to leave in fifteen minutes. Can you be ready?”

  “You’re being childish, Lock,” she said. “You need to move out of here. You have to make arrangements.”

  He couldn’t hold back the tears.

  “Natalie, I love you. You and Augie are my life. Don’t do this. We have a beautiful family and a beautiful little boy. Forget about Freel and what you think he can give you. Think about what we have. It’s real. It’s very real. I’m begging you. Please don’t do this.”

  She clicked the remote and the television came back on.

  “You’re a good man, Lock,” she said, looking at the on-screen channel guide. “And you’ll find a good woman and have your own children, and sooner than you think.”

  He sat on the far end of the couch. He wanted to slide over to her and put his arm around her, but that wouldn’t do any good. He knew she’d shove him away. He looked down at the floor.

  “Where will I go?” he asked.

  “I already told you. Stay at Abby’s,” she said. “You have the key, and there’s a few more weeks left on his lease. That’ll give you time to make more permanent living arrangements.”

  Natalie stood up and turned off the television. She grabbed her handbag and car keys and started to walk out the door. As she began to pull it shut behind her, Lock called out, “Natalie. Wait.”

  “I’m late,” she said.

  “No!” he said.

  “I told you I’m late.”

  “Baby, please don’t go.”

  Natalie didn’t reply; she closed the door and was gone.

  Lock said nothing else.

  He walked into what he was now painfully aware of as her bedroom—not their bedroom—closed the door behind him, and fell onto the bed. In no time, he fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

  The next morning, Lock searched every square inch of the condo for that paternity test report, but couldn’t find it. He tore open drawers and rummaged through closet shelves like a burglar. Where would she have put it if it wasn’t where he had dropped it? He couldn’t think clearly. All he could remember was reading those stomach-churning words and crumpling the paper into a ball.

  He had to find it. It was fake, he was sure of that, but he had to have it in his hands in order to convince himself that it really was bullshit. He continued his search, ransacking the condo in the process, searching the floors, under beds, in wastebaskets, in the kitchen trashcan, everywhere. It was nowhere to be found. He checked every place, even in places he knew it couldn’t be.

  In his desperation, Lock was reduced to calling Natalie, though it was fruitless. There was disgust in her voice when she answered, and she claimed to have no idea where it was. He figured she was lying when she said he was the last person to have seen it. She said it didn’t matter where the report was because facts were facts. Then she hung up on him. Lock decided Natalie had to have picked up the crumpled sheet from where he dropped it and then taken it. That would b
e just like her.

  The lab’s name and phone number were what Lock was after. He cursed himself for not being able to recall it. He wanted to contact them and ask about the accuracy statistics of paternity tests. If he had to, he’d get a lawyer and force Natalie and Freel to do another test. They were flat-out liars and he wasn’t going to let them get away with it. Make them prove it.

  Or was he kidding himself? Why would a lab issue a false report? In his heart, Lock knew that the words printed on the report spoke the truth. But he couldn’t fully admit that to himself, and so he continued his search.

  He tried to call Natalie again. She’d probably remember the lab’s name. But she didn’t answer, and he guessed it didn’t matter anyway. What were the odds there was a mistake at the lab and that it was Lock, not Freel, who was Augie’s biological father? Slim to none. He took a deep breath. He had to be realistic. He thought of another AA slogan, but this time it gave him no solace—Know the truth and it shall set you free. He’d have to find a way to accept that the results were correct. He’d have to find a way to accept that Augie was not his son. But he’d never stop loving him, he’d never stop trying to get him back, to be his father.

  Around lunchtime, with hunger nowhere in sight, Lock read through innumerable websites and online forums discussing paternity testing. He read for hours, carefully noting the names of lawyers in the area who were mentioned in the conversations.

  He picked up the phone, and within an hour, he had spoken with three lawyers and left messages for two others.

  The outcome of the first call was profoundly disappointing. The lawyer rushed Lock off the phone after telling him that he’d have an insurmountable battle in light of an existing paternity test that proved another man was the child’s father.

  “DNA test results are deemed by courts to be 99.99% reliable,” the woman told him.

  “What if I get my own test, what about that?” he asked.

  “You’d need a court order,” she said, “and plus, you have no standing to get one. Any semi-competent attorney would see to it that such a test would never occur. No judge would order a test because the mother will say she was never intimate with you, and all she has to do is file a complaint about you being a stalker or someone with an axe to grind, and you’ll get laughed out of court in no time. If the mother was my client, you’d never get near that child, sorry to say.”