She scrabbled for another cigarette, but her hands were shaking and Pete had to light it for her.
“I went back to the place I was staying, and I told the cab to wait for me. It was a boardinghouse—very strict. No men, no noise after ten, all of that. Kinda funny when you think about it. Guess nobody told my landlady you can get into all kinds of trouble before ten, huh? She was an Irish woman. Widow. Christ alone knows what she thought that day. I ran up the stairs, threw everything I could carry into a suitcase, and ran out again. She tried to stop me—thought I was skipping on the rent, I guess. I told her I’d left a month’s worth in my room, thinking she’d go on up, but when she still wouldn’t get out of the way, I pushed her and she fell. Landed on the floor. Hard. And I didn’t . . . I didn’t stop. The cab was waiting, and I just told him to drive.”
She looked at Pete.
“For weeks, I was worried I hurt her. She was old. It’s strange—everything that was going on, and that’s what worried me. I thought . . . I was afraid it made me like him.”
He smiled gently at her and asked, “Where did you go?”
“Jersey. I had a friend there. Lou didn’t know about her. I knew she’d let me stay a while till I figured out what to do. I slept on the couch and she got me a job. Waitressing. And she took me to the pawn shop to buy a ring. We decided I’d say I was a widow.
“Sometimes I’d catch sight of the ring—while I was serving coffee or gathering up dishes—and I’d forget I wasn’t married. I made up stories about him: his name, where he came from. About the accident that killed him. At first it was just because I had to have some answers, but later . . . well, I wanted to give the baby a father. Even lies were better than the reality: a married guy, a naive kid, and a mean-eyed broad with ether and a knitting needle.”
“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.