When the girls were there, Edwina was capable of helping, at least a little, with Augie. Everything will be all right, Lock thought, trying as best as he could to soothe himself. The truth was, he didn’t fully trust anyone but himself to care properly for Augie. That included Natalie. In his eyes, she came up a bit short in the maternal instinct department. But she tried, he knew. She could be a good mom, but Lock believed it just didn’t come naturally to her, despite her having a lot more experience.
“Call me for even the slightest problem,” Lock told Abby, handing him the note. “Don’t worry about interrupting me. It’ll be okay if you need to reach me. Call if anything comes up, anything at all.”
The one time that Natalie had been there to hand off the kids to Abby, she hadn’t bothered with a note. How could she not let him know what time the baby went in for his nap, or when he might need to be fed some of the mother’s milk stored in bottles on the top shelf of the refrigerator? That had irritated Lock, but he’d let it go. They were different that way. Lock kissed a napping Augie goodbye, thanked Abby again for coming over to cover for him, and left for the meeting.
Lock got a call not long into the meeting, and he rushed home.
He arrived to find police cars and an ambulance—its rear door swung open wide—parked on the street in front of the complex. He identified himself to a police officer standing by the front entrance, who asked to see his identification. Satisfied that Lock was a resident of the condo, the officer informed him that the older gentleman was deceased, possibly of a massive heart attack.
Lock hurried past the officer, up the stairs to his unit, and entered the kitchen, which was cramped with three paramedics and another policeman. The paramedics were repacking their equipment. There was no need for them to continue working on the motionless body. They had spent a quarter of an hour trying CPR techniques in their attempt to resuscitate Abby. Lock couldn’t look at the body. One of the paramedics told him the body would be transported to Brandywine County Hospital to await the medical examiner.
It sunk in immediately and deeply. Lock’s friend and mentor was gone, and without warning. He had a sudden memory of the albino redwood in Witt Mannheim’s back yard, standing alone next to the mound where its parent tree once towered. It must be dead by now, Lock thought.
As Lock watched the paramedics put Abby’s body on the gurney and take him out, he imagined they were carting off his real dad, the drunken, abusive one from a lifetime ago. The real Abby, the man Lock loved like a father, was still with him, in his heart. He couldn’t be gone.
Lock’s impulse was to call Natalie at the diner, but he decided that would be imposing upon her. Besides, what would that accomplish? She’d feel obligated to rush home, disrupting her job. There was nothing she could do, except to comfort him. That could wait until later. And maybe even then she wouldn’t bother.
Lock usually never disturbed Augie when he was sleeping, but he felt a powerful need to hold him in his arms. Lock went to the baby’s room and picked him up. Lock whimpered when he cradled Augie, but the baby remained sound asleep.
“Abby’s gone,” Lock whispered, kissing the infant on the forehead. “He loved you so much.” Lock’s voice cracked and his throat tightened. He sat down with Augie, holding his tiny body against his chest.
Lock thought back to that morning in the hospital, the morning he’d overdosed and had been rushed to the emergency room. Later that afternoon, Abby had showed up with, of all things, an arrangement of white roses in a glass vase. Wired up to monitors and intravenous lines, with an oxygen tube down his throat, all Lock could do was make eye contact. But that had been enough. Lock knew he was loved.
Lock began crying quietly, muffling the sound so as not to wake the baby. But within moments, the sobs came out violently, loudly, and his chest heaved and tears streamed down his face.
Abby had unconditionally forgiven him for making terrible decisions, for breaking the law, for causing Dahlia to be injured, for going to prison and for humiliating him as the director of CPS. He had hired Lock and given him a golden opportunity, and Lock had paid him back with ingratitude, insubordination, and even betrayal.
But the vital thing was that through Abby’s example, Lock had been able to forgive his own father’s offences, just as Abby had forgiven Lock.
On the way home from the cemetery, Natalie sat with Lock in the rear of the funeral home’s limo. She held Augie because she’d forgotten about Lock’s request to bring the portable car seat, but Augie cooperatively slept through most of the day’s proceedings. When the limo pulled up to discharge them at the condo, Natalie handed the baby to Lock, got out, and turned to walk away.
“Witt’s really bugging me to discuss something with him,” she said over her shoulder. “It’s about the girls. I think something about the schedule.”
“So call him,” Lock said, heading up the steps to the front door. He motioned for her to join him in the condo. “Come on.”
Natalie didn’t follow.
“No,” she said. “I promised him I’d come over. He said he wants it to be in person. It’s the least I can do. You know how much he does for us.”
“That’s weird,” said Lock. “Come in and call Witt. Tell him you can’t make it today. He won’t mind, under the circumstances.”
“No, honey, sorry,” she said, opening the door of her car. “I won’t be very long. I promise. I’m sure it’s much ado about not too much.”
“Natalie,” said Lock. “Please don’t go right now. I really need you to be with me. It’s not an easy day for me.”
“I know you want me to be with you, and I will. Just give me a couple of hours.”
Natalie started her car and drove off.
The black clothes Natalie had worn to Abby’s funeral were scattered about the room—on the floor, over the back of a chair, at the foot of the bed.
She pulled the sheet off her lithe form and slipped quietly out of the bed. She padded naked across the thick carpet to the dresser and looked at herself in the mirror. A ray of late afternoon sunlight fell through the window onto her bejeweled toes. They glittered, casting a rainbow of colors against the wall. Natalie continued to look at her reflection. She always thought she looked better without clothes.
She stepped back from the dresser. She reached high into the air and extended her arms up toward the ceiling, then out in front of her, and finally down toward the floor. She exhaled deeply through her nose and bent at the waist, placing her palms on the floor, easily, on both sides of her feet. Next, she fluidly lowered herself to the rug and executed a near-perfect chaturanga. She held the position for ten seconds, slowly arched her back into an upward-facing dog, and then, with a deep inhale, lowered herself into a downward dog.
“Nice view,” Jerome Freel said. He was sitting up in the bed, a blanket wrapped around his lower torso.
“You should try yoga sometime,” she said. “Whenever you want, I’ll be your personal instructor. It’s all about keeping your spine flexible.”
“Not now,” he said, rolling out of the bed and finding his boxer shorts in the tangle of linen.
“I can’t believe I have to put this outfit back on,” Natalie said. She gathered the clothes from where they had fallen when Freel tore them off an hour earlier. “The black. It’s not my color. It’s so morose.”
Freel thumbed open the latches of his briefcase on the settee next to the dresser. From under his leather toiletries bag, he pulled an eight-by-ten glossy photograph from a folder and held it out to Natalie.
“Tell the tattoo artist to make it look like this,” he said.
She examined the photo. “That’s great,” she said. The image was a multicolored snake. “Is that a scarlet kingsnake? I was thinking about getting that one.”
“No. It’s a coral snake,” Freel said. “Almost the same coloration. But it’s the coral you have to watch ou
t for. A kingsnake is harmless. The coral is lethal.”
“Like me.” She grinned at him.
“Oh, that’s you, alright. For the record, I don’t much like that tattoo guy seeing you bare. It’s bad enough you let Lock touch you.”
By the time Natalie finished dressing, Freel had put on a robe. He sat on the settee watching her. He opened the toiletries case and took out a vial and an aluminum straw.
“That snake in the picture is a little more elaborate than I had budgeted for,” Natalie said. “And it will take longer and hurt more.”
“You can take it, Nat,” he said. “It’s just a little pain.”
She rolled her eyes.
“What’s a tattoo like that cost?” he asked.
“Maybe four hundred and fifty or something like that for a tat so elaborate,” she said. “Maybe even five or six hundred. I’ve been saving up for it. Lock saw me put money in an envelope and asked me about it. I had to tell him I was saving up for a surprise for him.”
“Oh, that’s just great.” Freel shook his head. “But don’t worry about saving your tips. The tat’s on me,” Freel said. He reached for his trousers and removed a thick leather wallet. He counted out ten one hundred-dollar bills. “Here you go, sweetheart,” he said, folding the bills in half. “Get that tattoo extra nice. And keep the change.”
“That’s not necessary,” she said. He nodded for her to take the money. She took it and put the bills in her handbag.
“And I thought you were broke,” she said.
“I’m broke as shit. I’ve got thirty-nine thousand left on my line of credit, and I’m burning through it at about fifteen a month. The settlement from your divorce—and my fee—can’t come fast enough.”
Natalie picked up the photo and looked at it again. “I can’t wait to wrap that snake around your pretty little neck,” she said.
Freel didn’t respond. He leaned over the nightstand, picked up his aluminum straw, and snorted twice from a small mound of coke.
35
The following day, Natalie arrived at the condo in the early evening. Lock was there with Edwina, Dahlia, and Augie. All four of them were on the carpet in the living room, batting balloons at each other. Lock had blown up a dozen for them to play with. Augie, on his back on a blanket but positioned so he could see the fun, grinned every time a balloon bounced near him. Edwina gently tapped a blue balloon against the baby’s forehead.
“Don’t frighten him, Eddie,” Lock said.
“I’m being very, very careful,” she said, frowning at Lock. “He likes it.”
The girls didn’t look up when Natalie entered the room, but Lock did. He stood and hugged her. She flashed a smile at him, then pushed him away and sat down on the sofa. She pulled her shoes off.
“Ah. That’s better,” she said, wriggling her toes.
Right away, Lock noticed Natalie carried no bag that might contain the surprise she had promised to bring him.
“Did you get it?” he said.
Augie started to cry. Natalie didn’t make a move to pick him up.
“Of course, honey.” She got up and walked past him, putting her hand on his back and squeezing his shoulder. “You’re like a child. You’ll get it after the kids go to bed. It’s worth the wait.”
Lock bent over to pick up Augie and jiggled the infant in his arms. Augie quieted down right away. Natalie walked out of the room like no one was there. Lock shook his head. She’s just tired, he told himself. Another part of himself said, Tired, sure. It’s her nature.
An hour later, Lock had single-handedly completed all the chores associated with getting three children to bed. He read aloud—for the hundredth time—from And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street as the girls clambered on his lap for the best position to hear the story and see the illustrations.
Then Lock changed Augie into a dry diaper, laid out the girls’ pajamas, and examined clothes from the floor to see which could be re-worn and which needed to be thrown into the hamper.
Next, he put Augie in his crib and the girls in their beds. After kissing each child goodnight, he turned down the lights and went to find Natalie.
While Lock had been taking care of the children, Natalie had been watching a yoga video, executing an array of flawless poses. He stood in the threshold of the living room and watched.
When she saw he was finished putting the kids to bed, she turned off the video, walked past him, and with a crooked finger, gestured for him to come to the bedroom.
“Time to see your surprise,” she said.
He followed her. She closed the door behind them and sat him down on the edge of the bed. She peeled off her black yoga pants and removed her top. She smoothed the clothes out on the bed, folded them, and placed them in the dresser. She opened a bottle of perfume and dabbed a few drops on her wrists and rubbed them onto her neck. She inhaled the scent and closed her eyes. Then she turned on the lamps and sat down on the comforter, naked and looking Lock right in the eye.
Lock looked back into her eyes.
“You won’t find what I want you to see in my eyes, Lock,” she said, her voice low.
At first, Lock didn’t get it. He kept looking at her. She waited for his eyes to rove over her body, but he held his gaze.
Natalie stood up and angled her body so that the lamp’s light shined on the front of her thighs.
Lock looked down, and there it was.
A stunning, glistening, multicolored coral snake writhing up Natalie’s thigh, its head disappearing between her legs. The red, orange, and yellow hues, separated by thick, black, scaly bands, were kaleidoscopic and dramatically more intense than the temporary brownish henna snake that time had washed away. Her skin under the snake’s body was hot and swollen from the thousands of pinholes made by the tattoo needle. Each scale on the snake’s back was visible, glistening with a vibrant, iridescent pattern.
Natalie, hands on her hips, watched Lock’s eyes explore the artwork.
“Well?” she asked.
“Outstanding. Just outstanding.”
“Stings like hell, but the swelling will go away in a few days. I have to keep icing it. But first,” she said, “I want you to take a better look. Check out his head.” Natalie stood in front of Lock and lifted one foot onto the bed. She moved closer to him.
“See where he’s going?” she asked, inching even closer. “Why don’t you join him?”
36
Right before noon, Lock lucked out.
He found a spot in the jammed parking lot about one hundred yards from the main entrance to the annual Summer Fiesta carnival, set up on the grounds of Brandywine Community Hospital—the hospital where all of Natalie’s children had been born. Over a month had passed since Abby had died, and Lock still missed him deeply. He had been looking forward to taking the kids to the carnival, but it made him sad, too. It was exactly the kind of thing Abby would have loved.
It had been a tough squeeze to get all three children into the car seats that were jammed together in the rear of Lock’s old Ford sedan, but he did it. On the twenty-minute drive to the carnival, Edwina, accompanied by Dahlia, clapped their hands to their sing-song chant of one word: “Car-ni-val! Car-ni-val!” They laughed uncontrollably.
Getting the kids out of the car—Dahlia and Edwina bounced excitedly in their seats, while Augie sat contentedly—was easier than getting them in. The girls clamored for Lock and their mother to release them. Instead of helping, Natalie sat in the passenger seat doing something on her phone, so the chore fell to Lock.
He unbuckled the seatbelts and detached them from the car seats. The girls scrambled out of the car. Lock stood at the trunk, removing two strollers. Earlier, Edwina had insisted that she was big enough to walk at the carnival and refused to let Lock pack her stroller. Strollers, she’d informed him, were for little kids, like Dahlia and Aug
ie. He closed the trunk, smiling at the memory. Edwina was growing up, and she was more formidable every day.
Dahlia—just shy of three years now—climbed into the stroller on her own while Edwina held it still. Lock watched and, seeing her caring for her little sister, wondered if she had more natural maternal instinct than her mother.
He removed Augie from his car seat and put him in the baby carrier. He loved carting Augie around that way so he could see him and touch him and point out interesting things. In a minute, they were ready to enter the fairgrounds.
“Head on in,” Natalie said to Lock without looking up as she texted someone. “I’ll catch up in a sec.”
“I need to buy the tickets for all of us,” he said. “Come with us.”
Natalie snorted derisively, put her phone away, and got out.
Once inside the carnival, Lock handed Augie to Natalie and he and the girls went to the blue-and-white wooden booth and bought twenty dollars’ worth of tickets redeemable for rides, though not junk food from the concession stands. The refreshments would cost him even more.
Natalie watched. “Twenty bucks won’t get us far in here,” she said.
Edwina looked to Lock to see if their mother was right.
“We have enough tickets for all the rides you want to go on,” he said, bending down to speak to the two girls. “And if we need more tickets later, we’ll get them.”
Natalie shook her head and gazed up to the top of a small Ferris wheel.
“I can guarantee you I won’t be getting on that thing,” she said. “Go ahead if you want.”
Augie burped loudly and a broad smile appeared on his face. Natalie cringed in disgust.
“Okay”—Lock grinned at the girls—”more tickets for us.” Dahlia and Edwina hopped enthusiastically. “I think we can win two teddy bears at the squirt gun game,” Lock told them. “Who wants to try that?”
Baby Please Don't Go: A Novel Page 24