by Linda Barnes
“I’m all for cooperation,” he said, “provided it’s a two-way street.”
“Well, I’m taking the case,” I said. “Isn’t that what you want?”
“If Mrs. Woodrow wants it. If she decides to go ahead.”
“Have you met her husband? Harold?”
“No. I’ve certainly heard about him. But nothing I’d want to share. Anything else?”
“Yeah. Now that you mention it,” I said. “I would like to ask another question.”
“Shoot.”
“How old are you?”
I caught a momentary flash of annoyance in his eyes before the grin reasserted itself. “Thirty,” he said. “Why?”
“Honest?”
“Twenty-nine.”
“That’s kind of young to—”
“I graduated high school at sixteen and then I took an accelerated six-year med school program.”
“What was the rush?”
“I don’t know. And you?”
“Me?”
“How old are you?”
“Older than you.”
“Want to tell me the story of your life?”
“No. But if I wanted to look at your notes on Mrs. Woodrow, what would you say?”
“My clinical notes?”
“Yeah.”
“I’d say that after you check out Emily’s story, maybe even talk with Dr. Muir, we should have a drink.”
It seemed like an interesting possibility.
“Maybe,” I said.
“I’ll let you get back to work,” he said.
“Good-bye.”
As soon as I heard the door latch, I dialed JHHI and confirmed my hunch. Dr. Keith Donovan was indeed a member of the staff.
And, I thought, tapping a pencil against the phone, I’d bet good hard cash that someone at the hospital, possibly even the great Muir himself, had referred Emily Woodrow.
7
After Donovan departed, I righteously typed, filed, and tied up loose ends, intermittently dialing Patsy until I was informed by a cheerful voice that she’d left for the day. I hoped she hadn’t been fired.
Friday afternoon is no time to begin an investigation. Of course, since all I’d been instructed to do was wait, I could honestly say I was fulfilling my end of the deal. My eyes kept veering toward the photo on the mantel as I considered the looming weekend. For the past four years my Saturday mornings have belonged to Paolina. And dammit, there’s absolutely no reason they shouldn’t still belong to Paolina.
Except her mother.
Marta Fuentes is someone I’d never go out of my way to befriend, but since she is the mother of my little sister, we have—in the past—been tolerant of each other’s behavior. In certain ways I admire her. She had the sense to figure out that her lone girl child might have the need for another female in her life, somebody who wasn’t burdened—as Mama was and is—with rheumatoid arthritis, the tendency to take up with rotten men, and three younger kids, all boys. Someone who’d act as a role model, sure, but more important, someone who’d listen to Paolina, care about her.
When I first met my little sister, she was barely seven years old—older than Rebecca Woodrow would ever be—with a hand-shaped bruise splayed across her face where Mom’s latest flame had left his imprint. One thing I can never figure about Marta is that she doesn’t seem to mind playing punching bag for the current man in her life. On the other hand, she unfailingly protects her kids. The guy who’d smacked Paolina was history before the bruise purpled.
I ran my fingers over the telephone, thought about calling Marta and asking for another chance.
It’s too easy to hang up a phone. Too simple to leave it off the hook. So I tidied my desk by shoving all unfinished business into the top drawer, got into my car, and banged the door, imagining that I was slamming it on Malta’s stubborn head.
I’ve tried everything. I’ve apologized. I’ve begged. I’ve attempted bribery.
Time to try again.
Marta lives in a Cambridge project that’s not the worst housing in town. Close, but not in the same league as the city-owned high rises. Her development runs to a series of look-alike four-families with scraggly patches of lawn and a concrete playground flanked by a pair of broken, netless basketball hoops.
It’s always a struggle to find a nearby parking place, but I persisted and jammed the Toyota into three quarters of a space that other drivers shunned.
The front door to Paolina’s building was wedged open by half a cement block. I wondered whether someone was moving in or out, or if the security system had been trashed again. Maybe the door was ajar as shorthand to the neighborhood gangs: nothing left worth stealing.
I buzzed Malta’s apartment and hiked up the stairs. Possibly some tenant cursed with a sensitive nose had opened the door to air the stairwell, which smelled like it did double duty as a urinal.
I wondered what Emily Woodrow’s Winchester house looked like, if her daughter had been happy in its imagined splendor.
The door to Marta’s flat was closed. I knocked once, then again, pressed my ear to the wood, listening for the blare of the TV, usually a constant. Nothing. I knocked louder. I thought I could hear someone fumbling with the lock.
Little Alvaro is only three. I was surprised he could turn the door handle. He looked up at me from under dark curls, gave a shy smile, and ran inside. I said “Hi!” to no one in particular, entered, and closed the door behind me.
Marta’s no great housekeeper, but I’d never seen the place so filthy. Dishes were heaped on the table, smelly and coated with food. Bedding lay in piles on the floor, as if the whole family were camping out. Two boys stretched out on their stomachs in front of the TV, which was on, but silent. They stared at the moving images as if they were more real than I was.
“Is your mother home?”
The oldest nodded toward the single bedroom.
“¿Quién es?” The voice was definitely Malta’s. “Paolina?”
I leaned in the bedroom doorway.
“I tell them no to open the door,” she said. “I tell the boys. Do they listen? No.”
“Marta, are you okay?”
“It looks maybe like I’m okay?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nada. Only my stomach. I can’t keep the food down. Me duele. It hurts.” Her last words came out through clenched teeth.
“You taking your medicine?”
“What there is. No puedo caminar. I no walk to the store like this.”
“You can have it delivered.”
“Don’ you tell me what I do. What you doin’ here is what I ask.”
“Marta, is the phone working?”
“No. No está trabajando.”
“Why?”
“No es su problema.” None of your business. That was clear enough.
“Money?”
She turned her face to the wall.
Her middle boy, asleep on another bed, hadn’t stirred during the entire discussion. I placed a cautious hand on his forehead. It seemed cool enough, but I wondered if a four-year-old should be asleep at dinnertime.
I wondered if the kids still ate dinner.
But mostly I wondered where Paolina was. Marta always slept on the fold-out couch in the living room. Why was she resting on Paolina’s bed?
I checked the brick-and-board makeshift shelves that lined the room. Paolina’s clothes were there, neatly folded, along with her meager collection of books.
Marta kept her face stubbornly to the wall. I went back into the living room.
“Hi.”
I couldn’t remember the name of Alvaro’s oldest brother. It made me feel bad. “How are you?”
“Hungry. You cook?”
I picked up the phone. Dead.
“Can you lock the door and then open it when I knock?” I asked. There’s a pay phone on the corner.
“I’m not supposed to.”
“I might bring something to eat.”
“I’ll ope
n it.”
The pay phone worked, an unexpected blessing. I hit 411 because there was no phone book, and got the number of the nearest Pizza Delite. I ordered two large—one with cheese, one with the works—hung up, and fumed.
I couldn’t remember the name of the social worker assigned to Marta’s case. Probably she couldn’t remember Marta’s name either. Most likely, she was the last person Marta would want me to call, a rule-bound bureaucrat who’d take one look at the place and start talking about moving the boys to a more “child-centered environment.”
Roz picked up on the third ring.
“What time are you going out tonight?” Friday nights, I don’t bother asking if she’s going out. Hell or high water, hair-dye emergency or acrylic inspiration, Roz makes the weekend scene.
“Ten, eleven maybe.”
The hours she keeps, you’d think she partied in New Orleans instead of Boston. “Want to earn a few extra?”
“Sure.”
“Stop at a store and buy cleaning stuff. Basics. Meet me at Paolina’s.”
“You didn’t say cleaning.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“I’ll have to change clothes.”
“You can do it. See you soon.” I vocally underlined the last word.
The oldest boy was disappointed that I didn’t bring goodies, but I assured him help was on the way. Then I sighed deeply, and plunged in.
I hate routine cleaning with a passion, but this was so far from ordinary that there was a certain satisfaction involved, reminiscent of an archeological dig. I could make discoveries, like the true color of a dish, or the actual pattern on the linoleum. I should have asked Roz to bring a friend. Several.
“How long has your mom been sick?” I asked the boys.
“I dunno. Long time.”
“You eat lunch today?”
The little one held out an empty cracker box.
I was afraid to open the refrigerator.
I folded bed linens, wondered where the closest Laundromat was located. Where was Roz?
Where was Paolina?
Marta wasn’t speaking and the boys just stared at each other solemnly when I inquired. So I scrubbed the countertop near the sink with a pitiful remnant of sponge, and awaited fresh supplies.
When the bell rang, I thought it might be her. It wasn’t. I tipped the nervous pizza-delivery boy well. Neither cabbies nor delivery folk adore the prospect of a project destination.
The kids, the freshly awakened four-year-old included, fell on the pizza like starving animals. I found a can of chicken soup without a dent in it, scrubbed a battered pot. No trays, so I balanced the bowl on a plate when I carried it into the bedroom.
“You still here?”
“Can you sit up?”
“Why you do this for me?”
“Because I want to see Paolina again.”
She grunted while I shifted the pillows. It hurt her to move, to sit. I made the mistake of waiting for her to grasp the spoon. When she didn’t, I glanced down and saw what the arthritis had done to her hands.
I held the spoon while she sipped.
She hesitated, her jaw clenched, then said, “Is okay with me. You and Paolina, I mean.”
“Does she want to see me? She never answered my letters.”
“I talk to a new social worker. She don’ think is right, you an Anglo. She thinks is maybe better I find Paolina a Spanish sister.”
“Does Paolina feel like that?”
“She don’ answer you because I throw the letters away. Now you get me a glass of water, no?”
I bit back an angry response. “So who’s this new social worker? What’s her name?”
“Cynthia, the old one, she quit. She say she make more money clerking a grocery store. Why go to college for that? I tell her marry some man. Is better.”
Ah, Malta’s magic cure-all for women. Marry some man. Is better. She, still wedded to a guy who took off while she was pregnant, was living proof.
I sighed.
“You bring the water?”
“What you need is a doctor.”
She seized my wrist and held on with surprising strength. “No doctor,” she said. “No social worker. Nobody. Or you never get back with my Paolina.”
She turned her face to the wall again and I walked out.
Roz had arrived and was staring at the apartment in horror and amazement. I hadn’t heard her knock, but one of the boys must have let her in. I wondered what creation she’d been modeling before she changed. Could she own something more bizarre, less appropriate, than the fringed thigh-high outfit she now wore?
Roz is a karate expert. Dress like that, certain skills come in handy.
The pièce de resistance was her hair.
“Roz?”
“Yeah?”
“You shaved your head.” Sometimes I’m compelled to break my vow never to comment on Roz’s appearance.
“Less than half. You like it?”
It was more like a quarter of her head, to be honest. A strip extending from just above her right ear to about an inch below where the part might be on anyone so hopelessly conventional as to part her hair on the right. The bald strip had scalloped edging, sculpted and precise as topiary.
She must have reached total hair-dye saturation, I thought, experimented with every available shade. And now, imagine the possibilities—new horizons in hair art.
She’d remembered to bring rubber gloves. They lent a science-fiction touch to the ensemble.
“Whoa. Gross,” she marveled, wrinkling her nose. “Is this a crime scene or what?”
The kids had eaten more pizza than I would have believed possible. The middle boy wiped a tomato-stained hand across his mouth and calmly inquired about dessert. Without a pause, Roz whipped a box of Girl Scout cookies from her canvas tote. God knows what else is in there.
“You want milk?” I asked the boys.
“Coke,” they demanded. “Root beer.”
Maybe Roz had something yummy in her purse. I fetched Malta’s water, first washing the glass. The counter on the far side of the sink was so littered with pill bottles it looked like a pharmacy. I read the labels: Naprosyn, Medrol, Nalfon. All empty. Zorprin, full. Feldene, empty. A warning label said to take this medicine only with or following food.
The warning label was in English.
I opened a window and inhaled a noseful of early spring before going back into the stale bedroom.
“Did you stop taking your pills because you ran out?” I asked while she sipped.
“I have more.”
“Are you taking them?”
“Cuando el dolor es muy fuerte.” Only when the pain is real bad. “They make my stomach hurt.”
“You have to take them with food.”
“A veces no puedo comer.” Sometimes I cannot eat. “Then I can no take the pills?”
“You need to eat,” I said.
“The boys, they eat?”
“They ate. What about Paolina?”
“You only care for her. The boys are good boys. They help me.”
“Where is she? Please.”
“Is Friday? She has maybe a date.”
“C’mon, Marta. She’s a kid.”
“You want to ask where is this kid, no? Maybe after you hear, you no want her for your sister.”
“Don’t worry about that.”
“The little girl, the kid, has got herself a man. Twenty-five, maybe thirty years he’s a day. I see him walkin’ with her. I see them in his car. Lots a times. She says no. She says I’m crazy. Her own mother.”
“Paolina? With a guy?”
“You don’ believe me, maybe?”
“In his twenties? Has to be a teacher or something.”
“Oh, you a stupid lady. Guy like that don’t teach no school.”
“Guy like what? You know his name?”
“She don’ bring no man like that to her house. I throw her out, I see her with a man like that.”
&nbs
p; I wanted to ask what kind of men she’d expect Paolina to fall for, with such a sterling example of how not to pick ’em for a mother.
Instead I made her another bowl of soup.
“When will Paolina be home?”
“Soon, I think.”
Roz beat it to the Laundromat with two giant bags of reeking clothes, leaving me the moldy bathroom to scour.
“Soon,” Marta constantly assured me.
When the last light had faded from the sky, I wanted to call the cops. That’s when Marta told me not to worry, she’d suddenly remembered: Paolina was staying the night with her aunt Lilia. And no, I couldn’t phone the aunt to make sure all was well. Lilia left her receiver off the hook after nine o’clock. Too many wrong numbers. Too many salesmen. Too many perverts.
I drove by the aunt’s place. All seemed quiet and dark.
Back home, I played my National steel guitar late into the morning hours, fooling around with an old tune, trying out different bass runs and slides till my callused fingertips ached.
Baby, please don’t go.
Baby, please don’t go.
Baby, please don’t go down to New Orleans,
You know I love you so.
I played all the standard verses, borrowed a few from other songs, even made up a couple of my own. I settled on a down-and-dirty bass and a bottleneck slide.
And I worried.
8
By Saturday morning I’d decided to see for myself. Which might be difficult. Marta’s hardly my greatest fan, but her sister Lilia—Paolina’s only aunt—really despises me. She’d take great delight in spitting in my eye.
The way she sees it, I cost her a job, almost single-handedly shutting down her place of employment. Of course, if she’d taken my advice and applied for immigration amnesty, she could have gotten other work easily. But her distrust of the government is almost as strong as her dislike of me.
Instead, she relies on badly forged papers, and she’s been fired twice in the past year.
Paolina’s life was endangered during the same case that cost Lilia her job. That’s the root cause of our estrangement. It wasn’t all my fault. A lot of the blame rests with Marta, which is probably why she’s so keen to shift the entire burden to me.
I’m not the one who lied to Paolina about her father.
