Chapter 22 Natalie
Natalie
Natalie was in a good mood when she walked in the house at quarter to five. The dogs met her at the door, their tails wagging
wildly, and she gave them some cursory pats as she kicked off her shoes. She dropped her purse on the hall table and went
downstairs in search of her oldest child.
J.J. was parked in front of the TV, mashing buttons on his Atari controller as multicolored lightning streaks blazed across
the screen.
“Did you feed the dogs?”
J.J. kept his eyes on the game. “Not yet.”
“It’s almost five.”
“I’ll do it as soon as I finish this level.”
Natalie noticed a crumb-dusted plate and an empty cup on the coffee table. They were probably J.J.’s lunch plates, which he
hadn’t bothered to clean up because she hadn’t been home to nag him.
It was always like this when Jimmy was in charge of the kids. He fed them, refereed their fights, and occasionally made them do a chore, but that was the extent of his interaction. They’d watch TV in the basement for hours on end while he watched sports in the living room.
He was there now, stretched out on the sofa with a beer in his hand.
“How was your day?” she asked him.
“All quiet on the Western Front. How’d it go with the Arabs?”
Natalie sank into a chair and kicked off her shoes. “They’re very interested in the McCreedy house.”
Jimmy arched his brows. “They are?”
“Yep. It fits their budget, and they love the neighborhood. Sure, it needs a little TLC, but—”
“TLC?” Jimmy scoffed, his attention returning to the baseball game. “In the form of a nuclear bomb?”
Natalie felt her good mood slipping away. “Can you make me a drink while I change?”
Jimmy sprang off the sofa and took her in his arms. “Don’t go changing.” Then, in his best Billy Joel voice, he started singing
the opening lines of “Just the Way You Are.”
She rewarded him with a kiss for making her laugh. “If you keep singing, the dogs will howl.”
Jimmy sang louder.
Heading down the hall, Natalie poked her head into Jill’s room. She saw a pile of library books on the bureau and a plastic
bag stuffed with used paper towels.
She moved deeper into the room and took a closer look inside the bag. The paper towels were stained black.
If she got ink on the carpet, I’m going to kill her.
Natalie hadn’t sighed all day, but she sighed now. When Jimmy came home from work, the house was always in order. Why couldn’t
she come home to that, too?
Satisfied that the carpet hadn’t been stained, she went into Justin’s room.
She’d been hoping for a hug, but Justin wasn’t there.
In her room, she walked to the window overlooking the backyard and saw Jill and Justin sitting on the seawall, playing with Justin’s army men and what appeared to be the shells of two horseshoe crabs.
When Justin’s laughter floated up to the window, Natalie smiled. She was happy to see her kids playing outside.
Watching them, she felt an unexpected rush of gratitude for her daughter. Jill had always been a good sister to Justin. She
played games with him and read him stories. She comforted him when he was upset and protected him when J.J. was in one of
his tempestuous moods.
Natalie put on a Yankees T-shirt and a pair of white shorts. Then she hung up her work clothes and joined Jimmy on the sofa.
“Cheers,” he said, saluting her with his martini glass. “Here’s hoping the Arabs buy the McCreedy house.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
A roar of applause came from the TV. Jimmy leaned forward and shouted at the umpire. Natalie sipped her drink and felt her
body loosen a little. She was just starting to unwind when J.J. appeared in the doorway, followed by the dogs.
“What’s for dinner?”
Jimmy was too engrossed in the game to respond, so Natalie said, “Pizza.”
J.J. ruffled Tramp’s fur. “Did you hear that, boy? Pizza! But not for you. You get grody Alpo.”
Natalie nudged Jimmy. “When will this be over?”
“Fifteen minutes, give or take.”
“Can you pick up the pizza in fifteen minutes? I’ll call Sal’s after I finish my drink.”
Jimmy frowned. “I’d rather have a real meal. We had sandwiches for lunch.”
“Are you going to make the real meal?”
Jimmy looked at her like she had two heads. “Me?”
Natalie gave him a blank stare. “You could grill. Do we have any ground meat?”
Sweeping his arm in a wide arc, Jimmy said, “It’s not like I had time to go to the store. I washed the car, mowed the lawn,
and watched the kids.”
“Then I guess we’re having pizza.”
The crack of a bat colliding with a ball reverberated from the television and Jimmy whipped his head around to see what he’d
missed. He put his feet on the coffee table and jiggled his right foot, a telltale sign that he was annoyed.
Natalie made herself another drink and carried it to the kitchen to call Sal’s. A few minutes later, she heard Jimmy collect
his keys from the bowl on the console table.
“By the way,” he said on his way out, “you might want to look at Jill’s hand.”
The door slammed, prompting a chorus of barks from the dogs.
“Lady! Tramp! Want a treat?”
The dogs raced into the kitchen. Natalie opened the cookie jar she kept in the laundry room and pulled out two rawhide chews.
The dogs trotted off to eat their treats on the living room rug while Natalie headed to the back deck, where she called out
a hello to Justin and Jill.
“Mommy!” Justin shouted. He ran across the lawn, scrambled up the stairs, and threw himself into Natalie’s arms.
“How’s my baby?” she asked, sweeping his golden hair off his brow and planting a kiss on his warm skin.
“Jilly and I were playing.”
“I saw you. Dad’s getting pizza. Want to go in and wash your hands?”
Justin slid off her lap and leaned over the deck railing. “Jill! We’re having pizza!” He let out a whoop and disappeared into the house.
Natalie expected Jill to jog up the stairs in excitement, but her ascent was surprisingly slow. She looked pale and wore a
hangdog expression.
“Let’s see that hand.” Natalie thumped the empty chair beside her.
Jill sat down and rested her bandaged hand on the table. Tears beaded her lashes.
Natalie gently turned Jill’s hand over, revealing a dark brown stain in the center of the gauze. “It started bleeding again?”
Jill nodded.
A fetid smell came from the wound, which was more alarming than the bleeding. “Come into the kitchen.”
With her daughter’s hand hovering over the sink basin, Natalie sliced through the gauze. It was obviously stuck to the dried
blood, so she turned on the faucet and told Jill to hold her hand under the stream of warm water.
After waiting a minute, Natalie removed the gauze. She tried to be careful but the scab over the wound came off anyway.
Bright red blood pooled in the center of Jill’s palm, mixing with bubbles of pus. The smell of rot intensified, stimulating
Natalie’s gag reflex. She had to turn away and breathe through her mouth until the sensation passed.
Get a grip. Your daughter needs you.
Natalie looked at the wound again. It was still oozing, and the skin around the wound was inflamed. In some areas it was cherry
red. In others, it was the color of a dried prune.
“Does it hurt all the time or only when you touch it?”
“Sometimes it’s sore. Other times it gets really hot. Like it’s burning.”
Goddamn it, Jimmy. You think you’re a hero for mowing the lawn and making a few sandwiches. You should’ve taken your daughter to the doctor, but the game was on, so you left it for me to deal with. Like always.
Later, when Jimmy strolled into the kitchen carrying two pizza boxes, Natalie shot him a poisonous glance.
“Jill’s hand is infected.” Her tone dripped with accusation. “I tried to drain it, but I think there’s something in the wound.
She should’ve gone to the doctor today. Now she’ll have to wait until Monday.”
Unfazed by her anger, Jimmy’s eyes lit with interest. He dropped the pizza in the middle of the table, called the boys, and
joined Jill and Natalie at the sink.
Before Jimmy took a job on Wall Street, he’d entertained the idea of going to medical school. He handled the kids’ injuries
calmly and enjoyed bandaging wounds, removing splinters, and popping Justin’s shoulder back in the socket whenever it was
dislocated, which seemed to happen on a regular basis.
After washing his hands, Jimmy began poking Jill’s palm. “Does this hurt? How about here? Sorry. And here?”
Natalie grabbed his arm. “Stop it, Jimmy! Can’t you see how tender it is?”
“It needs to be debrided. She might need antibiotics, too.”
Jill couldn’t take it anymore. She snatched her hand back and closed her fist.
“Sorry, Jilly Bean.” Jimmy hugged Jill to him. To Natalie, he said, “Saline soak tonight.”
“She’s been soaking it. I told you yesterday that I didn’t think it was healing properly.”
Releasing Jill, Jimmy grabbed a beer from the fridge. “Maybe it’ll clear up if she does a soak tonight and a bunch of times
tomorrow.”
It didn’t clear up, and when Monday morning came, Natalie had to call the office to tell Sid that she had to miss the team meeting.
“Don’t you have a babysitter?” Sid demanded. “It’s a team meeting, Nat. Are you on the team?”
“Yes, but—”
“Do I need to remind you that your position with Gold Coast is not secure? You have ninety days to make a sale, little lady.
It’s the middle of July. Summer’s half gone. If your job is interfering with your home life, maybe this isn’t the place for
you.”
It’s a fucking team meeting, not the Geneva Conventions, she thought. Aloud, she said, “I’ll be on the board by the end of August. That’s a promise.”
“I really hope so, Nat. I’d hate to lose you, but if I’m going to have women on my team, they have to be go-getters. Look
at Gina. She’s on the board. She’s on time for the morning meeting. She wants this.”
Picturing Gina’s tight blouses and flirty smile sparked Natalie’s ire. Of course Gina was at the meeting. She didn’t have
to take care of anyone but herself. She didn’t have kids. Or dogs. Or a husband that left her in the lurch. She could spend
an hour in front of the mirror, curling her hair and putting on slut-red lipstick. She could swing by Dunkin’ Donuts and get
a Boston cream for Sid. She was probably serving it to him right now while he stared at her tits.
Everyone knows I’m a go-getter, Natalie thought.
She picked up the phone cord and imagined winding it around Sid’s thick neck until his face turned purple and his tongue hung
out of his mouth like a fat, slimy slug.
Instead, she apologized. But her words were met by dead air.
Sid had hung up on her.
Natalie slammed the earpiece into the cradle. “Asshole.”
Dr. Young went to the same church as the Scotts and made room in his busy schedule to accommodate Jill. After numbing Jill’s hand, he gave the wound a thorough cleaning. While he worked, Jill told him how the injury had occurred.
“An animal scale?” His Einstein brows twitched with amusement.
“I think so.”
Dr. Young reached for a pair of tweezers and dug around in the raw flesh of Jill’s palm. Unable to watch, Natalie grabbed
an issue of Good Housekeeping and flipped to a random page.
“Got you.” Dr. Young brought the tweezers closer to his face. “This tiny splinter was keeping you from healing right. Sometimes,
the body breaks them down or pushes them out through the skin, but this guy wanted to stick around. Now that it’s out, we’ll
use butterfly bandages to help close the cut. Is she up-to-date on her tetanus shot, Mom?”
“Yes.”
Dr. Young grunted in approval as he applied the butterfly bandages. “Do you have the scale with you, young lady?”
Jill’s good hand disappeared into her shorts pocket. Natalie couldn’t see what she gave to the doctor, but he slid on a pair
of magnifying glasses and studied it with interest.
“I think you’re right. It’s a scale. I don’t know where it came from, but it’s a nasty-looking bugger, isn’t it?” He turned
to Natalie. “I’ll write a script for antibiotics. Just to be on the safe side. We can’t have this mermaid missing any swim
meets.”
Because she didn’t have time to drive Jill home, Natalie had arranged to meet Una at the library. She would’ve preferred to
have Una come to the office, but she had to load Jill’s bike into her station wagon.
Jimmy could’ve picked it up on Saturday but had chosen not to.
Natalie wasn’t surprised. Everything always came down to her.
He only helped with the kids if she left him a specific list. If something unexpected happened—like their daughter riding her bike to the library in the rain or having an infected hand—he either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
“Do I have to go to sailing class?” Jill asked before getting out of the car.
Natalie pictured her daughter pulling or releasing ropes with one hand. “No. You can help Una with dinner instead.”
Jill smiled for the first time that day. “Thanks, Mom.”
Having taken care of one problem, Natalie waved at Una and drove away.
As soon as she was alone, she practiced what she’d say when she called Dr. Sherif at noon. She was gesticulating to an imaginary
Dr. Sherif when a red car with a thunderous engine pulled up next to her at a red light. It looked and sounded like Don’s
car, but when Natalie glanced to her left, she saw a brunette in the passenger seat.
She was about to turn away when she noticed the white fuzzy dice dangling from the rearview mirror. Don had received the same
pair last December at the neighborhood’s white elephant party.
As Natalie leaned forward to get a better look at the driver, she saw a large, masculine hand slither down the front of the
brunette’s low-cut blouse. As the hand fondled the woman’s breast, she closed her eyes and arched her back in pleasure.
Though Natalie was still unable to see the man’s face, she couldn’t stop staring at the brunette. Her beauty was otherworldly.
Her every movement was sensual. As Natalie watched, she grabbed the man’s hand and started sucking his index finger.
The light turned green, but Natalie didn’t move. She was mesmerized by the man’s gold pinkie ring.
Behind her, someone honked, and the sound jerked Natalie out of her trance.
She gave a wave of contrition to the driver she was holding up and then darted a final glance to her left. She saw Don Pulaski grab a fistful of the brunette’s hair as he guided her head toward his crotch.
Natalie hit the gas, and the station wagon lurched forward.
Behind her, Don’s car remained stationary.
And as it receded in Natalie’s rearview mirror, the fuzzy dice looked like the eyes of some cartoon character, laughing at
her as she sped away.