Hope House

by Tracy L Carbone

  Tad spun around. “Mick, hi. Didn’t expect you.”

  “I know. I didn’t plan to be here, but I have something important to discuss and it couldn’t be over the phone.”

  “All right. Let’s step into my office.”

  “Sure. Since we’re here though, I want to ask Martine something.”

  “She won’t understand you.”

  “Translate for me.”

  Martine looked frightened.

  “Ask her if she knows the guard.”

  “Boris?” Tad asked.

  “Yes. Boris Jean-Baptiste.”

  Martine’s eyes grew wide as snowballs. She said something to Tad but again; Mick had no idea what.

  Tad spoke. “I didn’t know his last name. You know we pay him in cash so all this time I never asked. Are they related?”

  “I don’t know. That’s what I want you to ask her.”

  Tad and Martine chatted back and forth in Creole.

  “She doesn’t know him except as the guard. As you know, the girls never go outside the gate and he only comes in when you’re here. She said she doesn’t have any relatives named Boris but that Jean-Baptiste is a common surname.”

  Mick looked at Martine but spoke to Tad. “Well, he’s been asking about her. He seems to know her.”

  Tad turned to talk to Martine.

  “Don’t translate that. That was just for your information.”

  Tad took off his glasses and wiped them with his lab coat. “Is that what you came all the way here for?”

  “I wish it was just that. Let’s get some privacy.”

  Tad walked to his office and Mick followed. When the door closed and they were both sitting Mick said, “You remember Gloria Hanes-Carpenter?”

  Tad’s white face got whiter. “Yes.”

  “It’s Hanes now. She got divorced.”

  “I know. And Tommy got the law firm. I don’t need a recap. What about her?”

  “Gloria, do-gooder that she is, donated a DNA sample a few years ago for a marrow drive. Through a very bad coincidence, after all this time, one of our adoptees got leukemia. Wouldn’t you know it; they tracked Gloria down through a registry. She was a match.”

  Tad put his nearly bald head in his hands. “Jesus.”

  “Oh it gets worse.”

  “How much worse?”

  “So she donates the marrow and the kid lives and the adoptive parents get the bright idea to contact Gloria, as the donor, because they wonder if she’s a relative who would give them some kind of foundation for their daughter’s heritage.”

  “They didn’t tell her, did they?”

  “They told her. They said their daughter was adopted and maybe Gloria was an aunt or a cousin.”

  “Shit.”

  “But you know Gloria. She insists she’s the child’s mother now! And she carries on about how the baby was ripped from her womb, stolen. She got hysterical and they tossed her out.”

  “So it’s over? She’s gone?”

  “I wish. But no. Before they made her leave they gave her a picture of the kid and let slip out the name of the agency. And who do you think shows up in Miami yesterday morning trying to get in and talk to me?”

  “Shit. This isn’t good. What did you say to her?”

  “Luckily the first line of defense at New Age is Angela and she doesn’t let anyone in without an appointment.”

  “Good old, Angie. So Gloria never made it up to the office? She doesn’t know it’s your business?”

  “No. Not yet. But now Tommy’s wondering if this is their kid too—”

  “It’s not.”

  “Thanks, Doc. I know.” Mick rolled his eyes. “I told Tommy that.”

  “And he bought it?”

  “Too much of a dipshit to ask why this kid is related to Gloria but that’s better for us. He’s a dope but he’s a talented lawyer. Has done good work for the family.”

  “Tommy accepts everything you ever told him.”

  “And he’d better keep it that way. I’d hate to have to dispose of him or his new wife.” Mick realized as soon as that came out, he shouldn’t have said it. Tad shrank back. Tad knew what Mick did but they never discussed it. He wasn’t involved in that part of the business process unless he had to be. Oh hell, he did have to be involved this time. This was his matter and if Mick wasn’t up front with him, then he’d be asking questions later if they had to let Tommy go. Or his wife, or the ex-Mrs. Carpenter. Better to keep him in the loop of all potential outcomes.

  Mick kept talking. “Tommy’s working with us. He believes Gloria’s delusional and so he’s hooked her up with an inept PI in Miami. Tommy’s playing the part of the supportive ex-husband.”

  Tad just sat and watched him. Not a word, so Mick continued, thinking: Might as well bring him in all the way. “I’ve put Joey on her, but she’s a slippery little thing. In the meantime, the PI is supposed to get her off track. If he can change her mind and convince her there is no conspiracy before Joey can get to her, then I’ll call off the hit.”

  Tad looked up. “But there is a conspiracy.”

  “Well, yeah. But no one believes that except for Gloria. I just wanted to apprise you of the situation. Nothing on paper puts you here so you don’t need to worry, but I needed to come here and give you a heads up.”

  Mick started to stand and leave.

  “Hold on. I have something to discuss too. Nothing as dramatic as your news, thank God.”

  Mick sat back down. It was probably a request for new TVs or manual washing machines again. “Shoot,” Mick said, ready to concede to allowing washboards on the premises if that would make everyone shut up once and for all.

  “One of the girls, her name is Boni, just had a stillbirth. Your order for this month is going to be light.”

  “She lost twins?”

  Tad paused which got Mick’s dander up. Whatever he said next would be a lie, Mick knew. Stalling to answer always meant deception. Mick had learned that the hard way by watching his parents argue. Until Daddy got tired of Mama’s lies and set her straight.

  “No. Only one of the embryos attached and it died. She also had two miscarriages last year, fall and spring.”

  “She hasn’t delivered any living children in two years?”

  A pause, and then Tad said, “That’s right.”

  The look in Tad’s eyes . . . a lie. But why?

  “You know you have to send her off.”

  “I was hoping we could keep her on. It’s crazy having just one doctor and one nurse for all these women and infants and dealing with so many pregnancies. Sometimes we go twenty-four hours without sleep. Since you still require Martine to have children, we really need a backup.”

  Mick would go along with the conversation for now.

  “Martine always gets time off after she delivers and you have a backup for those times, I thought.”

  “That girl isn’t trained. She just helps with errands and is a second set of hands. I’d really like a full-time second nurse.”

  “Someone who doesn’t have to carry children anymore?”

  “Well, she could try but—”

  Mick felt his blood boiling. “And waste more of my time and money? No. Send her off.”

  “I’ll pay her salary myself,” Tad countered.

  “No. No way. What the hell do you think I’m running here? Some kind of charity mission?” Mick glared at Tad. “Don’t answer that.” As far as the IRS knew, Maison D’Espoir was a charity mission. But they both knew that was a farce.

  “This Boni, she struck out too many times. Who knows if the next pregnancy might kill her? The last thing I need is another dead girl. The couple that died in childbirth were a hassle to explain away. I don’t need the headache.”

  “But you know what happens when they get sent off.”

  “It’s not my problem. This is a business. I want her gone by this afternoon.”

  “But she just had a—” Tad put his hand to his mouth.

  “
A what?” Mick wondered what Tad was hiding.

  “She was thirty-eight weeks along and had a stillborn child. She can’t travel.”

  “She doesn’t have to go far. Just the other side of the gates.”

  Mick and Tad had a staring contest, but Tad finally relented. Mick always won. He knew he scared Tad, and he enjoyed that feeling of power.

  “She’ll be gone this afternoon.” Tad was done lying. He could tell.

  “See that she is.”

  Mick got up and walked back to the gate. He knocked and Boris opened it for him, giving him another wordless nod. Mick climbed into his car and cranked the A/C. He’d had enough of Haiti and the compound for a while. He was dying to get back to Luke who waited with a sitter at the hotel overlooking the beach and the emerald ocean.

  It took an hour and a half of twisting harrowing road conditions when finally Port Au Prince emerged. “Civilization. It’s about time.” It was a relative term. Damage from the earthquake and tsunami lingered years later. This was no Miami but far better than that damn jungle compound. He was dying for a good meal and to get out of the heat.

  He parked his car and went to his room.

  He could hear Luke talking before he used the room key. Happily chatting away. What a great kid. Mick opened the door.

  “Daddy!” The boy jumped up from the table and ran to him. He still walked a little funny but his gait was nearly normal now. His shiny blond hair flowed as he ran, arms outstretched. Mick swooped up his little boy and spun him around.

  “I missed you.”

  “I missed you too, Daddy. All done work?”

  “All done. Want to have dinner with me?”

  “I had burgers with Marnie. I have ice cream?” Luke smiled and the dimple on his cheek dove inward.

  “Of course. I’ll have dinner and you can have ice cream. Let me take a shower and you sit with Marnie. Then we’ll go out.” He set his son down.

  Marnie was a very pretty young woman. Strong and healthy. She’d make a great surrogate but she had a family. Two hard working parents who cared about her. And she was going to college in the fall. No way she would give that up to be a breeder. Too bad though. It would be nice to see her smiling face when he visited Maison.

  He felt bad dragging Luke all the way to Haiti for a day but the boy didn’t seem to mind. He liked Marnie and this hotel, and Luke loved being around Mick. Mick hated being far away from his son. He missed him so much when he traveled that now he just brought him wherever he went. Anyway, it was important to get him used to travel while still so young. Someday Luke would be in the family business. For now, the boy provided something in Mick’s life that he could get from no other source—unconditional love.

  Mick gave him one more hug and kiss, then headed for the bathroom to wash the dirt and grime of Maison D’Espoir and rural Haiti off his body.

  6.

  Maison D’Espoir, Haiti, late afternoon

  Martine waited until she saw the gates close behind Mr. Puglisi before she ran into Dr. Tad’s office.

  “What did he want?” she asked.

  “That was too close. He saw us talking. Do you think he knows you speak English?”

  “No. He does not know. He is a fool. What did he come here about? Why the surprise visit? To scare us? Make sure we are not breaking rules?” Martine hated Mr. Puglisi with his fancy clothes and shiny shoes, always thinking he was better than everyone else. Always making them scared even from as far away as Miami. Keeping them always afraid with his threats, just like the awful rebels known as the Tonton Macoute, marauding through the jungles with their guns and machetes, cutting off people’s heads and hanging them from trees as a warning, killing for sport and to keep the frightened citizens of Haiti paralyzed and without hope. They were unstoppable monsters and even their name, to this very day, Tonton Macoute, riddled Martine with dread. Much like the name Mick Puglisi.

  Tad sat at his desk and gestured for her to do the same. “He came here on a business matter that you don’t need to worry about.”

  “What is it?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Mick will take care of it.”

  “Who is it about? Is he mad at you?”

  Tad sighed. “No. It’s about Gloria. He’s mad at her. You know, Gloria, the donor. She’s causing some trouble; that’s all I can say. But everything’s going to be fine.”

  Martine did not care to hear more. For so long she had pitied this Queen Bee Gloria they spoke of at times, but now to hear she was causing trouble made her seem not like a victim, like the girls here, but like Mr. Puglisi. Always grabbing for more profit. Martine’s old view of the woman named Gloria changed. She had no respect for this Gloria who gave up so many of her eggs for them to use. She must have sold them and was some rich woman, no doubt. Probably had a fancy car and a fur coat. Probably had a servant girl she gave orders to and treated like dirt, and made sleep on a floor while Gloria got the nice bed, all high with satin sheets. The horrible woman did not even care whatever happened to all the babies she was making, all the babies the girls like Martine had to carry then give away. She hoped Mick was mad at this Gloria. That woman deserved it.

  “Did you ask Mr. Puglisi about Boni?”

  Tad nodded but didn’t speak.

  “Can she stay?” Martine knew the answer would be no, but she had held onto the hope. Maybe, just maybe, Mr. Puglisi would show some compassion.

  “We have to send her off today. I’m sorry.”

  Martine closed her eyes. “But where can she go? It is bad enough she is sent off, but what about her baby?”

  Tad’s face turned red and Martine cowered in her chair. He did not have much color at all unless his temper was raging.

  “It’s not my fault. Don’t you understand that? What am I supposed to do? Everyone seemed to know that Boni had been sneaking out to see her boyfriend except me. You kept that from me. You all did. If I had known, I could have worked longer to come up with a story. Maybe taken a twin from one of the other girls and said it belonged to her. But I didn’t know, goddamnit. Until Boni delivered a little black baby I had no idea.”

  “I am sorry. We were afraid to tell you. And we hoped maybe the baby would be white. Maybe one of Gloria’s babies was in her, not her own.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You should have told me.”

  Tears sprang to Martine’s eyes as guilt filled her. She thought she had done the right thing protecting Boni’s secret all these months, but now . . .

  “Do you know why we want only virgins here?”

  She guessed, “Because they are cleaner and have no sin?”

  He threw his arms up and Martine knew she had said the wrong thing. But she did not know why they needed virgins. She thought it was for spiritual reasons. Madame La Brie was Catholic and told Martine many times that sex before marriage was a sin. Many of the girls had discussed it and were in agreement that Maison D’Espoir must want virgins because girls who had sinned made God angry and He might damage their babies. Martine did not believe in God as her savior, but she surely believed in His powers to punish.

  “No, Martine.” He shook his head and wiped his glasses on his shirt. “It’s because there are diseases out there. Lots of diseases that can hurt or kill you or your baby. Mick doesn’t know Boni was with a man but I know, and now I can’t in good conscience let her carry any more babies for us. Even if I ran tests on her and they came back negative, who knows if she’ll sneak out again?”

  “She will not. I can promise you.”

  “I can’t trust her. AIDS is a huge risk. You can’t donate blood in America if you’ve even set foot here because HIV and AIDS are so rampant in Haiti. By having sex with someone Boni may have exposed herself to HIV or Genital Warts or Herpes. Or a number of other STDs.”

  Martine did not know what all those initials meant but it sounded scary. She was not going to ever have sex if she could get those things. She’d heard of AIDS of course and knew HIV had something to do with it. But she had bee
n too embarrassed to ever ask anyone about it.

  “Do you understand? Eske ou comprann?”

  “Oui. I mean yes.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Boni could have died.”

  “It’s not just that. She might have caught a virus and not only pass that to her baby but to every other baby she carries, even if we put it inside her.”

  Martine felt tears run down her face. She hated it when Dr. Tad talked down to her. “I am not stupid. Just because I have never heard of all those letter diseases does not make me stupid. No one ever told me. Probably no one ever told Boni either.”

  Tad sat back in his chair. “Didn’t they teach you about STDs, Sexually Transmitted Diseases in school? In health class?”

  “Do you forget most of us never went to school? I was only allowed to go for reading and sewing after I finished my chores. No one went to full-time day school, none of the girls here anyway. And even if they did, they did not stay in long enough to learn about diseases. You think if anyone here went to some fancy school where we learned all about our bodies and diseases and what happens when you have a baby we would sign up to come here and be Mr. Puglisi’s breeding bitches?” Now she was crying hard but did not care. “You think we like doing what we do? We do not. But we do not know how to do anything else!”

  Dr. Tad just looked at her. He had tears in his eyes too. “I’m sorry, Martine. I didn’t realize. I just assumed someone would have explained—”

  “You think Madame LaBrie sat me down and told me the facts of life? When would that be? After I cleaned the house and took care of her boys and made the meals and washed the dishes? When me and Madame were sitting around drinking tea with our feet up and having a heart-to-heart talk?” Martine wiped her eyes. How could Dr. Tad be so stupid?

  He got up and put his arms around Martine.” I am so sorry. Of course there was no way for you or Boni or any of the others to know the dangers.” He pulled her up and toward him. He patted the back of her head and held her. “I’m going meet with all of you and teach what your mothers should have taught you. What the children who go to school learn.”

  “I am never having sex.” She knew that sounded childish but she did not care.