“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.’
“I was so shocked—it was the first time anyone had spoken to me, like directly to me, in weeks and weeks. I looked right back at her and she smiled and she said, ‘Yeah, you’re still in there. You’re no more crazy than I am. You’re depressed, is what you are.’
“And then it got easier. She would come and talk to me and when she was there, I could eat. She spoke to the doctors and they eased up on the meds, and I started to feel . . . well, like me again. I cried more, but I wasn’t numb anymore. It felt good to just feel again, you know?
“And eventually I was eating and showering and combing my hair, and I guess they didn’t have no reason to keep me in there. So they let me go.
“Only I lost my apartment and my job and my family didn’t want to know me. My mother came to visit while I was in the hospital and they told her about the baby. She said I was a sinner and I wasn’t her daughter no more.
“I got another job and a room but . . . well, I was drinking a lot and not sleeping much and I got fired. I got another job and the same thing happened again. Finally my money ran out. I guess I was desperate. I went out and watched the whores around Times Square and I practiced walking and talking like them. Then I got an eighth of rum inside me and I went out and got me my first john. And here I am.
“You know, sometimes I think about my mother. I want to call her up and say to her: you think I was a sinner then? You should see me now. You should see what happens to girls like me. Only she’s dead. Car accident in sixty-two. There ain’t no one left now.”
Pete asked her, “Did you try to find your baby? Find out if there was a record of her adoption?”
She sighed. “There ain’t no record.”
“But there . . .”