Little Deaths(64)

“What were you going to do? Did you have a plan? For the baby?”

She shook her head. “I was nineteen years old and green as grass. I had no savings. No future. But you know something? I was real happy. Maybe happier than I ever been. I used to come home from work and sit by the window in my room. Put my feet up on a stool to keep my ankles from swelling and stroke my belly. I’d tell her stories. I was so sure it was a girl. I made a list of names and I sewed her little dresses. I was . . . I was okay, you know?”

There were tears in her eyes, and Pete did the only thing he could think of to do: signaled to Sam for another drink.

Bette took a mouthful and sniffed.

“Is this what you want? Feels like I’m talking more about me than about Lou.”

He looked at her, and tried to imagine her as a smooth-skinned girl with a pregnant belly and a drawer of baby clothes.

“It’s okay. It’s . . . well, it’s okay.”

He took a mouthful of his beer and asked her, “So what happened?”

She sighed. “I was lucky. I didn’t really show until the last three months, so I could keep working. I didn’t have a plan but I knew that whatever I did, I’d need money. So I just kept going, kept putting aside as much as I could.

“And then the baby came. It all happened in the middle of the night. It was December. I woke up and it was so damn cold. And the bed was wet, so I knew. I was scared, but I was excited too. I went down to the phone in the hallway and I called my friend and she took a cab and came over and waited with me until it was time to go to the hospital. Then she called another cab and took me there and helped me inside. She couldn’t stay—her husband was home and she had to work the next day. Anyway, I was alone but I was okay. They got me a bed and the nurses fussed over me, helped me get undressed. For a few hours, everything was fine. And then something changed. The pains just stopped. I remember lying on my back looking up at the lights, this great round belly above me, and they called a doctor. His hands were like ice. He said to one of the nurses they’d have to give me something—I didn’t understand the word. I tried to ask what was wrong, but they were so busy and it all happened so fast. There was a needle in my arm and then this feeling like I was drunk. Then I remember hearing screams and I remember the pain—like I was being ripped apart.”

She was nodding, eyes unfocused, lost in her memories.

“And I remember a baby crying”—and her hand shot out and her nails were digging into Pete’s skin and she was close against him so he could smell her sour breath, and she said again, “There was a baby. I heard my baby crying.”

Tears came into her eyes, then her grip loosened and she leaned back and her voice was flat.

“And when I woke up, Lou was sitting by my bed with flowers.”

“How did he find you?”

“Oh, he probably got one of his guys to call all the hospitals in the state. He knew when I was due. Or maybe he paid someone in each hospital to call him if I came in. When you have money, anything’s possible. But whatever he did, he found me.

“You know, when I saw him, I wasn’t even scared anymore. All I could think about was the baby.

“He smiled at me and I said, ‘Have you seen her? Where is she?’ I was so sure I’d had a girl, you see.

“And then he took my hand, and he looked at me and I knew something was wrong and I started to cry. Before he even said a word I was crying. Then he told me what he’d done. He said, ‘Honey, we don’t need no baby spoiling what we have. Don’t worry about it. I found her a nice family to take care of her.’

“It took me a minute to understand what he was saying. Then I threw myself at him—hitting and scratching and yelling. He just held my wrists until the nurse came. I was trying to get to him and she kept pushing me back, holding me down. Then she called for a doctor, and they gave me an injection, and when I woke up, I was alone.”

Pete let the silence sit for a moment and then he asked her softly, “So what happened to you? Afterward?”

She shook her head. “I sat in that hospital bed for days. Just crying. Waiting for Lou to visit. To call. To tell me it wasn’t true. To tell me where the baby was. Nothing.

“I asked the nurses—begged them—to help me. To find out where my baby was. Most of them ignored me. One of them, pretty little Mexican thing, she whispered to me that it would be better if I just forgot I had a baby. That there was no record of her. I asked her what she meant and she just shook her head and that was the only thing anyone ever told me.

“After that, I stopped eating. Couldn’t eat. They told me if I didn’t eat they’d have to take me into the psych ward. I didn’t care. They could have thrown me off the Brooklyn Bridge for all I cared by then.

“In the end, I stopped talking and they took me to the madhouse. I was in there five months.”

She saw Pete’s shocked face and nodded.

“Yeah, once you’re in, it’s easier just to let the crazy wash over you than fight to get out. I guess I just gave up. I sat in a chair and stared at the wall. They pumped me full of drugs. Had to put a tube down my throat to feed me. I didn’t know where I was, what day it was. I just wanted to forget.”

“What happened? I mean, how did you get out?”

“One of the nurses . . . she was kind to me. The radio was on one day and there was a song playing. ‘Love Letters in the Sand.’ You know that song? Ah, you’re too young. Pat Boone sang it. He had a beautiful voice. It was my favorite song to slow-dance to, once upon a time. And I heard it that day and I just closed my eyes and I was right back at the Roseland, humming along without even thinking about it. When the song was over, the nurse came and sat down. I opened my eyes. I was crying. I hadn’t even realized I was crying. And this nurse, she looked right at me. I’ll never forget her face. She said, ‘You shouldn’t be in here.’