When I Found You (5 page)

“No.”

“What was your relationship to the deceased?”

“None, really. I never met her. I’m just the man who found her baby in the woods.”

“So no relation to her family at all?”

“No, sir.”

“Oh, my. This
is
embarrassing. I shouldn’t have given you any information at all. We haven’t even had time to notify her next of kin yet. I’ll have to have a firm talk with the guy who told me you were her father. He’s put me in quite an awkward position.”

Oh, poor Mrs. Bates, Nathan thought. Her daughter dead, and here she didn’t even know the news yet. And Nathan did. It seemed sad, somehow, that he should be feeling pity for her before she even knew she’d become a pitiable figure. Well, an
even more
pitiable figure.

“I never said anything to suggest I was her father, I assure you.”

“Well, bad assumption on his part, I guess. Maybe he figured nobody else would visit her. But it was highly unprofessional, let me tell you. You could help me out a great deal, Mr… .”

“McCann.”

“… Mr. McCann, if you could keep this under your hat for a couple of hours. The media will be all over this soon enough, but it’s very important that her next of kin be notified properly before they hear it on the radio or read about it in the paper. I’m sure you understand.”

“I have far too much respect for poor Mrs. Bates to allow such a thing to happen to her.”

“Thank you. Well, not to be rude, but I’d best get going on doing this difficult thing all over again. Can you find your way back to the parking lot?”

“I’m certain I can,” Nathan said, and rose to go.

“Mr. McCann,” the detective said. Before Nathan could get out the door.

Nathan turned back. Watched a swirl of dust motes, stirred by his movement, fly in the beam of light from the broken window. Wondered what the detective would do for warmth when the snow began to fly.

“If you don’t mind my asking, Mr. McCann, what were you going to say to her?”

Nathan pulled on his leather gloves as they spoke. “Say to her?”

“Yes. I just wondered — for purely personal reasons, mind you — about the purpose of your visit. I mean, here she did this unimaginable thing and left you to clean up from it, and I just wondered what you came to say to her.”

“Nothing, really. I had nothing to say to her. I was hoping she would have something to say to me.”

“Ah. I see. You wanted to know why. Why the woods? Why not a hospital? Or an orphanage? Why not put the kid in a basket and leave it on somebody’s doorstep?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“Well, don’t think you’re the only one who wanted to know. Don’t think she didn’t hear the question plenty. From all the detectives who questioned her. And from the other inmates. Lots of the women in here are mothers. In fact, we had to keep her apart from the general population for her own safety. But we had no way to keep her so far apart that she couldn’t hear the comments.”

“And what did she have to say in her own defense?”

“Nothing. Not a word.”

“She never spoke?”

“Not a word. So maybe she had a reason but wasn’t saying. But my theory? My theory is that she didn’t know the answer herself. World is full of people so troubled they don’t even understand themselves. You could offer them a thousand dollars to explain their motivations, but they can’t tell you what they don’t know. And most of those miserable creatures find their way through here soon enough. So, I’m sorry, Mr. McCann. If there was a reason, it died with her. But if you ask me, it’s a question that never had an answer. Because there’s just no explanation that makes a lick of sense.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Nathan said. And stood mute for a moment. “But she wasn’t the only one in on it. There was the boyfriend as well. I wonder what he would say.”

“If you’re willing to put up with another of my theories … Day before yesterday his mother came in and made bail. Mortgaged her house to make bail for the boy. Now, it’s just a gut feeling, mind you. Call it a detective’s intuition. But I’m hoping that poor woman has family to take her in when she loses that house. Because I saw the look in that boy’s eyes on his way out the door. And I’d bet good money we’re never going to see the whites of those scared eyes around here again.”

Nathan digested this news briefly. Inclined to accept the detective’s instincts. Somehow the assessment felt right to him as well.

“Well, you’ll be wanting to go see Mrs. Bates …”

“Well, not
wanting
to, but …”

Gross rose and opened the door for Nathan, who found his way back to the parking lot on the first try.

•  •  •

At the corner drug store, Nathan found a dignified, appropriate card of condolence.

He paid for it, and took it to the post office.

There, with his good silver pen, in his best, most careful penmanship, he wrote in the card:

Dear Mrs. Bates,

I am sorry for your loss. My thoughts are with you in this most difficult time.

Very truly yours,
Mr. Nathan McCann

Then he sealed it into its envelope, addressed it to Mrs. Ertha Bates, purchased a stamp, and sent it on its way.

2 October 1967   

Seven years to the day after finding the infant boy in the woods, Nathan rose early on the pretext of going duck-hunting.

Because he had told Flora, perhaps even one time too many, that he was going hunting, he had to be careful of each detail. He had to remember to bring the shotgun he did not intend to fire. He had to wear the proper pants and boots. To bring a heavy jacket he would only leave in the car.

Then, just on his way out of the house, he realized he had almost forgotten to take Sadie along.

Subterfuge had never been a talent of Nathan’s, if for no other reason than lack of practice. But likely there were other reasons as well.

He had not devised this story to cover his tracks out of dishonesty. It was more a matter of privacy. For once in his life, Nathan wanted to do something with complete privacy. He was not ashamed of his actions. He just wished to justify them to no one.

Well, that was not entirely true. He was a tiny bit ashamed.

Sadie began jumping straight up into the air as he approached her run, despite her advanced age, and Nathan’s heart fell. How could he tell Sadie they were going hunting, and then not take her? He had never lied to her before. He had never let her down.

No, Nathan realized. He couldn’t. He would not make a liar of himself after all these years. Not to his dog. Not to his wife. He would have to go hunting later in the morning. Even though it would be long after dawn. Even though conditions would be poor for hunting. He would likely come back every bit as empty-handed as he had that morning seven years earlier. But no matter. He would hunt.

But first he would drive to the Bates home. And wait quietly out front.

Autumn leaves lay gathered on the roof of the house just as surely as they had seven years before. Did they do this each year without intervention? Nathan wondered. Had she
ever
bothered to have the roof and gutters cleaned?

Still, the roof had not caved in. Even Nathan had to admit that.

It was after dawn when they appeared at the front door. But not much after. The light was still slanted and hazy when the door opened and Ertha Bates walked out on to the porch, a small, dark boy in tow.

She wore huge fuzzy yellow slippers and had her hair up in curlers. The boy wore a snowsuit that looked two sizes too big.

She looked astonishingly older, Nathan thought, and many pounds heavier. He was truly startled to see it. As if she had gone from her late forties to her late sixties in only seven years. Perhaps the care of a small child could do that to a person. Nathan briefly pondered what it might have done to him. But it didn’t matter, really. His insides still ached and burned at the reminder that he had been robbed of the chance to try.

He didn’t look at her long. He hadn’t come to look at her. But the boy’s back was turned toward him, to his dismay.

He seemed so tiny. Were all seven-year-olds so tiny? Nathan couldn’t imagine they were. Maybe his poor start in life had stunted his growth in some way. Or maybe he was normal size for his age, and only looked small to Nathan. Maybe it was the sense of helplessness that made him seem so fragile.

Or maybe he just hadn’t grown into that hand-me-down snowsuit.

Mrs. Bates took him by the hand and walked him down the steps and out to the curb. Gave him a brown paper bag and walked back inside, leaving him alone to experience the second grade.

The boy stood at the curb, limply. Maybe sleepy, or maybe just bored. His breath appearing in great visible clouds. Now and then he wiped his nose on the back of one mitten.

Then he pulled off the mittens and unfolded the top of the paper bag, peering inside to see what he had been given.

Nathan thought of the baseball mitt he had dropped at the boy’s house just two nights ago. For his seventh birthday. His hands looked so tiny. It had been a youth mitt, of course. And the man at the store had assured him a seven-year-old could enjoy it. With a great deal of room to grow, of course.

But now Nathan wondered if it was too big for the child even to use.

It always happened this way. Every birthday and every Christmas. Every time Nathan bought and delivered a present, helplessly guessing at what the child might want, he second-guessed himself with frustrating vigor. He had grown tired of it years ago, yet was still unclear as to how he could make it stop.

The boy looked less innocent and fragile from the front. But Nathan really wasn’t parked close enough to see much. From where he sat he couldn’t see the boy’s face well enough to recognize him if he saw him again. And that had been the idea, Nathan supposed. To know him by sight if he ever crossed paths with the boy on the street.

Did he dare move his car a little closer? He certainly didn’t want to be taken for any sort of child predator or stalker.

He looked briefly down at the ignition, unable to remember if he had left the keys hanging there. He had not. Before he could go into his pocket after them, he looked up to see the big yellow school bus pull up, blocking his view of the child.

Then it pulled away, leaving an empty curb.

So, that was it.

For seven years he had not allowed himself to do this. And he had promised himself he would never do it again. And now it was over.

And what had that accomplished? Nathan wondered.

Just a way of getting his hopes up high enough to be dashed again. But, hopes of what? Nathan wasn’t even sure. Just chasing a vague idea of something that would fill him up inside. And proving himself wrong yet again.

He looked over the seat at Sadie, the older, grayer Sadie, who should have been retired by now, but who returned his gaze intensely. Hopefully.

“All right, girl,” he said. “We’ll go hunting.”

•  •  •

He came home shortly after eleven, empty-handed.

Flora looked up from her magazine. “You never come home from a hunt without ducks,” she said.

“Today I did.”

“The only other time you came home with nothing was the day you found that baby.”

A long silence. Flora went back to her reading.

Just as Nathan thought she’d say no more about it, she spoke up again. “Wait. Isn’t this October second?”

“I think so. Why?”

“That was October second, too. Wasn’t it?”

“Yes. I guess it was.”

“That’s a coincidence.”

“Yes,” Nathan said. “I suppose it is.”

“In the future, maybe you’ll get smart and just stay home on October second,” Flora said.

“Yes,” Nathan said. “I really hope I will.”

2 September 1965