Find a Stranger, Say Goodbye Read online

Page 3

 

  He was silent for a minute. Then he said quietly, "And what if you found out she was a cheap whore working the Boston streets?"

  Natalie felt as if he had slapped her. "Youre rotten," she said.

  "No, Im not. I care about you, Nat. Listen, what a person is has nothing to do with where they come from, not with what body they come from. "

  "Thats not true. "

  Paul sighed. "Natalie, do you remember Brenda whats-her-name, the girl who dropped out of school in tenth grade?"

  Natalie looked at him. "Yes," she said. "She flunked every course, even cooking. But she had that nice smile. I remember her smile, always kind of dumb and puzzled and scared. Lonely. Why?"

  "Well, Brenda works down at the fish factory now. She still has that same smile—lonely, dumb. Maybe thats why, the loneliness, the dumbness. Brenda goes to bed with anyone who smiles back and buys her two beers. "

  "So?"

  "So. Suppose I went down to the waterfront after I leave here tonight, bought Brenda a couple of beers, and screwed her. "

  "Paul. "

  "Im not going to, Nat. But I could. Half the guys in the senior class have. Now, suppose I did, and suppose Brenda became pregnant, with my child. She wouldnt even know it was mine. It could be anyones. Suppose she gave birth to that child, out of her skinny, scared, borderline-retarded body. Do you think that baby would have anything to do with me?"

  "Yes," said Natalie. "It might have your eyes. Your intelligence. It would be very much a part of you. "

  "Well, thats bullshit, Nat," Paul said angrily. "I dont believe that. It would be a baby, thats all. Probably sickly. Born by mistake, because someone was horny and had a couple of bucks to spend on beer. Heritage is a meaningless word. "

  "Let me ask you something, Paul. Do you think that I could have been born to a prostitute—or, as you put it, a cheap whore working the Boston streets? Or to some vacant-brained person like Brenda?"

  He looked away, out of the car window, across the lawn, and didnt answer.

  "Do you?" she asked again.

  "No," he said, finally.

  "Well, I dont either, damn it. I think that somewhere there is a dark-haired woman who, for whatever reasons, gave birth to a baby girl whom she couldnt keep. And that she still thinks about it, and wonders where that baby is. Where I am. And Im going to find her, Paul. I have a right to. "

  She kissed him quickly and got out of the car. He started the engine, and called to her. "Nat?"

  "What?" She went to the window on his side.

  "Dont hurt your parents. "

  She stood there silently, hugging her arms around her in the spring night breeze. "I already have," she said. "I wish that werent part of it. " Then she turned and ran across the lawn to the porch, as he backed his car from the driveway and headed home.

  4

  "NATALIE," said her father. "We havent just forgotten about it. Your mother and I have talked and talked. "

  "Why havent you talked to me?"

  "We will, Natalie. Give us time. Its not an easy thing. "

  "It isnt for me, either. "

  "I know, sweetheart," he said. "Just give us some more time. " He hugged her.

  I love this man, she thought. My father. Why isnt that enough?

  5

  NANCY CAME into her room and closed the door.

  "Nat," she asked, "whats with you and the rents?"

  Natalie groaned. "Nancy, why do you have to talk in that ridiculous super-teen-ager-abbreviated way? The word is Parents. "

  Nancy grinned. "Okay. Whats with you and the parents?

  Natalie was brushing her hair. "What do you mean?" she asked.

  "Hey, let me fool with your hair, okay? How are you going to wear it at graduation?" Nancy took the brush, collected her sisters heavy dark hair in her hands, and made a chignon on the top of Natalies head. "Hey, not bad. Not bad. "

  Natalie looked in the mirror as Nancy held the mound of hair carefully in place. "Yeah, I kind of like that, Nance. But it wouldnt work. I have to wear one of those stupid flat hats at graduation. Move it down a little. "

  Nancy rearranged the bundle of hair lower, at Natalies neck. It made her look older, more sophisticated. They stared at their paired images in the mirror. Nancys hair was light, curly, and short: the kind of hair that always looked the same, no matter how she tried to re-do it. She pouted at herself, making her dimples appear, and she crossed her eyes and giggled. Then she released Natalies hair so that it fell thick and straight again. "Youre so lucky," she said to her sister.

  I wish people would stop telling me Im lucky, thought Natalie. Or else that I would feel lucky, or that I believed being lucky is a good thing.

  "I drank two beers at Karens party Saturday night," confided Nancy. "Then I threw up. "

  "Taught you a lesson," said Natalie.

  "Yeah. Taught me to get to the bathroom faster. I threw up on their kitchen floor. It was gross. No one would help me clean it up. "

  "Dad has told you a hundred times that if youre going to drink, at least drink very slowly. Space it out. How fast did you drink two beers?"

  "About five minutes. It was a contest. I won. But the win was declared illegal because I threw up. "

  "Did you tell Dad?"

  Nancy laughed. "I didnt have to. He was up when I came home. He said my face was the color of Furacin Gauze. What color is Furacin Gauze?"

  "Sort of vomity yellow. "

  "I figured. I dont know how you stand working in his office. Yuck. "

  "I used to be grossed out, sometimes. But you get used to it. And Dads good to work for. He told me when I started that I would have to look at everything. Not to turn away. If you have to faint or throw up, he said, go in another room and do it. But dont avoid anything, because youre going to have to see it all, someday. Its part of what life is, he said. And if I really wanted to be a doctor, I would have to learn to deal with all of it. "

  "Did you, ever? Faint, or throw up?"

  "No. I cried, once. "

  "Why?"

  "Well, its kind of a long story. It was early last summer. One of those days when the office had been filled with people all day long. It was about five oclock, and there were still patients in most of the examining rooms, waiting. The receptionist was getting one phone call after another. Dad and the nurse were in one of the examining rooms, and I was in the lab washing instruments, when the receptionist came in, all hassled, and said she absolutely had to go to the bathroom, and could I please sit at her desk for a few minutes.

  "So I took her place, and the minute she was gone, a young couple came running into the office, holding a baby wrapped in a blanket. The mother was screaming something about the baby, and the father was talking, trying to explain, and they handed it to me and said, Do something! They just shoved it into my arms, both of them talking and crying.

  "Well, I ran down the hall with the baby. The parents came behind me, and Dads office door was open. I told them to go in there and sit down. Then I banged on the door of the room where Dad was with a patient, and told him to come to the third examining room right away, and I took the baby in there and laid it on the table. Dad came right behind me, but I knew the baby was dead before he got there. It was just—well, it was dead, thats all.

  "He began doing things very fast, but then he just slowed down and stopped and looked very tired. He said the baby had been dead for several hours, and asked me where the parents were, and if they had said anything.

  "I told him they were waiting in his office, that they had just screamed at me something about the baby not waking up from his nap, and when they went in to get him, he was this way, all still and pale. Dad took the little nightgown and shirt off the baby, and examined him very carefully, but there wasnt a mark on him.

  "Finally, Dad said, Natalie, this looks like a case of what we call Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Theres no explanation for it; it just happens, and for some reason it happens mostly to
male infants this age. There will have to be an autopsy, of course. I cant do anything for this baby. But the parents need me, and Im going to have to go to be with them, now.

  "Then he saw that I had started to cry. He became very stern. He said, Stop it, Natalie. Stop it, right now. He told me again that he was going to the parents, and that he wanted me to stay with the baby. He told me to dress it carefully, and to comb its hair, so that when its parents saw it, it wouldnt be lying naked on an examining table like a medical specimen.

  "Then he left me there. I stopped crying. I made a fresh diaper out of an examining room towel, because his diaper was wet. I pinned it on with the pins from his wet diaper, little pins with blue plastic tops shaped like ducks heads. I put on his little undershirt, and the blue and white checked nightie hed been wearing. I washed his face. Then I combed his hair. He had dark hair, and I combed it the way I thought his mother probably did, so that it curled at the top of his head. And—you want to know something crazy, Nance?"

  Nancy nodded.

  "I talked to him while I was doing it. He just seemed so alone, lying there, all still that way. I said, Youre a lovely little boy. You didnt have a very long life, but I bet it was a good one. I bet you smiled at your mother when she rocked you. Now I want you to look very beautiful when your mom and dad say goodbye to you. And I curled his hair around my fingers, so that he did, he looked beautiful.

  "After a while Dad came in, with the parents, and I left them there. Dad had called the hospital, and someone came to pick them up. They went out of the back door. The father was carrying the babys body.

  "Dad came into the lab where I was, and took me into his office, and closed the door. Now, he said, cry. And I did. I sobbed and sobbed, and he sat there with his arms around me. And when finally I stopped crying and blew my nose, he said, Natalie, you are going to be a very good doctor someday. "

  Nancy sat silently, staring at her sister. "I couldnt have done it, Nat. I couldnt even have looked at a dead baby. "

  "Yes, you could," said Natalie. "You can do anything, if you have to. "

  "Only knock off the booze, okay?"

  Nancy grinned. "You sound like Mom. "

  "Look," said Natalie. "You asked what was with me and the—ah, the rents? Read this, and tell me how you feel. "

  She gave Nancy the sheet of paper from the desk drawer. Nancy curled up in the wicker chair and read it over.

  "I think," she said slowly, when shed finished, "that if it were me, I wouldnt care one way or another. But I think also that it isnt me, its you. If it means that much to you, Ill help you however I can. "

  "Thanks, Nance. I think its something I have to do alone. But Im glad you understand. "

  "Theres one thing I can do," Nancy said.

  "What?"

  "Ill talk to Mom and Dad. "

  6

  BECKY AND GRETCHEN knocked on the back door and came into the kitchen as Natalie was having a Saturday morning cup of coffee with her mother. The kitchen sink was filled with bright yellow dandelion blossoms.